Leaving UECNA

March 12, 2023 at 5:16 am (Uncategorized)

Our final Glad Tidings submission, announcing the closure of our California mission. Between Nov. ’22 and Feb. ’23 (when the article was fist submitted & then published), the Missionary Diocese of the West was reorganized into an Archdeaconry, and folded into the Missionary Diocese of the South & Ozarks. Its leadership changed from Bp. Robinson to Bp. Sparks. Much of this was a surprise for us, yet it marked the end of an era. To be honest, the mission closure naturally followed the termination of our societal connexion with UECNA. We are still working on some loose ends, far past the point of relicensing, but it appears our time with UE is over– we look to yonder field.

“Littlewood UE Fellowship
Fremont, CA

After eight years as a UECNA mission, our UE fellowship in the San Francisco Bay area sadly closed. The fellowship began in May 2014 & officially persisted until Oct. 2022.

Our UE mission typically kept Evening Prayer at our home on Sundays, punctuated by yearly public worship in San Jose CA. Indeed, we never had more than 2 or 3 adults for Vespers, and the same was true with occasional public gatherings. Even our methodist class meetings rarely reached 6 or 7 persons at a time. Covid-lockdowns in California finally ended the mission, especially after dear friends moved afar. Though we gave it another year, the loss was not replaced & a second blessing was wanting to recover.

With kindly permission by Bishop Peter in early-October, we closed the mission– at least for a while– until we are better populated, or otherwise more than a single family. The Rt. Rev. Robinson generously assured us, “If circumstances change & you have a mission forming, by all means let us know and we will take you in.”

Until then, our family will quietly solicit the services of Bp. Murrell for future baptisms or confirmations as needed. Regardless, we continue using the 1928 Common Prayer Book (the piety of our six children much suplied by it) & ready to share the same with others.

We thank Bishop Robinson, alongside the several ordained officers of Western UECNA, for their charity regarding our work in northern California. We hope to someday return to UE with more promising labors, even to “prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will.” – Jehovah Bless, Charles”

The closure, however, feels like a real conclusion w a bit of accomplishment. Firstly, our family benefited by the constant piety with regular house meetings, so our children were given a great example that continues today.

Secondly, I can relieve myself of the burden of bigger ecclesiastical reform. The latter, by way of class meetings, has gone further in its broadcasting than I ever imagined. Currently, the idea of class meetings is increasingly diffusing itself through ECUSA, and some extent the ACNA, by ordained men far more accomplished and better positioned than myself. In the Episcopal church the diocese of Albany is promoting it, and in ACNA the Aldersgate Society is catching up.

We were the first to push them in an Anglican context, about two years before any of these current societies arrived on the scene. Of course, Kevin Watson has done a lot through Seedbed, and the emerging GMC, as a partial consequence of Watson’s influence, requires discipleship groups. Even the UE is finally talking about inviting conservative methodists to a possible Protestant Anglican synod– whereas previously Wesleyanism was beyond the pale. So, there’s room for optimism. The time we spent was in itself a blessing, and now we seek a new congregation or denomination that approves this history and the import of discipleship groups.

I feel very much the same as JJ Gurney, in his 1824 book, Observations on the Peculiarity of Religious Society of the Friends, p. 187, where he describes the finishing of a gospel work. Mine was no preaching ministry, but it was a genuine attempt to breakout church methodism and class meetings. We did our best as a lone family in the field of labor granted by UE.. That’s over, and we return to a quiet and peaceable life.