This week's webinar: Church planting in community

This week on May 16, we will have our next webinar on Anglican church planting. As usual, the webinar will begin Thursday at noon ET (11 CT/9 PT) on Zoom.

Our guest will be Fr. Michael Vinson, vicar of St. Benedict’s Anglican Church in Rockwall, Texas, 25 miles east of downtown Dallas. In 2017, Fr. Vinson started St. Benedict’s with his son-in-law, Fr. Michael Templin.

In a talk that also has direct relevance to church renewal, Fr. Vinson will discuss how he grew his traditional Anglican mission through an emphasis on evangelizing the local community — particularly those who live within a mile of the church.

He will also talk about how his vision for St. Benedict’s, offering the ascetical and supernatural vision of sacramental worship to (as in much of the Bible Belt) to both other Christians and non-Christians who have not experienced it before. In a message that should resonate with G-3 church planters, the motto of St. Benedict’s is “Belong — Believe — Become.”

REC Church Planting

St. Benedict’s is a mission of the Reformed Episcopal Church, a jurisdiction within the Anglican Church of North America where most congregations enjoy traditional worship using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. In June 1998, the REC (represented by Abp. Royal Grote) and signed articles of intercommunion with the Anglican Province of America (represented by Abp. Walter Grundorf); however, it does not yet have direct relationships with the other G-3 provinces.

St. Benedict’s was one of the earliest beneficiaries of REC 100, a program established in 2017 by Abp. Grote and Bp. Ray Sutton to support the planting of 100 new churches across the REC. The REC 100 provides both oversight and (through the REC’s annual Lenten offering) funding for new church plants.

Fr. Vinson is now active in REC 100 and will be co-teaching the new Anglican Church Planting class this fall at Cranmer Theological House.