It has been an amazing year as God continues to form Corpus Chisti Anglican Church. Just as a brief reminder, we began the church in March 2020 virtually over Zoom with small group meetings that took place once per month. Our hope was to become a common people in common prayer for uncommon transformation that would serve Franconia, Springfield, and the surrounding regions. Meeting virtually was incredibly challenging for creating community, but it is all we had. So rather than give up, we persevered in faith. 

We began meeting for monthly worship in August 2020 and continued that rhythm half way through 2021. We also began in person and virtual weekly small groups in 2020 that continued into 2021. God has blessed our community with a lot of little ones. It became pretty clear that children’s ministry would become a priority. After praying about the shape of children’s ministry, we discerned that Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (“CGS”) would drive the culture of children’s ministry, but we didn’t have anyone to lead it. It can be a high bar of entry, but it will be worth all the time, energy, and money to build slowly and offer a substantive program like CGS.  

The report below looks at staffing, Sunday Worship, children’s ministry, leadership development, formation groups, music, outreach, finances, and organizational development. If you would like to give to the work of CCAC, please give here.

STAFFING

Children

As we considered individuals who could be trained to teach CGS, God brought to mind KC Laushkin and Maggie Duke. In March 2021 they both came on staff to help form the children’s ministry. A few months later, KC scaled back her role and became a volunteer catechist while Maggie continued working hard to lead the formation of CGS. Maggie has done an excellent job of equipping us to offer this by early 2022. We are planning an orientation to CGS very soon and we’ll announce that and put it on the calendar as soon as possible. We currently have a pile of furniture in the children’s classroom for CGS and next month the men will be holding a pizza night for fellowship and furniture building.

Ashley Reed and one other person have both been going through the CGS training over the last 4 months and will be fully trained in CGS by June 2022. We will then have 4 Catechists. We are always looking to train new catechists, so please pray that God calls new people to this ministry. It is a large time and financial commitment, but we believe it is worth it and we will pay for the training. Maggie has been giving her time to help Corpus Christi from very early on, but she has been doing so while balancing time with her home church. She has been so wonderful and faithful in her role as the Lead Catechist and after things are up and running, she will go back fully to her home church af the end of March. Our hope is to hire a new Part-Time Children’s Director in early 2022. Please pray for God to raise up the right person for this role.

Music

Back in 2020 we were looking at having monthly Eucharist. Morgan+ called up his friend Andrew (who lived in Springfield) to help with music once per month as we got started. In late 2020 we made a call for a part-time worship music coordinator to help lead once per month and then weekly once we moved to weekly worship. Andrew felt a call to step into this role and we hired him in March 2021. He has been so thoughtful about how to build the music ministry and we are so grateful for how he serves and invests in this church...even beyond music ministry.

Curacy

Ryan+ and Morgan+ have known each other for quite some time, so it was a wonderful surprise when Ryan+ and Christie visited in the Fall of 2020. They expressed a desire to make CCAC their place of worship. They are both such gifted leaders and it was a real joy to see God call them to this church. We created a non-stipendiary curacy for Fr. Ryan in 2021 which would allow him to serve and grow here as a priest, recognizing that his income comes from outside this church. He has been so faithful to bless this church with his gifts in preaching, building new relationships, and leading music once per month.

Communications and Operations Manager

In the summer we made the call for someone to come on staff as a Part-Time Communications and Operations manager. With the task of preaching each week, the operations and communications pieces were becoming unwieldy for Morgan+ and he wanted them to be done well. In September 2021 someone came forward who felt a call to this ministry who is not only incredibly gifted in these areas, but is also spiritually mature and loves this church. She has been growing our capacity to make disciples of Christ and bring more people into community life. We are so grateful for her ministry.

Priest-in-Charge (Now the ‘Vicar’)

Morgan+ went from being the priest in charge to becoming a vicar once we became a Mission. He has been learning and growing in his role as the Vicar as we moved to weekly worship and as we’ve built our staff team. He and Ashley purchased a home in Springfield and now live among the communities they’ve been called to serve.

