I had lunch a couple weeks ago with a local evangelical Episcopal priest whom I met through a mutual friend. He has had a good ministry over the last 30+ years, and helped plant numerous churches all over the country. Although he identifies himself as an "evangelical", and I identify myself as an "anglo-catholic", we made a real connection over the essentials of the faith, the inspiration and authority of the scriptures, the need for evangelism and mercy ministry, and more. Hopefully he'll be able to attend my ordination this spring as a guest.
He didn't seem to know much about the APA or the continuing movement, so I filled him in as best I could. Actually, I was kind of surprised he he knew nothing about us, because he was at the Pittsburgh meeting a few months back where we also were. Anyway, when he asked where our parishes were in this area, I told him that we have three: mine in Harford county, and two outside of Annapolis. This really surprised him. He couldn't believe that we have been around as long as we have and still only have three churches in this area! It is quite shocking, I must admit. It was a little comforting to be able to tell him that our unity partners, the REC, which has been around 5 or 6 times as long as us only has 6 parishes in the area. So we, and the other anglo-catholic continuing churches are not the only ones who have not always been fervent evangelists over the years. Still, it is a situation that we must rectify.
If denominations and parishes are not growing, then they are dying. How do we evangelize? How do we grow parishes and start new ones? One of the things we talked about in relation to evangelism is empowering the laity to minister. He made the point that a parish where the priest does everything will eventually reach a certain size and then just stop growing, because the priest simply runs out of time and energy to do anything more. But if the priest can work to "equip the saints" for good works and ministry, as St. Paul talks about in Ephesians, then the laity can take the lead in some of these areas and help grow the larger Church and fulfill the Great Commission. This is, after all, part of their baptismal vocation. Laity who travel far to come to a traditional/continuing Anglican parish, for example, might be willing to help start a mission parish in their town. We need to think ahead and be proactive in these areas... otherwise we might just barely hold on for another 100+ years.
