The Falls Church is in many ways old news. The parish was founded in 1732 and attended by George Washington; the city took its name from the congregation. But the church made international headlines in 2007 when it and six other Anglican churches broke away from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia over issues that included ordination of homosexual bishops. Now, after a long legal battle over whether the diocese or the congregation owns the historic building and its contents, a judge has ruled that the congregation will have to move out. The Rev. John Yates, pastor of the church since 1979, spoke to The Washington Examiner about God’s provision in troubled times.
Some people reading the news must be mystified about why your church would spend so much time, money and heartache to break away from the Episcopal church. Why is it worth all of this?
The Episcopal Church had drifted so far from orthodox Christianity that we could not in good conscience remain part of it. That was a very difficult decision, but we believe that the Episcopal church has moved away from a biblical understanding of the faith and away from its broader Anglican identity.
Since last month’s court ruling that you would have to leave your building, what has the church been through?
When the Episcopal church sued us, we believed and still believe we had a strong legal case to retain our property and a duty to the generations before us to press our case. It’s been a huge distraction and a huge expense over the last five years. It’s cost a lot of money that could have gone to ministry to the poor. So while it’s certainly not what we wanted, we felt we had to defend ourselves in the court case.
In the process we’ve learned some very valuable lessons about who we are as a church. We’ve learned that the buildings are not as important as we thought they were. We have actually experienced quite a period of vitality and growth. We started daughter churches in Alexandria, Arlington and Vienna, something we were not really free to do in the Episcopal church. We have developed a much closer relationship with Anglicans worldwide than we had before.
These have been good things, but the decision of the judge to turn the property over to a group of about 75 Episcopalians and tell the 3,000 of the rest of us to find a home elsewhere — it certainly has been disappointing, but honestly our feeling was that we would do everything we could do legally to defend our ownership of the property, and if in the end the judge ruled against us, we would accept it as the will of God.
In what ways have you seen the provision of God in this time?
Many other churches have offered to help us; Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians and others have offered us space and resources. One specific encouraging thing occurred. Not long ago a gentleman from Pennsylvania, an antiques dealer who had been following our case, arrived at the church unannounced and said that he had been collecting antique church communion utensils for a long time and he wanted to give his collection to us. He gave us an absolutely unexpected gift of more than 40 silver cups and chalices and dishes. We saw that as a little sign that God was going to give us in abundance what we needed, when we needed it. For a church that places such a high importance on the sacraments, it was a great encouragement.
How is the Falls Church going to change in the future?
I expect that the way people view our church will change significantly in the future. We may eventually choose a new name, because we probably will no longer be meeting in Falls Church, Va. People eventually will no longer associate us with a historic colonial church, but more with biblical Christianity and the worldwide Anglican tradition. It will be exciting, in a sense, to begin all over again and seek to establish a reputation in a different neighborhood. We want to be known as a church in which people find fresh hope for their lives through faith in Christ.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
That the quality that God most prizes is a humble spirit that recognizes its own need for a God.
– Liz Essley
