My Parish is an hour away

Discussion in 'Faith, Devotion & Formation' started by bwallac2335, Sep 13, 2020.

  1. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    Since my parish is an hour away from me during Easter would it be appropriate if I went to the local Episcopal Church or should I try to find a more conservative church to go to for lunch services?
     
  2. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Wow that's far... That being said I have traveled about an hour each way to my parish as well, and it has meant that much to me, and was important enough to me to make that commitment!

    So to me, it seems a matter of priorities, is a good parish home important enough to commit to, yes even including moving closer to?

    An alternate plan would be to start a fellowship and little church plant of your own nearby, using your mother parish and the Diocese as support
     
  3. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    I don't know if this is remotely useful but this was my experience several years ago when residing in Corpus Christi, TX. There are 5 Anglican churches in Corpus Christi, 1 REC and 4 TEC. We started at the REC church and it was a homeschooling, anti-vaccination, etc. group that was not going to fully accept anyone that didn't share those values; they tolerated us rather than accepting us. So we started looking into the TEC churches. One was militantly liberal, one was a charismatic mess, one had a priest who my wife and I both suspected was a pedophile, and the last one had a really nice service but the 2 clergy that served the place were queerer than $3 bills.

    We tried the Military chapel (we lived in base housing) which interestingly had an Ordinariate priest - he has since been relocated. His service was fine but he was not the most pleasant person and he refused to acknowledge that my wife had a valid baptism (she had been baptized by Latino Pentecostals and he insisted that Pentecostal baptisms are never trinitarian, which is beyond ignorant). In desperation we tried the NALC, and their pastor was a guy who had been kicked out of the RCC. The week we went, he finished his normal sermon and said, "Alright, now it's time for the children's sermon." We looked around and I'm pretty sure we were the only people under 60 in that church and our daughter was 4 months old at the time. We got up and left. We finally ended up at an LCMS parish for our last 7 or 8 months in Corpus Christi. They treated us like a transient military family and didn't even acknowledge when it was time for us to transfer.

    So, I don't know what you want from a church but most liturgical churches are pretty good at shooting themselves in the proverbial foot.
     
  4. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    I love my parish and my priest is something of a lifeline for me at times such as yesterday. It is just not possible with my work schedule to make all of its weekday services