This past Friday I was delighted to attend the consecration of Bishop Darryl Fitzwater as Coadjutor for the Anglican Church in North America’s (ACNA) Missionary Diocese of All Saints. It was a beautiful service in the High Church tradition bringing together hundreds, including the current and emeritus ACNA Archbishops and members of the diocese as far away as Seattle.
I’ve been privileged to know Father (now Bishop) Darryl for years, first as a postulant for Anglican ordination in my Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic as he studied at Asbury Theological Seminary. As a church planter, he’s been a team player with others as together they’ve formed Church of the Ascension in Jefferson County, West Virginia, in the state’s Eastern panhandle.
A successful Anglo-Catholic church plant in rural West Virginia is not something that I would have foreseen, but God is full of surprises. In a denomination in which most new church starts are in major metropolitan areas or college towns, Fitzwater saw God at work in an area that some of us overlook, and knew that historic Anglicanism offered helpful tools for connecting people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Indeed, there has been significant Anglican church planting activity across West Virginia.
First planted in 2017, Ascension has grown, acquired its own church building, and in 2023 reported 121 church members, most of whom are new to Anglican Christianity. They’ve even partnered in helping launch a congregation 80 miles away in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. Perhaps this is further evidence that churches are at their most evangelistically active within the first five years of being planted.
The Missionary Diocese of All Saints was formed by Anglo-Catholic congregations connected through the Forward in Faith movement, an early co-founder of the ACNA. It is among the smaller dioceses and comprises mostly small congregations in need of clergy. The diocese also ministers in areas in which no other ACNA congregations exist. In late 2020, I was surprised to discover one such parish while visiting family on California’s Central Coast. The sacramental theology they hold prompted them to meet in-person and share Holy Communion with me at a time when many other congregations were meeting remotely, or not at all. How grateful I am for that worship service! It is a reminder that even our smallest congregations provide much-needed ministry in the communities they are called to serve.
Like more than a few clergy serving in the ACNA, Bishop Darryl served as a pastor in a Pentecostal denomination. He is experienced ministering within a “spirit-filled” context, understanding that the catholicity of the Church places limits on an individual expressiveness that sometimes runs churches off the rails. Darryl also brought a strong interest in the lives, writings, and doctrines of the early church fathers (patristics). You can find his biweekly Appalachian Anglican podcast that “brings the distinct flavor of the mountains and hollers of the Appalachian region to the global Anglican chorus” here. I’m still amused that ACNA facilitated a Pentecostal pastor studying at a historically Wesleyan seminary and entering into Anglo-Catholicism. Considering John and Charles Wesley’s own High Church background, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
Charismatic renewal, I have previously suggested, is one “glue” that is holding the ACNA together across different forms of churchmanship. While I am not charismatic, I see evidence all around me of people encountering the person of the Holy Spirit and their lives changed. It sounds almost like a trope to say so at this point, but the Holy Spirit does move in unexpected ways, drawing new people to the Gospel and the truth of Holy Scripture, revealing God’s heart for his people.
Maybe Anglo-Catholic tradition in West Virginia is just the latest in many examples of the Holy Spirit at work.
Comment by FNT Delta Diamond on October 8, 2024 at 8:53 am
I don’t think a church plant in West Virginia is that surprising. What’s more surprising is that The Episcopal Church didn’t plant it. Or, for that matter, any of the other mainline Protestant denominations. Of course, culturally and theologically The Episcopal Church, which of course has an established presence in West Virginia, has little to offer the people of that state. Same for Wyoming, Montana, and other culturally conservative states.
Comment by Jeffrey Walton on October 8, 2024 at 11:03 am
The Episcopal Church plants few churches these days. Of the 6,249 Episcopal congregations located within the United States, only four percent were founded since 2000. That’s about 11-12 churches a year in a denomination of 1.43 million (this information is sourced from 2022 parochial report data viewable here: https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/32278).
Comment by MikeB on October 8, 2024 at 9:40 pm
Hope is definitely on short supply in West Virginia.
There is definitely no shortage of souls needing the Lord, the fields are ready.
Comment by David Gingrich on October 9, 2024 at 7:30 am
Am I the only one is uncomfortable with humans taking on the title “Father”?
“Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven”
Matthew 23:9.
