One of the highlights of Bishop Gregory Brewer’s visit to St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Crystal River on Feb. 1 was the strong attendance by young people.
“This Sunday, there were 30 little kids in cassocks and cottas coming down the aisle,” Bishop Greg said after the event. “I confirmed 17 people, baptized three and almost all of them were family members or kids who had come through the acolyte program developed by St. Anne’s.”
Fr. Kevin Holsapple, rector at St. Anne’s, and Fr. Stephen Dass, vicar of Coventry Episcopal Church, Ocala, from 2009 through 2012, helped develop the acolyte training program, with the eager participation of the parish. “It was truly an effort of the church,” said Fr. Dass, who now runs the Sao Paulo Mercy Ministry in Brazil, with his wife, Mary (http://spmercyministry.com).
“When we started with this work and the church had only one child and hardly any teenagers, Fr. Kevin received an anonymous donation, and together with the vestry they decided on investing this money into hiring us to help start a youth program with the children living in a government-assisted housing project one block away from St Anne’s.” “Our youth ministry is in every sense an effort of the Church,” Fr. Holsapple said. “It is very churchy in its approach, content, and objectives: teaching young people the faith, training them to be acolytes.”
“It’s also an effort of the church, in the sense that there is no one member of one group doing all the work,” he said. This is a ministry involving every group in the parish, Fr. Holsapple said. In the early years, while the youth group was still small, each member of Vestry “adopted” a youth group member, taking that young person to a shop to buy an Easter outfit.
“Now the group is grown so large, our vestry couldn’t afford to do that!” Fr. Holsapple said. The Daughters of the King stuff Christmas stockings for every child. Members from the Episcopal Church Women spent last summer teaching some of the girls how to sew. A retired teacher comes to the youth meetings to coach the kids in reading lessons at the Sunday mass. Of course, buying cassocks for all these acolytes takes lots of money, so hats get passed on a regular basis.
Above all, a core group of dedicated youth leaders, men and women, devote many hours to the kids and to their families. This devoted lay leadership is the key, Fr. Holsapple said. “Really, EVERYBODY here is a part of youth ministry,” he said. “People at St. Anne’s love these kids, and the kids can feel it.” St. Anne’s strategy was to use the gifts of the church and its liturgical identity to reach out to the unchurched, Fr. Dass said.
St. Anne’s is a traditional Anglo-Catholic parish, and at that time, the median age of members was 60 and above.
“We started off going around the neighborhood in order to know its dynamics,” Fr. Dass said. “The housing complex looked abandoned and isolated. Most people were locked up in their tiny apartments. We went door-to-door letting people know about the community meals held at St. Anne’s on a weekly basis. The purpose was to make our presence visible in this community. We were also looking for ministerial opportunities. We found bedridden people and many children who were left alone most of the time. We brought Communion to the sick and prayed with some people at their invitation and request. Then the children started appearing at the meals. Interestingly, they were from the neighborhood where most of the people slammed their doors on us. We got to know the children by name and sat and ate with them at every meal. They went to these meals without their parents.”
“Mary was actively involved as well,” Fr. Dass said. “We knocked on doors together. Today, after five years, they have 40 children.
Bishop Brewer said the program could be a model to others. St. Anne’s was “getting a pretty good stream of new retirees; they had no children whatsoever,” Bishop Brewer said. “It began with pizza nights and things like that, and it emerged into this huge feeding program because kids would show up and say, ‘this is my meal for the day’.”
“Most of these children had never, ever been inside a church in their whole life,” Bishop Brewer said. As acolytes, “They knew their stuff. It was phenomenal. How does a high Anglo-Catholic evangelize their poor neighbors?” Clearly, St. Anne’s has the right answer!