Guest Commentary: The Journey Home: Returning to The Falls Church

From Falls Church-

In December 2006, the majority of worshipers at The Falls Church Episcopal decided to disaffiliate from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and the National Church. However, a number of us felt, for a variety of reasons, called to start worshipping again as Episcopalians. Without access to our church building, we met in the living room of our home on a frigid Sunday in January 2007. An Episcopal Navy Chaplin came and oversaw our first service.

We elected a vestry, held communion, and shared our sadness that we could no longer worship as a group in our beloved church but also our joy that we were creating a new thing in Jesus Christ.
Word got around that we were meeting as Episcopalians and the second Sunday more people came. By the third week, we had too many to sit in our house so my husband called the Falls Church Presbyterian minister Tom Schmid, to ask if there was any possibility of using a space at their church. A kind man, Tom said he and his leadership were waiting for our call and he immediately offered us his loft space overlooking their Fellowship Hall. We moved in the next week!

These last five and half years have been challenging but also tremendously gratifying. In the early days of this new journey, we had nothing but our small group and our faith that we were doing the right thing in God's eyes. We were grateful for our Episcopal friends around Northern Virginia who gave us prayer books, altar linens and communion service items. As we had no offices, our ministers worked out of their cars. We would laughingly call our church "a church in a box" since we had to unpack and pack up every Sunday in the lovely but limited space we had, used by other groups throughout the week.

We shared coffee hour with our friends at the Presbyterian Church, and gradually joined with them in outreach programs to the community and Vacation Bible School. They will always be our friends in Christ.

More here-



http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/local/11747-guest-commentary-the-journey-home-returning-to-the-falls-church.html