SUNDAY WORSHIP

At the beginning of 2021 CCAC worshiped at Green Spring Gardens once per month. We baptized two children in 2021. We made new friends, such as Pastor Don over at Faith Fellowship Assemblies of God Church, who allowed us to use their sanctuary to celebrate Ash Wednesday in the morning and evening. We purchased vestments for the seasons just before that so that we could have chasubles, stoles and chalice veils to match the seasons of the church.

We still only met once per month through Lent. Our first Palm Sunday was a misty morning at Green Spring Gardens, but the moisture outside did not dampen your joy. One of the children did a wonderful job processing the cross as Andrew led us in “All Glory Laud and Honor” while we processed around the building and into the sanctuary.

Palm Sunday marked a definite shift in our worship life together because that is the point at which we met weekly in some form. For the months of April and May, we met at Green Spring Gardens to celebrate the Eucharist on the 1st Sunday of each month and on the other Sundays we held morning prayer in the Reeds’ backyard. This gave us an opportunity to pray using morning prayer rather than the Eucharist liturgy and this season was helpful in a few other ways as well: First, it trains us in how worship is something we offer. Second, it gave an informal space to build community and DNA around what God was doing in a community and not necessarily around the beauty of a building. Third, it gave us the opportunity to relearn how to get somewhere on a Sunday morning since the pandemic had really destroyed that rhythm. This season prepared us for weekly Eucharist.

In June 2021 we began worshiping weekly, celebrating the Eucharist at Green Spring Gardens. We trained up several people to minister to our children by becoming child safety certified and we began to offer the nursery for ages 0-3. All through the summer months we worshiped together and following the service we ate together while the kids played outside in the garden. Each week we would set up and tear down the nursery and sanctuary. As we entered into the Fall, we realized that in order for the church to continue to grow we needed space for CGS. A group of us prayed a lot and went through a big spreadsheet of places we might be able to meet and made lots of calls and emails.

In August, Morgan+ had a great conversation with Rev. Woodson, who had only been appointed to Springfield United Methodist Church (“SUMC”) one month before, about the possibility of worshiping at SUMC. When Morgan+ was first coming down to Springfield in 2019 he recounts how he would go to Trader Joe’s, would hear the bells and would ask God if we could meet in a place like that where it seemed to be in a busy location and would probably have a chapel we could use. Meanwhile we were also having conversations with Pastor Don about their chapel at Faith Fellowship Assemblies of God. In August, Rev. Woodson and and Morgan+ continued to pray and discern if this is what God might have for these two congregations. Meanwhile, Pastor Don’s chapel opened up and we prayed about whether this would be God’s will or not. In late August and early September, the church came to look and pray. One week we went to SUMC and then we talked and prayed about it. Then the next week we went to Faith Fellowship Assemblies of God and did the same. I think one of the things that God made clear to us is that in the coming days we will be focusing on gathering: gathering with one another and gathering into the church those who are outside the church. SUMC will facilitate the gathering of community and is central to where we have always desired to be geographically so we decided to begin worship at SUMC and they we’re willing to have us there!

We have worshiped weekly in our new location since October 10, 2021 and Rev. Woodson and Morgan+ continue to brainstorm creative ways our congregations can bless one another and serve the community together. They have been wonderful hosts and we are so grateful God led us this direction.

We just began adding musicians and using Keynote and the sound system during the service. In the coming year we’ll improve our audio recordings, add sound proofing in this chapel, and hopefully add more art to the room. Our Communications and Operations Manager has connected us to an artist, Linda McCray, who has been giving us permission to use her work for our Keynote templates and online. Visual art has an important place in the history of the church and I’m looking forward to how it draws us into worship.

