FALLS CHURCH, in a town of the same name on the outskirts of Washington, is one of largest of the churches to secede. (The other is Truro Church, in nearby Fairfax.)
Under the leadership of the Revd John Yates, it has grown rapidly to nearly 3000 members. As a result, in 1992, the vestry decided to build a new worship space, attached to the historic church by offices and Sunday-school rooms. The chairman of the building committee was Bill Fetsch.
On 17 December, he was one of the 127 members who voted against the switch of allegiance to CANA. Unfortunately for him, more than 1000 voted the other way. (His suspicions that the rolls were pared down before the vote were immaterial in the light of such a majority.)
Bill is a careful speaker, keen not to criticise others or complain unduly. His wife Robin is less so: “For 27 years, it’s been our whole life. For someone whose life has revolved around the church, it’s been very painful.”
Bill Fetsch spoke of his “close, close affection” for Mr Yates, and spoke of the anguish they both felt at the situation. They still meet each other every week. When Mr Fetsch asked for permission to worship once a week in the historic church, “John said, ‘I don’t see why not.’ But last Wednesday I got a letter from him saying no.”
The Fetsches have held two services in their home for about 40 of the remnant. For the first, they asked for a cleric from Falls Church, but were told that it would cause too many difficulties. Only then did they contact the diocese, which sent along the Revd Michael Pipkin, a former Iraqi chaplain — “So he knows about conflict.”
A week ago, he placed in the local paper an advertisement for a service last Sunday in the nearby Presbyterian church, giving his mobile phone as the contact. He fielded two calls during our conversation. One call had come from a woman who hadn’t been to church for four years. “We had a choice: to split or to band together. But we don’t want to worship in Arlington or Springfield. It was very heartening worshipping together.”
What would he like to happen? “Ideally, I’d like us to share the worship space.” Did he know that the diocese was laying claim to all the property? “I just don’t have the energy or the inclination to get into that fight. We don’t want to be in conflict with anybody. We must maintain dialogue, and try to settle things in a Christian way.”
St Stephen’s, Heathsville, is an oddity among the departed churches, the bulk of which form a tight knot in the top corner of the diocese. Heathsville is a small retirement town in mid-Virginia.
As elsewhere, the ballot took place on 10 December, but the count was made on the 17th. In between times, the ballot box was kept at the town courthouse. One of the two keyholders was Sarah Stubbs, a feisty, retired IRS officer. The congregation voted by 99-33 to secede, and by about the same number to keep the property. The following day, the papers were filed, and the signs outside the church were taken down and thrown away. The day after that, the bank was asked to rename the bank accounts.
But they reckoned without Sarah Stubbs. I talked to her and Wayne Ogburn — another, more cautious member of the remnant. Ms Stubbs wanted to ask me how a minister who had been divorced and married again could take such a stand on biblical teaching. “There’s only one scripture they care about.” Mr Ogburn was keen not to make the dispute peronal.
Despite an underlying sadness — “These were my friends. I cry for them” — there was a hint of relish in Ms Stubbs’s account of the first meeting of the remnant. “If we’d gone anywhere in town, they would have found out. So we arranged to meet in the tyre-repair place in the next town — there’s an eating area around the back.”
From that meeting came the determination to re-form, and a meeting with diocesan officials happened soon after. They have since formed a new vestry, and have persuaded the bank to turn the church’s accounts back to them. Their next task is to get their church back, not least because of family members buried in the churchyard. “People have given to this church for generations. They’re not going to see it given away overnight.”
For the time being, they meet in the Methodist church. The Sunday before last, they had 30 communicants, and there are more than 50 on the rolls. “And this is the funniest part,” says Ms Stubbs, “everybody loves us.” They have had two donations of $1000, and were applauded warmly at the annual council when it was announced that they had pledged to scrape something together to donate to the diocese.
Ms Stubbs was relieved, she said. “Not having to listen to their sermons any more is the best part of all. They said horrible things about Bishop Lee. We’re going to come out of this a better church; we won’t have that bickering element any more.”
