Episcopal Church Foundation Vital Practices

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Beginnings

By Alex Montes-Vela

As laughter and conversation filled the cafeteria of Manor High School in Manor, Texas, I couldn’t believe we had finally made the move. The nursery and children’s chapel areas were ready to go, the screen and projector were in place, the altar was set up, the musicians were warmed up, and a large banner at the entrance proclaimed, “Bienvenidos/Welcome to St. Mary Magdalene.” In twenty minutes our first public worship service would begin. I called the entire St. Mary Magdalene launch team, including children and youth, to gather in a circle. I asked the visitors, who had come from my home church in Houston to support us, to lay their hands on each of the members of St. Mary Magdalene. Then, I began to pray.

Beginnings

Seven months earlier, in January 2010, two families and mine met in my living room. I told them about the plan and dream for a new multi-ethnic Episcopal community in the Manor area called St. Mary Magdalene. As I said goodbye and closed the door behind them that morning, I was relieved that we had finally gotten started. It had been a long road.

In late 2007, the then Bishop of Texas, Don Wimberly, pulled me aside during a clergy conference and asked if I would be interested in planting a church in Manor, a town northeast of Austin. I quickly answered, “Yes!” Of course, I didn’t truly know what I was getting myself (or my family) into. I didn’t know, or had ever heard of, Manor, Texas (or that it was pronounced “maynor”). However, I knew that I had been called to plant a church at some point in my life.

My Story

During my first semester at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, I took a class that included an assignment to visit four Episcopal churches in the area and write a reflection on the experience. It was in one of these visits that my family and I entered the doors of a storefront church: the Church of the Spirit in Kingstowne, Virginia. A smiling, bald, leather-vest-wearing, guy warmly greeted us. “This is different,” I said to myself. Not your typical greeter at an Episcopal church. That Sunday service included visual media, secular music, and a message that was relevant and practical. What we found was a welcoming community whose mission was to help those seeking to find and experience the risen Christ. I was intrigued.

When the time came for me to find a place to do my field education, I applied to Church of the Spirit and spent two years there. During this time I learned more about the concept of church planting from the Rev. Roger Schellenberg and my call to plant a church began to emerge.

Setback 

It was mid August 2008 and we were ready to move from Waco, Texas to Manor when I got the call from our realtor telling us of a problem with the title of the house we were buying. It would take an additional two weeks before we could move into the house. We told ourselves: “We can adjust.” A couple of weeks at a hotel shouldn’t be that bad for all six of us: my wife, my two teenage daughters, my two dogs a Shih Tzu and a Chihuahua, and me.

Well, it was more than twelve weeks, and a new house search. We really got to know each other in our one bedroom, two-bed, extended stay hotel room. And no, the maids didn’t come every day to make our beds and clean our room. They came once a week. It was awkward for our daughters when their new classmates would ask them, “So, where do you live?” This was not how I had imagined this church planting experience would begin. Nevertheless, in the end, we moved into a house in a neighborhood central to our target area and closer to my daughters’ schools.

Iglesia Episcopal San Francisco de Asis

Fast-forward some months into 2009. As I got to know the Manor area, I became a member of the Manor Lions Club and the Manor Chamber of Commerce, got involved in the school district as a mentor for elementary students, and was visiting the Episcopal churches in the Austin area. I would also supply from time to time for the interim vicar of a Spanish-speaking congregation in southwest Austin, Iglesia Episcopal San Francisco de Asis (SFA). This priest was the director of a large Episcopal social service provider that shared its campus with SFA, and while the search for a new vicar was ongoing, he was taking on the Sunday responsibilities.

The week before Palm Sunday I got a call from the diocesan office that this priest had resigned and they needed me to step in and supply until a new vicar was called. I thought this would be for a couple of months, but my time there extended until early December 2009. During those months my concentration shifted to SFA, to help the congregation reorganize, become healthy, and take them through the process of calling a new vicar. It was a great experience. Not only did my family and I find a community of faith, it also gave me the experience and tools I needed to plant the church in Manor. It was also at SFA that I met one of the families that would be sitting in my living room in January 2010 starting this new community called St. Mary Magdalene.

Moving Day

In May 2010, I set Sunday, August 1, 2010, as the day we would move to a public space: the Manor High School cafeteria. I felt that our growth had topped (we were 25 adults and children) at my home, and that the only way to continue our growth and answer our call to be a multi-ethnic community, was to move from my home to a public and neutral space.

But the journey from my home to that cafeteria was filled with challenges and disappointments in the lives of this young, emerging community. I’ll share some of them in my next update. Suffice to say, however that I would wake up in the middle of the night and question if I could really begin this church with these people that God had put in my path. However, as August 1 neared, the answer was “yes.” God worked miracles in the lives of each of the members of St. Mary Magdalene, and all I could do was be grateful to God and be amazed as I saw each of them holding hands in a circle as we prepared for our first worship service, their faces excited and smiling. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling as I began to pray, and give thanks to God for each of those who had become part of St. Mary Magdalene and for our journey together, and asked God for strength and wisdom for the work ahead of us.

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Bienvenidos: A New Church in Manor, Texas
By Alex Montes-Vela

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