Texas Megachurch Joins New Anglican Body

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Reporter Monday, January 29, 2007

A former Episcopal Texas megachurch has announced its new home – the Anglican Mission in America.

In an announcement last week, the Rev. Canon David H. Roseberry, pastor of Christ Church in Plano, excitedly told congregants of their "historic" step in joining as mission partners with the AMiA.

"It is an Anglican mission in that it is thoroughly Anglican, respected all around the world within the Anglican Communion," said Roseberry in a message to his church.

Christ Church split from the Episcopal Church last summer in disagreement with the national body's controversial decisions that indicated a "departure from biblical truth and historic faith of the Anglican Communion," the church's leaders had said in a statement last year.

The departure came a week after the Episcopal Church elected Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as the first female presiding bishop. Jefferts Schori supports the consecration of homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions.

Christ Church joined a recent AMiA conference with nearly 1,600 people. There, Anglican leaders expressed their preparedness to "act together" at the February Primates meeting which will bring head representatives from provinces around the world, including Jefferts Schori, to the same table.

Roseberry expressed joy about the new alignment with the North American Anglican group.

"Frankly, in a deep and abiding sense, it felt to me that I was coming home ... at long last," he said.

The Anglican Mission in America, according to Roseberry, is growing in leaps, adding a new congregation every two to three weeks.

And the new partnership of the Texas megachurch is a major addition to AMiA. The Plano church is one of the largest Anglican churches in the nation, drawing about 2,200 worshippers each weekend.

"Christ Church is in itself a major work that God has purposed ... to be the largest Anglican church in North America," said the Rt. Rev. Chuck Murphy, chairman of AMiA, "and that's a clue to what I believe God's going to do with the Anglican Mission in America and Christ Church."

The Most Rev. Emmanuel Kolini, archbishop of Rwanda, also gladly welcomed Christ Church to their new home.

Confirming the church's new place to carry out their mission, Roseberry said, "We have a home, we're part of a family – a broad worldwide Anglican family."