"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another." Hebrews 10:25
This scripture speaks volumes about the history of our church. It is a history of home groups. Originally these "cell groups" as they were known, were part of Church of the Apostles in Fairfax, Virginia. Believers in these groups in the Manassas area felt God’s call to unite and form an actual congregation. It was this unity, provided by the Holy Spirit and supported by the Church of the Apostles, that lead the way to becoming a mission church in September of 1986, with the Rev. Ken MacGowan as our first Vicar. Within a year, we were self-supporting and took on full church status.
There were three church homes in the first 2 years, which involved renting space in public schools during the first two years and a private school at the beginning of our third year as a church. This required setting up and breaking down the worship space each Sunday. Obedience to the will of God was an integral part of the life of the church in this period of development. We learned that it’s not the building, but the people who are the church.
Our original Vicar/Rector, the Rev. Ken MacGowan, left for new ministry just after Thanksgiving, 1990. This meant that an interim rector was needed. In February 1991, the Rev. Alison Barfoot was called as Interim Rector. The true family nature of the church showed through when a group of people went to Pittsburgh to pack and move Alison to Virginia.
The church went back to mission status in December of 1992, which facilitated financial support over the next three years. God replenished and revitalized our church, and we once again began to grow and bear fruit.
During the interim period, our congregation entered into a disciplined time of prayer, healing, and reflection. In preparation for writing a parish profile, we conducted an extensive self-study, from which we gained fresh insights into who we were and what we were called to be. By the end of 1992, while identifying the gifts we were seeking in a Vicar, it appeared that the Rev. Alison Barfoot possessed those gifts. In April of 1993, Alison was installed as our Vicar.
The next major milestone was in December of 1993, when our congregation moved into the current church home in Gainesville, formerly the Leading Creek Nursery, which was renovated for church use. Miraculous events brought the property to the church, and confirmed again that it was God’s will for us to establish a stable, permanent base of ministry in Northern Virginia.
This move into a permanent building helped immensely with the development of our life of service to show Christ’s love. The high percentage of young people in our church necessitated the building of dynamic youth and children’s programs. At the same time, there was a need to minister to the wider congregation and local community. This has been done through various ministries such as the grief and loss group, prayer chain, working with a local food closet, and the Discovery program which God used to strengthen and grow new believers. All of this resulted in a growing congregation.
After six years of faithful ministry at Church of the Word, the Rev. Alison Barfoot responded to God’s call to devote a greater portion of her ministry to missions. Alison departed Church of the Word in February 1997 to join the staff of Sharing Our Ministry Abroad (SOMA).
Beginning the week after Alison’s departure, the Rev. David Handy started serving as our primary supply priest. What a wonderful gift from God!
In January 1998 the Rev. Robin Adams was called to be the third vicar of Church of the Word. Pastor Adams is an experienced pastor who served for 10 years in his native Ireland before coming to the United States to serve at a church in Tecumseh, Michigan for 8 years. A year after Robin's arrival, we were totally self supporting and no longer needed financial assistance.
Over the years under Robin's guidance, Church of the Word has expanded its ministries implementing both ALPHA and EMMAUS as programs to draw new Christians and enrich and expand the faith of ongoing believers. Church of the Word has started MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and AWANA programs. When we started AWANA at Church of the Word, we were the only Anglican Church in the United States to sponsor this program. AWANA stands for "Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed" as taken from 2 Timothy 2:15.
Again, under the guidance and urging of Pastor Robin, Church of the Word adopted Little Lambs Village Preschool, which had been using our physical facilities and brought it under the oversight of Church of the Word and incorporated it as one of our church ministries with the aim of ministering to the families of the children who attended. The preschool program has expanded and grown from around 60 to 135 active pupils with an ongoing waiting list.
In January 2005, we once again moved from mission status to full parish status with Pastor Adams now serving as our rector.
The next stage challenge for us will be the development of a new church site. This will be necessary because of the radical changes on our doorstep in the community immediately around us and the need for future growth of our church facilities.
II. Church of the Word Today
As our name implies, we value scripture as the utmost authority of God. The Bible guides us in every aspect of our life. Our mission is the great commission and the great commandment, as developed in our formal mission statement. We recognize Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, the Head of our church, and the Lord of all creation. Church of the Word has been a member of the American Anglican Council since its creation, and in the spring of 2005, we officially joined the Anglican Communion Network.
As a congregation in the Anglican Communion, we follow the Book of Common Prayer in our worship. We believe in the gifts of the Spirit and are aware that the Holy Spirit is our companion as we encounter the Spirit in our personal and corporate lives. Our congregation may fairly be described as conservative and orthodox on how the teachings of the church are interpreted amidst the tumults and pressures of our own day.
We believe that the gospel is all about reconciliation, first to God and then in consequence to one another. Inclusion is a consequence of the gospel of reconciliation. One mistake the broader church has made is to replace reconciliation with inclusion as the very substance of the gospel itself. The result has been that this new gospel has lost its power to change lives, and in actual fact, real inclusion becomes impossible! With that clarity of mission and yet inclusiveness of welcome, our doors are wide open to everyone. We invite visitors to ‘come as you are,’ but it is our mission to disciple people in ways that will lead to new life in Christ, pleasing to God
Worship at Church of the Word is truly a celebration of God’s grace and love, and the truth of the gospel. Sunday morning services begin with songs of praise and the calling of the Holy Spirit. Fittingly, Church of the Word gives prominence to the ministry of God’s Word with scripture readings and a sermon/teaching for youth and adults. The Holy Eucharist is standard at both the 9:00am service and the 11:00am service. Nursery care, Sunday school classes, and healing prayer ministry are also available. During the summer, we have one joint service at 10:00am.
