Pages Community Organization Religious Organization The Falls Church Anglican Videos Building … Ferguson hopes the new space will attract new and larger crowds. Gene Robinson, as head of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire.The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia then sued the departing congregations over ownership of the church properties. Just 35 people had decided to remain Falls Church Episcopalians when the church split. 2.2K likes. The Falls Church — the church that is such a landmark that the Northern Virginia city was named for the congregation — is for the first time in its nearly 300-year history two separate churches in two buildings. The sanctuary holds about 900 people and was so full on Sunday that late arrivals watched the service on a monitor in the lobby. Some of those members left for the six new Anglican churches that this congregation has helped launch throughout the region. “It was such a long time coming. What followed was a bitter court battle and a split into two congregations — one small and liberal, the other large and conservative. During the years of the court battle that number grew to 80, who moved back into the contested building when the ruling came down in their favor. The deciding factor was the appointment of a gay man as a bishop. Today, the Falls Church Anglican is one of more than 1,600 churches in North America that identify as “Anglican,” not “Episcopal” — a new evangelical denomination that rejects the Episcopal embrace of LGBT inclusion but maintains similar liturgy. The denomination argued that individual members — even most of the members of a particular church — could choose to leave a church at any time, but couldn’t take with them the property that belonged to the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. “This is the new place God has for us. The church purchased a $31 million, five-acre property with a five-story office building and is generating income (on which it pays taxes, unlike on donations by parishioners) by renting out space to the building’s tenants, most of which are medical offices. “It seems like a mile, but it’s really a different world,” Ferguson said. “The ordination of a practicing homosexual as bishop was the flash point that showed how far the repudiation of Christian orthodoxy had gone,” the Rev. From May 2012 to now — seven years — the Falls Church Anglican (TFCA) migrated to various high school gyms and the alike, trying to raise money for a new church. The Falls Church is an historic Episcopal church, from which the city of Falls Church, Virginia, near Washington, D. C., takes its name.The parish was established in 1732 and the brick meeting house preserved on site dates to 1769. Sam Ferguson, rector at The Falls Church Anglican of Falls Church, Virginia, preached the sermon on Sunday, noting that the congregation was completing a “tabernacling season,” in which they worshiped at several different locations over the course of seven years.The Sunday services were a “church family” occasion, with people from other congregations planted by them attending, as well as regular members.“There is still work to finish on the building and grounds, so we are not holding a big, public ‘launch’ until later in the fall, so as to give our contractors the time they need to finish everything on the punch list,” explained the church.“At a not-yet-decided date, we will have an open house-ministry fair to invite our neighbors as well as our congregation members to a celebratory time.”The Falls Church Anglican was one of 11 congregations in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia that voted to leave the mainline denomination in 2006 and 2007.At issue was the denomination’s liberal theological direction, especially the 2003 decision to ordain an openly gay bishop, the Rev.
The Falls Church Anglican is one of the oldest and most historic congregations in the country, founded during colonial times with George Washington serving on the church’s vestry and building committee. The Virginia churches that broke away argued that they, not their denomination, should keep their buildings and bank accounts. The breakaway Falls Church congregation, along with a handful of other Virginia churches, came up with a novel workaround. And he is awed to have made it to this point: “If you just drove up to a church,” he mused, “with 2,000 members, 55 staff, and you said, ‘If they lose everything, do you think they’ll still be together in seven years?’ You’d say, ‘No way. “I know it was the right choice. John Yates wrote at the time. Nowadays, Ferguson and members of his church say that it was the right decision, although they tend to emphasize that it wasn’t just about the presence of a gay man in church leadership. … More than 2,000 people attended worship services held at a Virginia Anglican congregation’s new sanctuary, being held years after they had to leave their original property due to losing a legal battle with The Episcopal Church.The Rev. “The Falls Church Episcopal is a welcoming community, called to be an enduring beacon of faith, hope, and love to all.” While the plaque is new, the vision is not: it is a reclaiming of The Falls Church’s earliest ethos.