The Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion is a community of churches around the world with historic ties to the Church of England (Anglican Church) who share a common tradition of worship and theology.
Today, the Anglican Communion comprises more than 80 million members in various Episcopal/Anglican churches around the world and the Archbishop of Canterbury acts as the spiritual head of the communion.
The Episcopal Church in the United States has its roots in the Church of England which was active in the thirteen American colonies. When the colonies won their independence, the majority of America’s Anglican clergy refused to swear allegiance to the British monarch and formed the Episcopal Church as the first independent Anglican province outside the British Isles.
While the word “Anglican” is used by several denominations in the US for various historical reasons, the Episcopal Church is the only member of the Anglican Communion in the United States.
The Episcopal Church
The Episcopal Church is a branch of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ with his Apostles. It is the province of the Anglican Communion in the United States, with missions across 16 other nations.
It is a universal or catholic church, continuing in the teaching, fellowship, sacramental worship and prayers according to the Apostolic tradition. It is a church of the Protestant Reformation, firmly rooted on the foundation of Holy Scripture.
It is a church which proclaims Christ crucified and resurrected. It is a church which strives to bring the grace and hope of the Gospel to every area of life.
As members of the Church, we are all ministers of the Gospel: representing Christ to this broken world, bearing witness to his love, leading others to faith, and carrying out the work of reconciliation.
We are led by a presiding bishop whose offices are at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City and whose seat (cathedra) is at the Washington National Cathedral.
The Episcopal Diocese of Ohio
St. Barnabas is part of the Diocese of Ohio, a community of more than 90 Episcopal churches in northern Ohio with offices in downtown Cleveland.
Being part of a diocese means being part of a community that prays for each other and supports one another. Forming strong relationships with other Christians helps us work toward Christ’s desire that “we all may be one.”
St. Barnabas has an especially strong relationship with St. Luke’s, Cleveland with whom we partner for various outreach ministries.
We are led by the Rt. Rev. Anne B. Jolly, the current Bishop of Ohio, whose seat is at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland.
Bellwether Farm
Bellwether Farm Camp, Retreat, and Education Center offers a model for sustainable living that promotes physical and spiritual wellness, fidelity to the environment, and social justice by incorporating farming, food production, and environmental stewardship into land-based educational programs for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Bellwether Farm, a collective project of the Diocese of Ohio located in Wakeman, Ohio, is bordered on three sides by the Vermilion River and offers exceptional and diverse opportunities for educational programming. The 137-acre property includes farmland, woodlands, meadows, hiking trails, picnic pavilions, playing fields, and a five-acre pond.
Parishioners at St. Barnabas regularly attend camp, volunteer, and participate in activities at Bellwether Farm.
TryTank
TryTank Experimental Laboratory is a lab for church innovation. It is a joint project between Virginia Theological Seminary and the General Theological Seminary. TryTank offers inventive approaches to the challenges facing the Episcopal Church. Their mission is to help the church innovate as a way of following the Holy Spirit. They deliver on that mission by focusing on these areas:
Learning: always learning from the real world
Innovation: trying new ways of being church
Leadership: create a culture of innovation in the Episcopal Church
Create Change: experiments lead to measurable change in some areas
St. Barnabas is TryTank’s first Regional Innovation Hub. We are committed to maintaining the beauty of our traditional Anglican worship while also eagerly seeking new and creative ways to engage our community in order to draw the world closer to God. We proudly use the tagline: “Ancient worship, modern thinking, radical inclusion.”
Church Clarity
Church Clarity is a crowd-sourced database of local congregations that are scored based on how clearly they communicate their actively enforced policies. This was founded in response to the reality that many churches fail to disclose their actively enforced policies on their websites. Can a woman preach? Will the church celebrate a same-sex wedding? Hire a gay pastor? Answers to these questions often remain elusive.
Ambiguity enables those with power to operate without accountability and cause real harm. Many people invest years of their lives into a church community, only to later discover the truth about the church’s policies, and end up feeling betrayed, deceived, and “bait-and-switched.”
St. Barnabas is pleased to be “verified clear” by Church Clarity as we unambiguously celebrate the gifts that God makes manifest in people of all genders, races, and sexual orientations.