Why an Anglican Mission in Elgin

I have recently been asked why I am working on starting an Anglican mission in the Elgin area. The short answer is that God has led me to do so. But to some this is not enough of an answer. So to help explain the thought process behind this I thought I would like to post a blog to answer some the questions raised about this venture.

Those of you who know me well knew that I had no intention of going into back into pastoral ministry anytime in the near future. I thought I would be perfectly content to just worship and work in the background of a local church. My wife and I had been attending the Church of the Apostles in Columbia and we were blessed in the worship we experienced there. But something kept tugging at my heart telling me that this was not enough.

Several things occured that spurred me forward to pursue active participation in ministry once again. One day I received a phone call from a Baptist minister that I had never met. He wanted to meet me for breakfast. We met at the Lizard's Thicket in NE Columbia and he told me that God had burdened his heart to talk with me and pray for me about why I was no longer preaching the Gospel. After much talking and prayer we parted ways. Knock, knock...God was calling me back to Himself.

During this time I was also having an ongoing conversation with a professed atheist who was challenging my faith and forcing me to re-examine my beliefs. I found myself in apologist mode and, again, God was calling me back to Himself.

Also during this period I met a young lady at work who was in trouble with the law and was seeking spiritual guidance. God allowed me the opportunity to minister to her and once again I found God calling me back to Himself.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I am kind of thick headed, but even I was beginning to get the message. God placed a group that I had never heard of before in my path and I began to do some research on them when the light finally lit and I realized that this was what I have been journeying toward all of my adult life. The Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches is a convergence movement. They seek to blend together the three stream of Christian worhip - Sacramental, Evangelical, and Charismatic. Over my 17 years of active ministry I have served in all three types of these churches. Finally I found a place where I could combine the best of all three worlds into one experience, just the way the early church did.

When I had my first conversation with the archbishop of this communion everything fell into place and we both knew that this was a God-ordained union. We both agreed to take time to pray and wait upon the Lord to confirm this was His will for both of us. After days of prayer and counsel we spoke again and agreed that God had confirmed in our hearts that we should move forward. So we set a course for a mission.

Over the years I have had an attachment to the Lugoff-Elgin area. I've had aunts, uncles and cousins living in the area. For a time my mother and sisters lived there. Eventually I worked there and am doing so again. I now have both of my sisters, my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild living there. God seems to keep pulling me back to the area.

Also, my research has shown that there is absolutely no Anglican presence in the area. Most of the churches in the area are Baptist and Pentecostal with a few Methodist churches thrown in for good measure. The nearest Anglican churches are in Northeast Columbia and Camden. Both of these churches are part of the liberal Episcopal Church USA. The nearest traditional Anglican churches are located in downtown Columbia and in Florence. This leaves a huge vacuum for those Christians in the Anglican tradition who refuse to accept the un-Biblical practices of ordaining homosexuals to the ministry and blessing same-sex unions as is currently done by the ECUSA.

There is also a large number of un-churched people in the area who are not being reached by the churches already in existence. I do not know the reason for this, but whatever it is, the gap has to be filled and these people must be reached for Christ.

We, the core group of this mission, are convinced that this is God's will for each of us. Most of the core have been part of a mission church before and we are all well aware of the burdens and heartache that potentially lay ahead. But despite this we are convinced that God's grace is sufficient and we are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure that God's will is done.

Please pray for us as we move forward with this sacred mission. If you would like to be part of this adventure feel free to join us. If you are serving God where you are, continue to do so with the knowledge that we are praying for you as well. May God's Kingdom come and may His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.