Comment by David on October 9, 2024 at 1:02 pm
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26
Comment by Different Steve on October 10, 2024 at 7:30 am
Some other translations make Jesus’ meaning a little clearer: “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison” (Luke 14:26, NLT, emphasis added), and the Amplified Bible says that a follower of Christ must “hate” his family members “in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in comparison with his attitude toward God.” It is a “hatred” by comparison, not an absolute hatred.
https://www.gotquestions.org/hate-father-mother.html
Comment by Different Steve on October 10, 2024 at 10:17 am
Jefferson county is located in east West Virginia. Jefferson county has 209.63 square miles of land area and 2.04 square miles of water area. As of 2010-2014, the total Jefferson county population is 54,650, which has grown 29.53% since 2000. The population growth rate is much higher than the state average rate of 2.52% and is much higher than the national average rate of 11.61%. Jefferson county median household income is $66,205 in 2010-2014 and has grown by 49.20% since 2000. The income growth rate is higher than the state average rate of 40.01% and is much higher than the national average rate of 27.36%. Jefferson county median house value is $204,900 in 2010-2014 and has grown by 75.58% since 2000. The house value growth rate is much higher than the state average rate of 37.64% and is much higher than the national average rate of 46.91%. As a reference, the national Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate for the same period is 26.63%. On average, the public school district that covers Jefferson county is much better than the state average in quality.
http://www.usa.com/jefferson-county-wv.htm
Comment by Tim Ware on October 10, 2024 at 11:50 am
If you go to the Greek manuscripts for Luke 14:26, you will see that there is nothing in the manuscripts that means “in comparison,” nothing in there that would even hint at that. The comparison thing is something added by tranlators and interpreters. It is not in the actual biblical text.
We have to be really careful with Bible translations. Often, they are not actually translations, they are statements of what the translators think the passage means. We also have to be very careful about commentaries.
The fact is that the original Greek does in fact say hate, just plain hate. While that may be difficult to accept, let’s not try to translate or interpret it away. We need to study and accept the Scriptures based on what they actually say, not what we would like for them to say, and not what someone tells us they say.
Comment by Different Steve on October 10, 2024 at 1:37 pm
The article I linked to in fact doesn’t base its interpretation of the passage on those translations, just noted that there are translations that seem to concur in their understand of the passage. Did you read the rest of the article? Do you really dispute their understanding of the passage? If the objective is to demolish Christianity. insisting that certain thing Jesus said that was meant to be thought provoking be taken out of context and interpreted literally would be one way of doing it.
Comment by Tim Ware on October 10, 2024 at 3:12 pm
Steve,
Far from trying to demolish Christianity, my point is that Jesus did not say, “indifference,” “relative disregard,” or “in comparison.” He said “hate.” I have no way of knowing what Jesus meant. I only know what He said.
We don’t need to be developing versions of Christianity based on the theory that we know what someone meant to say and reject what they actually said. Those who do that are the ones who, over the long term, demolish Christianity.
We cannot take the passages we like and insist on interpreting them literally while getting rid of the inconvenient passages we don’t like by insisting they don’t mean what they clearly say. But hey, if we stopped doing that, 90% of Protestant and RC American Christianity would collapse!
Comment by Different Steve on October 10, 2024 at 8:01 pm
I cannot agree. Also, Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek, so the Greek could also be a mistranslation, right? Unless you know the actual Aramaic Jesus used, right?
Comment by Tim Ware on October 10, 2024 at 11:09 pm
Steve,
No one knows what language, or languages, Jesus spoke. Anything someone would say would be an assumption.
Biblical scholarship accepts the Greek to be what is termed the “original language” because Greek manuscripts are the earliest surviving ones. In other words, they are the furthest back we can go. In addition, the idea of biblical inspiration accepts the Greek manuscripts as being the “inspired texts.”
Comment by Different Steve on October 11, 2024 at 8:40 am
With all due regard, I can’t accept the “who knows what Jesus meant” approach. When he says we must do something, we should make best efforts consistent with reasonable understanding. Maybe he didn’t mean hate everything about one’s parents? Maybe he was just telling his disciples to reduce or even eliminate their parents from their lives so they were free for their work? Jesus was known to tell parables: I haven’t plucked out any eyes, and I think the Good Samaritan was fictional.
Comment by MikeB on October 11, 2024 at 8:12 pm
To note: If we believe in in the divinely inspired scripture then we must accept that the surviving Greek documents which have fed the church since the persecution era were indeed intended to survive as they are by God.
That said, we can continue to use theology and delve the scripture to try to know more of God. It is not hopeless because the Greek word for Hate is used 42 times in the New Testament including interesting verses like John 12:25.
Comment by April User on October 14, 2024 at 9:47 am
David Gingrich, do you call your biological father “Father”?
Comment by Ikre on October 17, 2025 at 3:46 pm
The Eastern Panhandle has been basically a suburb of the DC and Maryland crowds since before the turn of the century. I am a native West Virginian from further south, and part of the brain drain of the state in the 1980s.
One side of my family farmed; the other miner coal. I would be more interested in how the Angelican and Episcopal churches fare in the southern half of the state. The Eastern Panhandle is mostly non-natives from much larger cities l. Their view of the world is badly different from those raised in the coalfields or in the mountains far away from major cities.
God and His renewal is very needed in those places too. But I don’t know if the Anglicans are the ones to reach them.