Episcopal Press and News
DALLAS: Parish leaders plan departure from diocese
Episcopal News Service. April 20, 2007 [042007-03]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas announced April 19 that priest and lay leaders of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Dallas, Texas, have decided to leave the Episcopal Church.
"Any separation of brothers and sisters in Christ is painful in its own right," Dallas Bishop James Stanton said in a news release issued late in the day. "I am saddened that the leadership of Resurrection has chosen to walk apart from the diocese; however, the ministry of Church of the Resurrection will continue."
The release said that the majority of the congregation, which has approximately 160 people attending Sunday services, has voted to follow the Rev. Donald R. McLane and form a non-Episcopal congregation affiliated with the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) elsewhere in the Dallas area. The departing members and clergy will vacate the church's buildings by May 31, according to the release.
The parish's website lists a new mailing address of a Post Office box in Garland, Texas, a northeastern suburb of Dallas. The website contains no information about the departure.
In a final meeting with the bishop and Standing Committee, McLane said that he felt it was necessary to leave the Episcopal Church, according to the news release, but added he "had no quarrel with Bishop Stanton."
According to the parish profile, McLane joined Resurrection in January 2003 as an associate priest and became Priest in Charge Under Special Circumstances in July 2003 when the rector of two years, the Rev. Michael McClenaghan, accepted a call to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Modesto, California in the Diocese of San Joaquin. McLane became Resurrection's rector in April 2004.
During the search that brought McClenaghan to Resurrection, the parish's building and sanctuary were destroyed in a still-unsolved arson fire. The congregation opened a new 600-seat sanctuary in March 2003.
The diocesan news release said that the Church of the Resurrection has played an important role in the diocese for the past 40 years. It was a leading parish nationally in the charismatic renewal movement in the Episcopal Church in the 1970s and 1980s. At one point, Resurrection had an attendance of more than 1,500 persons on Sundays. In the past decade, the parish has suffered substantial declines in attendance, membership, and finances.
In 2005, the last year for which statistics are available on the Episcopal Church's congregational development website, Resurrection reported approximately 610 baptized members, 210 average Sunday attendance and about $515,000 in plate and pledge.
Stanton appointed the Rev. Canon Victoria Heard, a diocesan staff member in charge of church planting, as priest-in-charge of Resurrection. In addition to her pastoral duties with the remaining congregants, Heard will "direct the process of recasting the ministry of Church of the Resurrection toward the future," the release said.
"The area is changing and we see great mission opportunity in this multi-cultural community," she said in the release. "I look forward to working and worshipping with those who remain in Church of the Resurrection to shape a strong and vibrant future."
That future includes starting a Spanish-speaking service later this year at the church, according to the release.
Resurrection is the second major Dallas congregation in recent months where the majority of its members and clergy have departed and joined the AMIA, which describes itself as a "missionary outreach of the Province of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda." In September, the rector and vestry of Christ Church in Plano announced that the parish would pay the Diocese of Dallas $1.2 million for its title to the parish property, take total responsibility for its $6.8 million in debt and disassociate themselves from the Episcopal Church.