Climbing Mountains Together

Christopher Seddon

Sometimes God gives us a do-over...

Dear St. Andrew’ s Church Family,

We just wanted to share with you some of the numerous blessings we have received here in Park City, Utah. St. John's Anglican Church, formerly Wasatch Anglican Fellowship has only been in existence for about two years, formed by a small band of faithful Anglicans.

We met in a small group starting in November 2003, as a result of the National Convention of the ECUSA. More accurately this was because of prayer. Before we can do anything effective we have to pray pray for each other, pray for the church. In turn this leads to a sense of trust and community. Every Sunday we remind ourselves, " Prayer is the most important thing you can do for YOURSELF, your family and your community"

We met initially in local places, such as a library, to see if anyone from our ECUSA church was interested, then in homes. At the earliest stage we did not really think about forming a church, rather we were just exploring options.

A phrase our present Senior Warden heard often was, when you have it figured out give me a call. No one should take offense at that statement as everyone comes from a different place, some are called to this, some are not. If you are called, you'll know. He knew when he heard that phrase and said to himself, heck if nobody steps up, nothing will happen, so he started to talk to people, and in initiated the organization process.

The group was blessed early on to have a conservative ECUSA priest who gave support. He was not a Rector but an encourager. He was retired and was leaving for home but what a blessing to have him initially. Once in homes, WAF started to think about a service, how they could be fed spiritually, receive communion, and put ion place effective study.

Once we took the communion part seriously we organized, someone to bake bread, get wine, etc. Different people have different gifts, and once people stepped out in faith and used those God-given talents we started to move forward rapidly. The altar guild took form, as did other aspects of the new fellowship.

Obviously the core group needs to be committed to each other and the church. It was also found that going through the exercise of generating your core values is important. We had a weekly home service, a small group maybe 12 people sometimes only 4!

Some friends came and went, which is ok, they need to express their feeling about what we were looking to accomplish and how much of a commitment was required. From the initial small group, a huge commitment was/is required.

However, we still needed to understand the faith and commitment that was necessary for the long haul! God blessed us so richly after we contacted Doc Loomis, a Network Leader in the Anglican Mission in the Americas. He fired us up to take the next step, to become a church. We took him seriously and responded to his challenge. That was on May 24, 2004.

We had already organized services, music and some thoughts about Christian Education for the kids, so we knew we had the pieces to do " church" . We took the next step and filed organization paper with the state to incorporate into a Church and start our 501C3 paperwork, non-profit. On June 18th we file to incorporate into a church, Wasatch Anglican Fellowship was born

Three weeks later, on July 11 2004, we had our first church service. A few weeks before that Doc Loomis from the Anglican Mission had discovered a Anglican Priest who could support us, part time, so we were off and running. After a few months, our priest, who was working for the military was assign NCO training out of state plus some health reason forced him to resigned, so we were without a priest.

Many of us had been through Cursillo, (actually 3 out of the 4 vestry member had been through this wonderful course), so we knew we could go to some orthodox Lutheran for support and they did support us min an amazing way, along with another retired Episcopal Priest, an Anglican Deacon, and our interim Priest came back for EASTER. The blessings just kept flowing, just as our Lord promised!. The bottom line was, if you wait for an Anglican to show up, your standards are a bit too high and you'll go hungry. There are MANY orthodox Christian Clergy in many communities that will support you as you take those first fledgling steps you only need to talk to them! They may use your BCP, they may not, but this isn't a time to hold to your standards, your standard is the Bible. Hold true to that. You need to grow to bring more people to Christ and then you can define your worship. During that first 6 months we saved as much as we could. We had our annual meeting in January 2005 where we told the congregation of a plan to step out and hire a full time priest, saving for another 6 months and then calling a priest. We have learnt that the timing of the events is God's not ours. Our budget did not support the proposed call, however, with the money we saved we knew we could do it for a period of time. That was presented to the candidates and we've been blessed ever since. We tried to be faithful, which is one of the very few demands our gracious Lord makes on us!

After much prayer and discernment we decided to take a huge step of faith and call our first priest. If this decision had been addressed in purely financial terms, then it would not have been possible for us to take such a step.

Christopher+ arrived here on June 1st and celebrated Holy Eucharist for WAF for the first time on June 5th. There was a congregation of fifty eight present. One of the first amazing things we noticed was that people from other Christian denominations welcomed him so warmly. There were no exceptions to this. Many expressed the fact that they had been praying for a true Anglican presence in the area for a long time. Invitations continue to flow for Christopher and his wife Kismet, to attend numerous community events and even to preach in Churches of other denominations. This last Sunday Christopher+ took part in a Lutheran ordination service in Salt Lake City!

We continue to be so blessed. We see new faces arriving each week, and many return the following week. Not only have we seen former Episcopalians arriving to worship with us, but we are also seeing new folk coming to dip their toes in the water and see what is going on! There has even been one young lady who courageously came to meet us one Sunday morning for the first time. Not only did she stay for fellowship with us after the service, but also came with us that very afternoon on a road trip to Green River Wyoming where Christopher celebrated Holy Communion for a same group of faithful Anglicans in Green River Wyoming, some 150 miles to the east of Park City. What a blessing!

Each week we have seen more and more new faces, and that is before we have even done any publicity! The response has been enthusiastic. The newcomers, we believe, have felt very welcome and have enjoyed the Biblical preaching and sense of God’ s presence in our worship. There is much still to be done, but we are underway! Despite this being the vacation season with many Church members away, the numbers have grown markedly and a new task for our Vestry is to plan the move to a larger worship area before September. We had ninety-one people present at our Eucharist this last Sunday. Praise God!

As a result of the numbers arriving to worship with us we have now rented a wonderful new church home right on the highway and are in the midst of renovating for a move in in 2007.

Now, as a part of the Anglican Mission in the Americas, we ask your continued prayers for us as we try to be open to the Lord and to be faithful members of his Kingdom building team.

Blessings in Christ!

Christopher+ and Roger
St. John's Anglican Church
(Formerly Wasatch Anglican Fellowship