You are here
Ohio comes together in Common Cause
By Doc Loomis
June 20,2004
HUDSON, OH--Just one week prior to the announcement by several US orthodox Anglican bodies that they would unite in a "common cause", a meeting of representative rectors and church leaders of many of those same bodies met in Hudson, OH, about 20 minutes south of Cleveland.
According to event coordinators, the "Church Plant Summit" was designed to offer practical information and spiritual encouragement to several new Ohio church plants as well as to members of neighboring ECUSA parishes who are wrestling with their places in the fragmenting Episcopal Church.
Among the topics covered at the one-day Summit were: Stewardship models, Evangelism through multiplication, Case studies of new Ohio plants, A review of the worldwide Communion, Matters of canon law, and the formation of a new church planting organization called Great Lakes Anglican Renewal. www.hudsonanglican.com/glar/index.html
The Rev. John Richardson of AMiA's St. Peter's, Birmingham was among the featured speakers at the event which included representatives from churches aligned with AMiA, ECUSA, ACN, The OEC, REC, and several non-aligned church plants. Rev. Richardson also celebrated at powerful mid-event Eucharist.
"Feeling the unquenchable fire of the Holy Spirit in the lives of our various congregations, and seeing clearly that the renewal in this country will come in large part through evangelism in church planting, we felt led to bring these disparate groups together in this special way. And based on our mutual affirmations of what God accomplished on this day, we will be doing it again," said event coordinator Rev. Doc Loomis of the Hudson Anglican Fellowship, one of the new Ohio plants.
Loomis also hopes to duplicate this type of event in other parts of the country in the very near future. "This day was not so much a 'Place to Stand', but a 'Way to Stand' event. Learning to weild the 'sword of the Spirit' is a powerful and necessary teaching for us all at his critical time."
"After reading the statement signed by the leaders of several of these same orthodox bodies last week, we are more encouraged than ever that we are on the right track," Loomis continued. "These kinds of unifying movements of the Holy Spirit may have their vision in the hearts of our leaders, but they take on the hands and feet of those of us at the grass roots level. It's up to us at the congregational level to yoke together with Christ and with each other to help this work."
Great Lakes Anglican Renewal is an independent church planting network specializing in "transplanting" existing ECUSA churches and helping them grow as Anglican bodies preparing for realignment within the larger Communion. GLAR is currently working with churches in Ohio, and four additional states nationwide.
Doc Loomis, is the rector of the Hudson Anglican Fellowship. He is also director of Great Lakes Anglican Renewal a consortium of orthodox parishes in northern Ohio.
END
