The Ozarks Anglican Council, as the new group is called, plans to hold its first weekly service Sunday in a borrowed Lutheran church. The head clergyman will come from Tulsa.

"We're doing what we feel we have to do," said John H. Simmons, who resigned in August from the governing board of St. James' Episcopal Church. He had been a member of the church at 2645 E. Southern Hills Blvd. since 1972.

"It's not been an easy and certainly not been a pleasant situation," Simmons said. "It's been a very painful one."

He and other members of the Ozarks Anglican Council are the latest of an unknown number of Episcopalians - individuals, groups and entire congregations - who have defected since the 2003 election as bishop of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, an openly gay priest in a long-term relationship.

The exodus concerns the Rev. Kenneth L. Chumbley, rector of Christ Episcopal Church.

Chumbley, head of Springfield's oldest and largest Episcopal congregation at 601 E. Walnut St., voted against Robinson's confirmation during the church's 2003 General Convention in Minneapolis. But he disagrees with those who have left what he calls his "spiritual home."

"I think God weeps over what people inside the Episcopal Church and outside, now, the Episcopal Church are doing to the church," Chumbley said.

Human sexuality is but one of many concerns within the Episcopal Church and others, he added - issues that include cuts to social welfare programs and the deaths of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers.

"We're all in conversation right now about a variety of matters ...," Chumbley said. "I believe that it's important for people of different points of view to remain within the same church and committed to that church and to express those views in an honest and charitable way and in a prayerful way, and seek to know the mind of Christ."

The Rt. Rev. Barry R Howe, bishop of the Diocese of West Missouri, and the Rev. Ross W. Stuckey, rector of St. James' Episcopal Church, were not available for comment.

Last week, an Episcopal congregation in Virginia voted to break with the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Defectors have taken different routes.

The Virginia congregation left as a whole and has joined the Anglican Church of Uganda, according to the Post.

The Anglican Church of Uganda and the Episcopal Church in the United States are both members of the world Anglican Communion.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion has no administrative leader, and national churches are autonomous. The archbishop of Canterbury is viewed as the symbolic leader.

Worldwide, the Anglican Communion counts about 80 million members. About 2.3 million live in the United States, where the Episcopal Church is the 14th largest Christian denomination, according to the 2005 Time Almanac.

Simmons said some members of the Ozarks Anglican Council also are upset at what they see as an "overly harsh authoritarian position" taken by some church bishops, chiefly concerning ownership of a congregation's property. Simmons' group maintains that a congregation's governing board, not the bishop, should control property.

Combined, the changes justify his departure and that of other members of the Ozarks Anglican Council, Simmons said.

"Everyone's going to do what they feel God's leading them to do," he said.

The Ozarks Anglican Council will meet Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 2756 Blackman Road.

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