Approaching the location there was no sign outside of the hotel indicating that a church meets there on Sundays. When I entered the lobby there was no sign in sight, so I had to ask a rather grumpy clerk where the Anglican church met. I walked into the conference room - one of those stuffy, windowless rooms that you can't wait to get out of - and saw an elderly priest and an elderly couple. The couple greeted me and told me where to get a BCP and a kneeler. There were no bulletins, no hymns, no literature, or anything. The service was one hour. I'd say it was typical continuing Anglican - 1928 BCP along with a healthy smattering of American Missal prayers and propers. There was no music, though the priest did spontaneously break into "Kyrie Eleison" sung to Merbecke for some reason. The sermon was a dry lecture, read from a piece of paper, replete with references to "what most commentators say" (a telltale sign that he probably read for orders). He made a joke at the beginning - something about "where two or three are gathered together...", and then mentioned that they were missing a number of people, as if to reassure me, the visitor, that they usually have more people. Though later he told me the ASA is around 5, and said that when people come to visit they see the small number of elderly folk they never come back. There was no coffee hour, so I stayed to talk to the people some and get more information about the church.
After the mass I learned more about the parish. They are a parish of the HCC-AR, at least 11 years old. The other parish in town is ACC, and this man was once their rector, but when the "Allentown schism" happened in the ACC this group came into being. The rector still seemed to carry a lot of bitterness toward the late Bishop John Cahoon of the ACC, whom he alleged secretly met with his vestry and fomented a schism in his parish. "Bishop Cahoon studied political science at Yale," he growled. Obviously this man was still scarred by the whole incident. The older couple - which live in a retirement community - remarked how destructive these types of schisms have been not only for their parish but for the continuing Church in general. They were happy to hear how well things are going at St. Francis, and that young people are coming to the church and learning the old Prayer Book, and so on, but at the same time I could tell they were despondent about the state of their own parish... and rightfully so. It is sad to say, but this church is dead in the water. Though the older couple and the priest are very dedicated, and their tenacity was quite inspiring, they do not have skills or energy to make this parish work. Like the old Townes Van Zandt song, they are just "Waitin' around to die."
I'd be willing to bet that the other parish in town - the rector's former parish - is not doing so well either. It's too bad that a struggling parish that never really got off the ground got wrapped up in a schism and ended up splitting into two weaker parishes. As a result there is no traditional Anglican witness in that city, though it is a large city and region, and so, one would think, there would be at least one viable congregation somewhere.
