‘Kingdom Outposts’ Gifted to Anglicans

by Jeffrey Walton (Juicy Ecumenism)

In 2024, the Church of the Good Shepherd (Lynchburg, VA) received an extraordinary gift from the oldest Baptist congregation in Lynchburg, Virginia. The Anglican church first planted in 2011 that met across 15 years in homes and modest storefronts in the central Virginia city now worships under the tallest spire downtown, in what the Virginia Department of Historic Resources describes as “perhaps Virginia’s best representative of the High Victorian Gothic style.”

Most remarkable was the purchase price: when the deed was transferred from First Baptist Church to Church of the Good Shepherd in the fall of 2024, it was given free of charge.

Good Shepherd is among an increasing number of Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) congregations expressing gratitude to congregations of other Christian traditions that have entrusted buildings they long stewarded to Anglicans. These Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and other churches prepared to conclude ministry or merge into other congregations and wished to facilitate continued Christian ministry in those places for the benefit of future generations.

Read the entire article here.

Jeff Walton is Communications Manager and Anglican Program Director for the Institute on Religion & Democracy. He graduated in 2001 from Seattle Pacific University and is a member of The Falls Church Anglican in Falls Church, VA. Walton serves on the board of directors for Anglican Frontier Missions.