CHILDREN’S MINISTRY

When we began monthly gathering, we looked forward to a day when we could offer both nursery and CGS. In the meantime, parents have had their children in the service and we have offered children’s bags. In May 2021 Morgan+ was trained to train others in our Diocesan Child Safety Training. We established a process to move from being interested in serving with children to being trained and equipped to serve in the nursery setting. We purchased the supplies necessary to have a mobile nursery with a play yard, foam floor pads, and plenty of toys. As of right now there are 9 people who are child safety trained and help at least once per month with the nursery. We have a check-in system for the children and a supervisory plan for child safety in the space we are in. The children are always welcome in the service, but it is nice to have nursery as a ministry to the little ones, the parents, and those who minister in the nursery. 

Maggie has done an excellent job creating the album pages for CGS so that it is ready to be implemented in early 2022. Ashley and Jody are being trained, and KC has been trained, but will join back into the catechist rotation a few months after her baby is born. With CGS, one of the Catechists has to be present in the room (called the “Atrium”) which means that these 4 women are willing to be part of a rotating group of catechists (though with Maggie leaving after March it will only be 3 after March). 

We plan to maintain a sense of rest and joy in children’s ministry by offering CGS on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month until we have more catechists and volunteers for this ministry. This allows KC, Maggie, Jody, and Ashley the opportunity to get used to teaching, while giving them space to worship in the sanctuary. It also gives us an opportunity to have more than 9 people available to help with children. We hope to see the number of child safety trained individuals increase by at least another 6 people in the next three months. If we do hire a children’s director, we could also increase the number of Sundays this is offered.

Start praying for our 10-year-olds. As they get closer to middle school we hope to begin developing an acolyte training program for them and the other older children along with providing spaces for the older children to fellowship. Having a formal “youth group” might be premature, but there will be opportunities for some of our child-safety trained parents to perhaps host youth gatherings for middle and high school kids at their houses or at the church. We hope to gather a group together of interested individuals to start praying about ministering to our older children.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Our church’s children remind us of who the future of the church is. These are disciples of Jesus whom God loves deeply! Some of our children can sing the doxology and say the Lord’s Prayer, and the Nicene Creed. They are learning the habits and theology of a disciple of Jesus and when that is paired with the example of loving parents who also follow Jesus, they are learning about God’s love for them. We have an incredible opportunity to build Christian leaders in our households and in this community.

Morgan+ shared the following story about our intern:

“When my wife and I moved to Arlington almost 10 years ago, we served at Restoration Anglican Church in various ways and Ashley helped with the youth ministry there. She poured into and discipled one of the middle school girls on a regular basis and as time went on, that middle school girl grew up and went off to college at Wheaton.

Last March I prayed about having a summer intern to help with the church plant and as I prayed about it, God brought this young woman to mind. I called her up and after a month of prayer and discernment, Grace Brooks accepted our offer to work with our church during the summer of 2021. In those three short months, she quickly became a beloved part of this community. She even preached her first sermon with us. She is graduating in the Spring and discerning the next steps in her vocational calling. She reminds us that we never know who we are pouring into when they’re in middle school and what they’ll do.”

We want to be a church that develops young leaders and all of us have a part to play in that because of the great commission and our role in making disciples. Let’s continue to pray for CGS, the nursery, and our 10 year olds!

FORMATION GROUPS

Formation Groups are a very informal way for the church to fellowship, to show Christ’s love to one another and to experience God’s love in community. They are where the church “scattered” carves out time for worship, accountability, teaching, and prayer outside of Sunday morning. They consist minimally of sharing food, conversation, and prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. 

Just after Easter we held an 8-week round of Formation Groups. Christie led one for the women in their backyard each week and then the Turners hosted one in their backyard where all were invited to eat together and have a discussion while the kids played every other week. After we ended the first round of Formation Groups, Grace and I led a couple discussions on the art of Neighboring prior to our weekly Compline service over Zoom.

The other Formation Group we held was this Fall; it ran for 8-weeks and was an introduction to Anglicanism because we have several people who have been discerning if they would like to be confirmed or received by the Bishop. We held a hybrid group where some came for dinner while others attended virtually. We will offer an introduction to Anglicanism on a regular basis as part of a new members class for Corpus Christi, but it may not always be a Formation Group.

