Don’t Tread on Me: Anglican Church Planting and a Growing Pie

If you’re reading this article, the following scenario possibly has a familiar ring to it:

A small Anglican church discovers that a new church plant is taking shape in the same community, from a different diocese or jurisdiction, and no one bothered to pick up the phone and make a polite introduction, let alone to coordinate.

Or, maybe this one:

A new church plant launches in a community, only to discover months later that there is an existing Anglican church nearby from a jurisdiction that the planters have never even heard of. Why are these unrelated Anglicans annoyed that no one called them?

Anglicanism is – and always has been – a relatively small slice of the American religious pie. We’re also witnessing gradual steady growth, and new church starts are a prerequisite for much of that. Maybe because of this, we unintentionally step on each others’ toes. It probably also doesn’t help that new planters are overstretched and local ecumenism isn’t an early priority.

That said, I share three points:

1. Early courtesies go far
2. Different churches reach different people
3. There is a growing pie

As a layperson, I was one part of a (successful) launch team that planted out of our mother congregation. We realized mere weeks before public launch that another Anglican church simultaneously planned to plant a congregation within two miles of our new project. It was awkward, but also highlighted our need to coordinate church planting strategy ahead of time with a different Anglican diocese.

It was an early lesson and we’ve been successful in our work together across diocesan lines. Years later, the Anglican Church in North America has at least somewhat formalized these arrangements through a new Common Life Commission.

Tasked with a broad portfolio, the commission exists to address overlapping jurisdictions, work toward regionalization, and help mediation/training of diocesan leaders. Bishop Steve Breedlove, the CLC’s chairman, told the ACNA Provincial Council in June that the commission’s goal is for dioceses to not step on each other’s toes, work together in creating missionary dioceses that work collaboratively, and provide resources to one another “against a scarcity mindset.”

That latter point is worth emphasizing: the figurative “pie” isn’t static: we’re collaboratively growing the number of people connected to Anglican Christianity, and each “slice” is growing in size. Other existing congregations and dioceses don’t need to lose in order for new church plants to win in reaching people with the gospel.

An example: I have family at a parish in the Anglican continuum (Anglican bodies that separated from the Episcopal Church mostly in the 1970s over changes to the prayer book). Their rector was mildly miffed when an ACNA diocese decided to plant in the same town without effort to reach out to him or to his parish. I assured him that the low church plant was reaching a completely different group than their high church flock, and that there was no need for concern (he readily agreed). But, I understand why he would have appreciated a friendly phone call. This rector plays well with others, and an early, friendly phone call would have risked very little and been appreciated.

As an aside, the churches were located seven miles apart and on different sides of an interstate highway in a fast-growing suburb; it wasn’t a problem. That said, we’re in an odd place: the continuum people or existing churches value a bit of courtesy, and most ACNA planters are completely unaware that they exist. Even if they did know, they’d see an expectation of contact with another unrelated denomination as odd — our people don’t customarily reach out to Baptists or Roman Catholics, for example (unless we seek to rent space from them: Hello, Adventists!)

The Protestant Mainline and the Anglican Continuum tend to view the religious landscape as a pie of a fixed size, so if someone starts a new church, it is taking away from their “slice” of the population rather than expanding the overall size of the Church Universal. I gently push back against this, arguing that God is using us as different pieces in a mosaic of Christian ministries, and that we’re reaching more people with a gospel message than we would as lone congregations.

Evangelistically active Anglicans understand that the “pie” is growing in size, and that informs their more freewheeling and entrepreneurial planting methodology. Our congregants themselves also aren’t locked in place: some will benefit from a local church’s ministry, then geographically relocate elsewhere and bless a different congregation.

Probably the most important takeaway is to extend grace and not take undue offense when toes get stepped on. We are, after all, each a beggar at the foot of the cross. Whether clergy or laity, we are ministers of the gospel pointing people to the great physician, and God is deploying each of us to share the news of his Kingdom. That’s reason to celebrate and pass the (literal) pie.

More from IRD:

Anglican Church Planting Success

Where Anglicans Aren’t

Refocus, Reorient and Grow Our Anglican Churches