Indianapolis congregation leaves ACNA to affiliate with Episcopal diocese

[Episcopal News Service] A congregation in Indianapolis, Indiana, that started as a church plant of the Anglican Church in North America, or ACNA, introduced this week that it’s leaving ACNA to affix The Episcopal Church, citing a number of variations with ACNA’s strategy to the religion.

“We sensed there was higher alignment” with The Episcopal Church, the Rev. Ben Sternke, co-rector of The Desk, mentioned Oct. 3 in an internet announcement. He listed 4 particular causes for the choice to affiliate with The Episcopal Church, together with his congregation’s dedication to social and racial justice work and its perception in “huge tent” spirituality and “a resilient, non-reactive, non-anxious Christianity.”

The congregation is also dedicated to “resisting patriarchy and empowering ladies to totally lead within the church,” Sternke mentioned, noting that ACNA prohibits ladies from turning into bishops. Some ACNA dioceses additionally prohibit ladies from turning into clergymen, although The Desk’s former ACNA diocese permits the ordination of each women and men.

After a interval of discernment of greater than a 12 months, the congregation voted 44-4 to disaffiliate from ACNA, Sternke mentioned. The congregation’s different two co-rectors are the Rev. Spencer Ruark and the Rev. Matt Tebbe.

“We now have begun the method of making use of to be an affiliated ministry of The Episcopal Church, which is a designation that gives time and area for us to maneuver towards full membership as a parish of the Diocese of Indianapolis,” Sternke mentioned.

The Desk was created in 2015, and the congregation now worships in area offered by Broadway United Methodist Church on East 29^th Road in Indianapolis. The congregation is making use of to change into a missional neighborhood within the Episcopal diocese, Indianapolis Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows mentioned in an Oct. 3 assertion to the diocese.

“I give thanks for his or her willingness to set out on this journey and for his or her take care of The Desk’s congregation within the midst of this modification,” Baskerville-Burrows mentioned. The congregation and its management, she mentioned, has proven “a powerful and devoted name to the Episcopal Church, and a starvation for deep formation and enculturation in our traditions and practices.”

Baskerville-Burrows mentioned she has conferred with Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and churchwide employees to make sure the diocese follows canonical processes for welcoming The Desk – and to make sure the diocese proceeds “with love and respect for our siblings in Christ who’ve endured the ache and hardship of schism and property lawsuits with ACNA.”

ACNA dates to 2008, when a bunch of former Episcopalians sought to kind a brand new, conservative province of the Anglican Communion after leaving The Episcopal Church over theological disagreements, notably their objections to ladies’s ordination and larger LGBTQ+ inclusion within the church. The 2003 consecration of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson as the primary overtly homosexual bishop in The Episcopal Church was a main catalyst for the schisms that emerged through the subsequent decade. Since then, ACNA has not succeeded in its purpose of being acknowledged as an province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The ACNA diocese that The Desk left, generally known as Church buildings for the Sake of Others, or C4SO, was created in 2009 as an ACNA church-planting motion and have become a diocese in June 2013, so the ACNA founders’ preliminary breaks with The Episcopal Church principally predated the diocese’s historical past.

It additionally isn’t a geographically particular diocese, with congregations unfold throughout america and arranged into regional deaneries.

Baskerville-Burrows mentioned she spoke with Bishop Todd Hunter, the ACNA diocese’s bishop, about The Desk’s shift in affiliation, and “[I] am assured that he intends for his or her transition to be peaceable and freed from battle.”

Hunter despatched a letter to the diocese’s clergy saying he would “launch this parish into the care of The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis.”

“In lots of sincere conversations, [the rectors] advised me they felt they might be higher aligned with The Episcopal Church on a number of key points than they’re with the Diocese of C4SO and the Anglican Church in North America, and I agreed,” Hunter mentioned. “I depend Matt, Ben and Spencer as mates, and we share mutual passions for the total flourishing of God’s kingdom.”

– David Paulsen is an editor and reporter for Episcopal Information Service. He could be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.