Formation Groups are an important piece of building community outside the corporate gathering, and our plan is to offer them three times per year: January until Lent, then one after Easter until early summer, then one from September through November. These  provide an easy on-ramp for people to plug in and get to know others in community. Because of the number of adults that are part of this Mission right now, it would be challenging to have multiple weeknight small groups. As we’ve discovered, if it is going to be a weeknight then it likely has to be a men’s group or women’s group. The challenge with the Sunday group in the past was the lack of childcare, so we’ll try something different this time around and have a Formation Group on a Sunday afternoon and we will pay for childcare.

As our church grows, we can continue to multiply these groups. These are great opportunities for lay people to lead and facilitate groups as well as exercise hospitality in hosting. I would also like to offer one online group over Zoom, even if it is just Compline so that people who are not comfortable with in-person gathering can still have space to pray in community. For this season we’ll use the sermon text as the discussion basis.

MUSIC

Andrew took on the role of Worship Music Coordinator in March 2021 after having served, voluntarily leading music, for monthly Eucharist since the start of monthly worship services. In his role he thinks through how music can help focus our hearts on what is happening in the liturgy. The songs we draw on include that which is part of the rich musical history of the Anglican tradition as well as other resources part of the broader church that are rooted in Scripture and fit within our weekly liturgy. This includes old familiar hymns (sometimes with a modern twist), ancient chant, and even some modern music. We try to keep some songs consistent from week to week as this helps build familiarity and has shown to help children in the congregation be able to sing during worship, but Andrew is also thoughtful about introducing new songs that help us worship within the context of the liturgy. 

While he has been operating solo with some input from Morgan+ and others in the church up to this point, part of his role is to work with individuals in the church who may have gifts or a calling as musicians, and scheduling and training them to be part of music during worship. Ryan+ has been stepping in to lead for the one Sunday a month that Andrew is off and just last week we included a second vocalist for the first time during worship. In the coming year, we hope to keep building and strengthening music at CCAC by including musicians that are part of our church or individuals that have a desire to develop into musicians on the worship team. 

Outreach

In 2021, a lot of our strategy was built around gathering community and creating spaces for relationship building. One of the questions we’ll continually ask is how we bring others into loving community and make that a priority and a normal, regular part of who we are. In January 2021 we put on a virtual Alpha Course with our brothers and sisters at St. John’s Lutheran Church and Shepherd’s Hearth Anglican Church joined us as well. It was helpful to create common vocabulary around the kinds of questions people are asking and how to facilitate discussions.

In March, KC organized a resurrection Gardens event where we made gardens that would grow grass by the time Easter arrived. On Easter Sunday we invited people to our backyard for an easter tea. The kids played and the adults had good conversation. These kinds of events are great ways to get to know our neighbors. We did several ‘gathering’ types of events like the Pool Day at Crosspointe, the picnic day at Pohick Bay, and a day at the Farm in October.

We had opportunities to serve our neighbors by purchasing gift cards for Thanksgiving meals for families at Garfield Elementary which is across the street from SUMC. We gave toys, gift cards, and books to local service members and their families at Fort Belvoir for Operation Sugarplum.

It is imperative that people be able to find us online. One of the things that our Communications and Operations Manager has been helping us with is making sure that our Search Engine Optimization and Google My Business info is all updated. The result is that if you google “Anglican Church in Springfield, VA” you can find us now. Our website will undergo some formatting changes over the next few months as we’ve contracted with someone to do a deep-dive to improve the layout and searchability of it. These things need to happen to effectively buy Google ads or FB ads. These are all ways of helping people find us, but the best way is still word of mouth. 

One of the things that we’ll be focusing on in the year to come is adopting a listening posture with regards to the needs around us. We will be scheduling some prayer walks that we can do from the church and we will pay for child care. Fr. Morgan had a great conversation at Fort Belvoir when he dropped off the gifts for Operation Sugarplum and it seems that there might be a great spiritual need there for a church to fill. As a church in the neighborhood, we need to continue pray about how we might engage with our neighbors on base. We will continue to keep in contact with them and pray for opportunities to connect.

