One year after we entered our new sanctuary in September 2019, we recall how God’s people are invited to “remember” throughout Scripture. While some things become etched in our memories forever, we are by and large prone to forgetting. As the Hebrews were about to enter the promised land, Moses called upon his people to remember – to never forget the Lord’s faithfulness and provision – and to tell the story to the next generations. This month, as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of the consecration of our new sanctuary, we want to remember the story of our incredible journey and give praise to the Lord whose faithfulness to us has never wavered.

God told Joshua to erect twelve stones on the bank of the Jordan to memorialize God's deliverance of His people from the wilderness into the promised land. The stones served as reminders of God's goodness, power, and grace. Our church family has amassed our own collection of “Joshua stones.” They reflect our transition from The Falls Church (TFC) to The Falls Church Anglican (TFCA) with a sense of deliverance from a difficult situation through renewed life "upon the rock of Christ" as represented by our new church building and by our church family.

The Rev. John Yates, during his 40 years of service, along with our other devoted clergy, successfully laid a solid foundation for us. Despite the prolonged disruptions of having to worship under different roofs, their combined leadership plus our shared faith in Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit bonded our congregants together. With Sam Ferguson as our new rector, our church family continues together to thrive and to minister in our new neighborhood. What follows is a testament to God’s faithfulness and provision and to prayers answered.

For those in our church family who lived through some or all these events, we hope this remembrance will serve as a catalyst refreshing old memories. Savor the memories, and be grateful. For those newer members of our church family, this remembrance will be more like reading a first-person history. And just like when we read and digest the accounts in Scripture of the faithfulness of God to His people throughout history, we hope these memories will become part of your own story. For we are all grafted into His story – the story of the God who has led us with rock-like faithfulness. And there is so much more to come!

Written by Carol Costello and Susan Ward

In his essay, “Meditation in a Toolshed,” C. S. Lewis described his experience of standing in a dark toolshed observing a sunbeam coming in through a crack in the door. He said he “was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.” Then he changed positions so that he was looking along the sunbeam. The whole picture changed. He was no longer seeing the toolshed or even the beam. A view through the crack in the door revealed green leaves swaying on a tree beyond the door, and beyond that, looking 93 million miles along the beam, the sun itself. Lewis concluded, “Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.”

In the process of saying goodbye to our beloved Falls Church buildings on East Fairfax Street, I found myself captivated by C. S. Lewis’ notion of seeing along the sunbeam. When I looked at our circumstances with an “at the beam” gaze, I saw roughly six million dollars (four million spent by the Diocese of Virginia and two million by The Falls Church Anglican) spent on litigation years, achieving only loss.

But looking along the beam, I saw Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans and Presbyterians (denominations that not too long ago would have been unlikely to reach out to a group of former Episcopalians) reach out to us with generosity to house our worship and ministries. A Baptist church in Arlington, having just completed a beautiful renovation, opened its space to our youth group. God was doing something in the larger body of Christ when denominations worked together in such a way. Not to mention that when we first left the Episcopal Church, our life boat was an African church body*—a church that had included slave-holders on its vestry early in its history was offered protection and a home by the continent from which those enslaved persons had been taken. Yet another example of God’s faithfulness and redemptive work.

We were led well, by John Yates, other clergy, and our vestry, who responded to each court ruling (whether victory or defeat) by planning services of praise and thanksgiving, by responding with Christ-like humility and restraint, by focusing on prayer and discerning the will of God, and even by continuing to send out clergy and parishioners to plant new churches. This is what it looks like to run the race set before us when we did not get to design the course. We were called to be our best selves, not to look back, and to refrain from grumbling during our time in the desert like the Israelites of old.

The late Virginia Watson, a great saint in our church family, once said that the major challenge for a Christian is how we respond to the parts of our stories that we would never have authored had we been the ones holding the pen. She walked a well-trod path of looking forward with hope and trusting God, and in doing so, she inspired countless of us in our church to aspire to do likewise. She used to set an alarm on her phone clock for noon every day to remind her to pray for the church lawsuit. When it was finally over, she said: “I am not looking back. My sails are set for adventure!”

Like Virginia, many parishioners chose to be open-handed in the face of uncertainty. Giving during our last two weeks at the property was over twice the normal level. People kept coming to our church, even though we had no buildings and no idea when or where we might once again be able to establish a permanent home. Our worship director, Simon Dixon and his wife Caryn left their lives, friends, and jobs in England to come across the pond to a church that was faced with losing its property, not in spite of that fact, but because of the adventure, trust, and faithfulness it represented. I watched people whose family memories were entirely tied to our former property leave with blessing for the new occupants and without bitterness.

At our last service in the main sanctuary, I had moments of sadness thinking about leaving the church in which our daughters were baptized, realizing they were unlikely to be confirmed or married in that physical space. But those “looking at the beam” moments were fleeting—my overwhelming emotion was one of gratitude for all that my family was given during our thirteen years on that property, and for the lessons we have learned through this experience that are worth more than gold. Our daughters who were then in middle school told us their main impression was the fact that our congregation has responded with trust and joy and faithfulness. I consider it a privilege that they have the chance to see first-hand what it means to continue to walk in faith in the face of disappointment.

C. S. Lewis talked about seeing along the beam. In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Paul gives us these encouraging words to exhort us to keep our eyes fixed not at our circumstances, but along the beam to the source of all light:

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

—Susan Ward

MEMORIES: Telling Our Story (2012-PRESENT)

All contributors are members of The Falls Church Anglican’s Personal History Writing Group.