"I grew up in here," Lincoln said following the final service. "It kind of breaks my heart, but I know we're taking another step in our lives and we're going to make memories there, too."

"There," in this case, is the University of North Florida , where Calvary will hold its weekly services in the University Center beginning Sunday.

The church left not only its building, but its denomination and diocese as well.

Calvary is one of six North Florida congregations that decided recently to leave the Episcopal Church USA and the Jacksonville-based Episcopal Diocese of Florida. They believe the denomination has progressively abandoned traditional biblical values, most egregiously, they say, by electing an openly gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

The congregations -- three in Jacksonville and one each in Orange Park, Gainesville and Tallahassee -- say they are not leaving the Episcopal Church but are trying to remain in the more theologically conservative worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part.

They hope a bishop from another Anglican province will agree soon to lead them.

Calvary was the first to go because, as a mission church, it was more directly controlled by the diocese and had no claims to its property, said Calvary 's vicar, the Rev. David Sandifer.

However, four of the congregations -- the Church of the Redeemer and All Souls in Jacksonville, Grace Church in Orange Park and St. Michael's in Gainesville -- enjoy parish church status and are negotiating with Bishop John Howard in hopes of retaining their properties after quitting the diocese.

But none of that was on people's minds Sunday morning at Calvary, which closed out its approximately 15 years on San Pablo Road with an emotional farewell worship service.

Before his sermon, Sandifer invited individuals to stand and say what the building -- and the move to UNF -- means to them.

Parishioners and visitors alike stood, one after the other, to say the pain of leaving would be outshone by the end of suffering caused by the long-running dispute with the Episcopal Church.

"I'm sad because all four of my daughters were baptized in this building," said Gabrielle Lincoln, Kyra's mother. "But it's just a building and the body of Christ hasn't changed."

Visitor Mel Higginbotham, a parishioner at Redeemer on the Southside, stood to encourage Calvary 's move.

"You're walking out as the Israelites left Egypt , so build a new tabernacle and let's just move on," Higginbotham said.

Sandifer read a letter to the parish from Howard, who gave his blessing and best wishes for their move.

"It is important also that you leave past disagreements behind and move forward in the mission and ministry to which God calls us all," Howard wrote.

After church, as Sandifer shook hands with or hugged parishioners as they exited, pickup trucks and minivans were loaded with furniture, boxes of books and Bibles, rolled up banners and folded vestments.

"That doesn't happen often," he said of all the packing going on in the church.

Earlier, Sandifer had preached that serving God must always be the congregation's goal, not leaving or entering new worship spaces. Sitting in the empty sanctuary later, he said the move to rented space will test the parish's faith.

"We all say it's not about the building, but when you don't have the building, you have to prove it," Sandifer said.

END