FINANCES

We ended the year well with a surplus. God has been gracious to us in a season when we were gauging what our operating costs would look like. If you would like a more thorough report, feel free to ask, but here are some of the highlights:

INCOME

Our church has a wonderfully generous launch team. Our launch team makes up about 35% of the income for this church. Morgan+ is committed to raising outside support for this work. He has raised about 37.5% of our support and hopes to raise another $20,000 by the end of this month. Grants came to about about 27 percent of our income. These came from other Anglican Churches (Restoration Anglican Church, Incarnation Anglican Church, and we anticipate gifts from a few others), as well as the Great Commission Committee.

Overall this is a great picture of people being generous in giving to God’s work in this church. God is richly providing so that we can concentrate on discipleship.

EXPENSES

The salaries are always the greatest expense in a startup without a property. This year they make up approximately 70% of the year’s expenses and include all of our staff team, including our summer intern. We hope to get to the point where we can offer full-time status with benefits to the vicar/rector.

Worship and rent are comprised of the liturgical hardware, AV equipment, rent costs for Sundays, and any rent costs for special events. This number is lower than expected because we only began renting weekly from June on.

Back Office and Tech makes up about 8% of our operating costs. This covered our database, website, Mailchimp, and other online tools. It also covered some of our printing materials, bookkeeper, and MOU fees with the Diocese. This number will go up as we do more print advertising and contract out for our financial services. Our leadership budget covered Morgan’s church planting coach and the trainings for our CGS catechists.

Outreach was only about 2% of our budget. This covered some of our online advertising and hospitality items for outdoor events or items for service events. In the future we will increase this percentage as we listen to the needs of our neighborhoods, engage with them, and support local and global outreach efforts. We will also begin giving back to the Diocese’s general fund and to the Vision for 50 Fund beginning in January 2022.

Two things will change the budget slightly in the coming months: Children’s Director and Childcare. We hope to hire a Part-Time Director of Children’s Ministry in early 2022. This will expand our capacity to minister to the 1/3 of our congregation under the age of 10. We will begin hiring more childcare for events to increase parents’ capacity for ministry. We will begin to pay for childcare for Formation Groups if it is desired. This will change the budget, but it is a necessary change.

BECOMING A MISSION MEMBER!

As an organization we became a Mission last month. That means that we have regular worship, the capacity to offer the Sacraments, discipleship and evangelism processes in place, and regular community outside the Sunday gathering. It also means that we’ll begin giving back financially to the Diocese and to the Vision for 50 fund which is the fund for church planting in our Diocese.

Alex Elmore has become like a chancellor at the church, which is a fancy Anglican way to say that he and his team have been helping us with our legal needs: He has been helping Morgan+ draft bylaws, articles of incorporation paperwork, and his team makes sure that our HR documentation is legally compliant. He will eventually be helping Morgan+ with the internal accounting controls as well.

In the next year we are hoping to incorporate and then open our own bank account. This will also require us outsourcing some of our financial and payroll processes which will be an added cost. Currently these services are provided by the Diocese for a minimal fee, but as we move towards further independence as an organization, these are all parts of growing up (these may not all happen in 2022). 

Part of growing up as a church is having a membership process and board, which in our Diocese is called a vestry. We are going to have a Mission Membership process where people commit to regular Sunday attendance, regular involvement with Formation Groups, giving a proportion of their income to the work God is doing at CCAC. Once someone has become a member of this Mission they are also eligible to vote for the Mission Vestry. The Mission Vestry‘s roles go beyond the organization’s fiduciary and corporate needs to also include many of the spiritual and programmatic needs of the church.

The Bishop is coming on Jan 23 and we have a number of folks preparing for confirmation or reception. This is going to be an exciting year in the life of this Mission. Please keep us in your prayers for the ways God might be calling you to deeper participation in the life of this community in the next season.

GIVING

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