This coming Sunday is the 30th Anniversary of the parish I serve, St. Francis in Blacksburg, VA. Pictured to the left is a photo from our first service held at a parishioner's home (who still attends and is very active). In the photo is (very young looking) Fr. Harry Scott and Bp. William Rutherfoord. The folk at St. Francis came out of Christ Episcopal Church which is right down the street from us. Interestingly, Fr. Scott's old parish in nearby Christiansburg, VA (St. Peter's ACC) is right down the street from the Episcopal parish that they came out of as well. In many ways St. Francis reflects so much what went right and also so much of what went wrong in the "continuing Anglican" church. Over the years our parish has had its ups and downs. The founders of our parish were very wise in immediately securing a decent building in a good location. But from the start they had trouble attracting a full time priest. In those days I guess there were not many to choose from. We had supply clergy for a couple of years until we got the Revd Stephen Head - a Nashotah grad and former Episcopal priest. He did not last very long - I believe he was here just two years or so. The parish was served for many years by the Revd Dr. James I. "Bud" Robertson, the famous Civil War historian. He was ordained a deacon in the ACC here at St. Francis and served as "deacon-in-charge" at different periods in time, and, when we had full time clergy, as an assisting deacon. Other clergy over the years when we were an ACC parish included such faithful and dedicated men as: Fr. Stephen Wallstadt (later of St. Mary's ACC fame), Canon Wallce Shields, Fr. Bill Crites, and Fr. Dennis Sossi. These men all served in different capacities. Besides these men the parish was assisted by dedicated priests, deacons, postulants, and lay readers at various times in its history, including a friend of mine when I was in seminary, Will Cohen. The longest serving of these men and rectors/priests-in-charge was Canon Wallace Shields who served as rector for about 10 years. Eventually the constant turnover of clergy - both before and after Canon Shields - made the parish hemorrhage people and money. At one point the parish voted to transfer into the APA and become a mission parish of All Saints' Anglican Church in Charlottesville, VA. For a few years the parish was faithfully served by two priests of the APA, the Rev'd Dr. Lawrence Adams and the Rev'd Dr. Clarence "Chip" Sills. Now, since August 2008, they have me. I hope to be here for a long, long, long time.
Today, 30 years into its history, we have just over 30 members. Only half attend regularly, the others not attending because they live out of town. Our ASA, though is about 26, and rising. This reflects our dedicated college students as well as folk who attend regularly but who hold membership elsewhere. We have new members (we received six a few weeks ago), and everything is on the up and up. Do I wish we were bigger? Yes. Do I wish we could grow faster? Yes. But what I will and what God wills are two different things. Our official membership levels - and we were never a large, wealthy parish - reflects, I think, the fact that we did not have full time leadership for so long. A parish without full time clerical leadership will go south, because little will get done, and visitors and families will not want to commit to a place where no one knows who will be there the next week. Most successful continuing parishes, and parishes of other traditions, seem to have full time leadership in place for a long time. It establishes continuity.
I remain hopeful about our future, and am excited to be working on building this church at this time in my life. And this 30 year anniversary we remember and are thankful for all of the dedicated clergy who served the parish, and for the extremely dedicated and loyal membership who ARE the parish, and who kept it afloat all these years.