An occasional feature of our worship style is to personalize the prayers of the people by inviting everyone to gather in small clusters and briefly pray for each other. This open sharing of prayer requests and thanksgivings is in keeping with the warm, family atmosphere of our services. The text of the liturgy, including our songs of praise, is projected onto a screen to make it easy to follow.
A distinctive feature of Sunday Morning worship is our use of contemporary Christian music. At Church of the Word you will not find hymnals, an organ, or a robed choir. Instead, a band of Christian musicians leads the congregation into deep, meaningful, and sometimes extended worship.
Such joy is experienced that hands are often lifted in praise and claps of thanksgiving are made to the Lord. In these and other ways we strive to make each worship service a fresh and memorable experience that will leave you wanting more of God in your life.
At Church of the Word, pastoral care relates to the part of our vision that calls families to reach out to other families in the name of Christ. As we affirm our dependence on our Lord Jesus Christ, we provide ministry to the body, which exemplifies healthy interdependence with one another. As a church family, we see ministry to physical needs (the body), emotional needs (the soul), spiritual needs (the spirit), as our areas of concern.
Much of pastoral care is done in the context of home groups which is one reason that we encourage our members to be actively involved in home groups. Our philosophy is that properly trained laity can do most "hands on" care giving. Requests for pastoral care can be made directly to the pastor who might refer the need to another resource if necessary
As in all of our ministries at Church of the Word, our vestry committee is spirit led and plays a vital role in the direction of our church. Our vestry is made up of nine members. Membership is for three years, with three new members selected each year. A vestry member cannot succeed himself/herself, and it is recommended that two years elapse before serving on the vestry again, given the commitment the position requires. It is also recommended that a person be a member of Church of the Word for at least a year before serving, be a strong believer in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, be willing to serve the full three-year term, and tithe to the parish.
Vestry meetings begin with prayer followed by a teaching. The teaching is usually scriptural based but sometimes is developed from life situations, employing biblical principles. The agenda is provided to vestry members several days prior to the meeting, and members of the congregation are welcome to attend.
Each Vestry member serves as liaison to one aspect of the mission of Church of the Word, i.e., creative worship, loving community, relational evangelism, lifestyle discipleship, and hands on service. We also add building & grounds and development to the list of Vestry member liaison responsibilities. Our budget and financial reports are organized around these ministry areas.
The main responsibility of the Vestry is to manage the finances and property of the parish and to assist the Rector in the broader aspects of our mission. As the Vestry comes together to discern God’s will, we pray and discuss issues until a consensus agreement is achieved.
At Church of the Word we believe that we are called to world mission and local outreach, to all those that are suffering without Christ in their lives, as well as those in our church body in need of physical and spiritual support. We believe that we should strive for balance in all these areas of outreach, as God has called us.
The mission of the outreach ministry is to provide assistance and opportunities – prayer, financial, a "helping hand", and a caring heart – for our members to be Christ’s witnesses in our neighborhoods, and throughout the world community. We want to help the least of our brothers and sisters, and to support efforts in our communities to help mothers choose life for their unborn children.
Corporate worship at Church of the Word is characterized by an animated liturgy interwoven with strands of contemporary music from the charismatic, evangelical, and liturgical traditions. While the primary focus is music from the charismatic renewal of the last twenty years, a conscious effort is made to incorporate the other elements of musical expression to keep the community worship fresh and vital, speaking to the current life of the church. The Holy Spirit is recognized and invited as the primary worship leader -- orchestrating the components of service to the glory and reverence of God the Father, the adoration of the Lord Jesus, and the personal enrichment of the congregation.
III. CANA and the Anglican District of Virginia
What is CANA? To start with, the acronym CANA stands for the "Convocation of Anglicans in North America". It is an Anglican missionary effort in the U.S.A. sponsored by the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion).
CANA holds to the traditional formularies of Anglican Christianity. It adheres to “the Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church as the Lord has commanded in his holy word and as the same are received as taught in the Book of Common Prayer and the ordinal of 1662 and in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion” (quotation from the Constitution of the Church of Nigeria). The Articles of Religion are a statement of faith first adopted by the Church of England during the Reformation and containing strong affirmations of the authority of Scripture. You can find them at page 867 of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
CANA also, with the Church of Nigeria, “believes that Marriage, by Divine institution is a lifelong and exclusive union and partnership between one man and one woman.” CANA therefore strongly supports the traditional views on human sexuality as expressed by the Anglican Communion in Lambeth Resolution 1.10. It also supports the Windsor Report as received and accepted by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in their Dromantine Communiqué.
The Anglican District of Virginia is an association of Virginia churches who are joined together to realign traditional Anglicans in Virginia who have been displaced by the choice of the Episcopal Church to walk apart from the Anglican Communion. The Anglican District of Virginia is a discrete ecclesiastical and legal structure that has elected provisionally to come under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a missionary diocese of the Church of Nigeria by which the District formally brings itself and all of its member churches, clergy, and laity into full commuion with the constituent members of the worldwide Anglican Communion, a community of 77 million people.
Maintainer: Ted McMichael
Send Comments or Questions to:
Administrator.ChurchOfTheWord@verizon.net