[Episcopal News Service] The church property at 4301 Meadowbrook Drive on the east side of Fort Worth, Texas, has long been a hub of Episcopal activity, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. St. Luke’s in the Meadow, a congregation of about a hundred members, has worshipped there since 1948. Its Sunday school wing now houses Fort Worth’s diocesan offices. A thriving feeding ministry, 4Saints Food Pantry, operates from the parish hall every Friday. The congregation, the diocese and the feeding ministry will carry on, but church leaders and parishioners are preparing to say goodbye to 4301 Meadowbrook Drive. The diocese is grieving the loss of a 12-year-old court battle that likely will leave St. Luke’s in the Meadow and dozens of other diocesan properties in the hands of a breakaway group that is affiliated with the Anglican Church of North America, or ACNA. “The task at hand is not easy, but our sights are set on continuing to love God, each other and our neighbors,” the Rev. Karen Calafat, rector of St. Luke’s in the Meadow, told Episcopal News Service by email on Feb. 25. She politely declined a request for a phone interview, citing the “many tight deadlines we are working toward at the moment” as church leaders search for new locations. St. Luke’s in the Meadow is one of six congregations in and around Fort Worth that may need to give up their worshipping spaces after the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 22 declined to review the diocese’s court case. The displacements would be the latest and likely final round in a legal dispute that dates to 2008, when then-Bishop Jack Iker led a majority of the diocese’s congregations out of The Episcopal Church over doctrinal differences, particularly the breakaway group’s opposition to the ordination of women and LGBTQ clergy. Since 2008, Episcopalians who remained faithful to The Episcopal Church have reorganized the diocese as 15 congregations across 24 counties, now under the leadership of Northwest Texas Bishop Scott Mayer, who has served as Fort Worth’s provisional bishop since 2015. Mayer said in a phone interview with ENS that Episcopalians in north central Texas remain upbeat about the church’s growth in the region. “There really isn’t any question that we will continue,” Mayer said, citing examples of Fort Worth Episcopalians’ perseverance and dedication. The diocese has consistently paid its full assessment in support of the churchwide budget, he said, and church members have committed time and resources to growing new ministries that serve the community. “When this diocese reorganized 12 years ago, they made decisions initially, right off the bat, that they were going to choose living over surviving, and love over fear,” he said. The property dispute now returns to the Texas trial court judge, who will determine in the coming weeks how his ruling will be carried out. “There are still some loose ends,” Mayer said, and he declined to discuss ongoing discussions with the ACNA group, other than to say that six Episcopal congregations are preparing for the possibility of losing their worship spaces. In addition to St. Luke’s in the Meadow, those Fort Worth congregations include All Saints’ Episcopal Church-Fort Worth, St. Christopher Episcopal Church and St. Elisabeth’s & Christ the King Episcopal Church. About a two-hour drive northwest, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wichita Falls also may need to vacate its building, as well as St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Hillsboro, which has been sharing a worship space with an ACNA congregation in the town a little over 50 miles south of Fort Worth. The diocese affiliated with The Episcopal Church estimates that more than $100 million in property would be lost in the lawsuits, though a fraction of that property is at stake in the new congregational displacements. The majority of the diocese’s church buildings have been occupied since the 2008 diocesan split by congregations now affiliated with ACNA, which also will maintain possession of Camp Crucis in Granbury, Texas. ACNA leaders praised the latest court decision in favor of the breakaway Fort Worth diocese. “Today’s decision marks a turning point for us as a diocese,” Bishop Ryan Reed said in a written statement issued Feb. 22 after the U.S. Supreme Court said it wouldn’t intervene. “After directing so many resources to this dispute, we can now put our entire focus on Gospel ministry and Kingdom work.” The Rev. Jay Atwood, canon to the ordinary of the ACNA-affiliated diocese, told ENS that no decision had yet been made about the fate of the buildings that still were being used by congregations affiliated with The Episcopal Church. The Texas court rulings apply to church buildings that predate the 2008 split and shouldn’t affect Episcopal congregations that already have established new locations after being displaced. All Saints’ Episcopal School, which has its own board of trustees and sits on a campus in Fort Worth separate from the All Saints’ church building that is claimed by the breakaway diocese, is not affected by the litigation. With the end of the litigation in sight, the diocese is in mourning this week, Mayer said. In a video message to the diocese, released Feb. 26, he spoke of the “shock and anger and grief” caused by the latest news, especially amid the ongoing disruptions caused by the pandemic and last month’s cold-weather crisis – and at a time when Episcopalians are focused on Lenten preparations for Holy Week. In the video and again in his Feb. 28 sermon in the diocese’s online worship service, Mayer offered words of encouragement. “Anytime there’s significant loss, there’s corresponding grief,” he told ENS. “We invested 12 years in this; obviously, we think it’s wrong. But in these 12 years, we’ve been busy being the church, and you won’t meet a more creative and imaginative and resilient bunch of people than you will here. There’s no loss of hope, nothing like that. This is a group that’s looking forward.” For decades, a bastion of … Continue reading Fort Worth Episcopalians look to future while grieving loss of 12-year church-property battle