We, the Uncommon in Communion: A Lay Woman’s Lament

Perspectives from a lay leader directly impacted by recent developments between ACNA and SJAFC.

By Danielle Shillingstad Adams

www.virtueonline.org

October 15, 2025

Three years ago, my husband and I walked into a stranger’s house with 3 kids, a piano, and a crockpot full of ziti to help out with a Sunday service targeted towards students at a local college and military families in the Virginia Beach area. Six weeks later, we left our local Anglican church, a place where we had been faithful members for five years, to help build what would become St. Alban’s Anglican Church. The mission of St. Alban’s called to us personally.

My husband and I found the ACNA when we were leaving the evangelical church in our college years, and I knew how deeply impactful it was to have a parish willing to care for me when I brought barely anything to the offering plate and not much more than baked beans for the monthly potluck. Among young individuals leaving the evangelical church, the harvest is plentiful, and the reapers are few. Most young, Protestant, evangelical Christians seeking a traditional, historic church are also hoping to remain in communion with those who faithfully raised them up in the way they should go. Few liturgical historic churches allow this, and none cares about catholicity or church polity the way Anglicans do. At its best, the Anglican tradition offers them a table where their family members are still welcome while providing a uniquely faithful expression of historic Christianity.

St. Alban’s fell under the JAFC due to affiliation of both our university chaplain and the (then) active-duty navy chaplain who served as the rector.  I valued the good counsel of both chaplains leading the mission and saw strong episcopal oversight that cared about orthodoxy. 

I stepped in wherever there were gaps to fill. My most unexpected role was being the church flower lady. We had no outside support - no stipends, funds, or even a roadmap telling us what the next step was as we grew. Yet we grew. The church has a group of over 50 students and families who meet and eat faithfully every Sunday, and we have as many young children as we do young adults. I have a seat on the Bishop’s Council and remain part of the lay leadership.

Two weeks ago, our fledgling parish became essentially homeless. With JAFC out of the ACNA, St. Alban’s somehow remained in both; the future is less than clear for our group. The parish met and grieved, not only for the rending of our communion and church, but alongside the families and chaplains who have come to call our church home.

Our community has leaned into each other, leaned into prayer, and leaned into personally caring for our clergy who are most affected by this.  At one time, we had 4 priests and 3 deacons with us on a given Sunday. To most people reading the news, these chaplains are people whom they will never meet as civilians. For us, they are faces and friends we worship with each week.  

Our clergy have given of their personal time and treasure to make church happen while continually defending the ACNA to parishioners frustrated by the lack of strong leadership willing to stand for orthodoxy. Our rector is a faithful servant of Christ who has led us well, and every parishioner I have spoken with has expressed the desire to have him continue to lead us. He regularly stands for and preaches to us that which is Good, True, and Beautiful.

So how do we reconcile the lived testimony and witness we have in the light our communion has cast our leadership in? The situation and facts are discordant. With St. Alban’s deep ties to the SJAFC, it feels like our mission and clergy have become radioactive stepchildren wandering around in a room, and none of the adults are willing to look us in the eye.

Yet this is not the larger problem. Our homelessness will end; I fully believe that the apparent fruit in our mission and its clergy will testify to the goodness of the work that has been set before us. We will find a diocese to call home that loves and cherishes the work we do and the people who do it.

The problem is the testimony our larger church is giving to the 20 young adults new to our communion, some of whom are postulants. These young people have come to the Anglican church at the cost of familial relationships and harmony.  I worry about the witness that my children are seeing, watching leaders blunder about for the sake of ego, acting in ways we would admonish them as parents.

What then do I say to the questions about the polity, catholicity, and constancy of our Anglican communion after these few weeks? Do I show them the vitriol on one side, or the silence on the other? The public statements? The emails?  The other sources that have voiced concerns about our leadership and gone unheeded… or worse yet… silenced? Is anyone who chooses not to be a sycophant to be deemed “fussy?”

I don’t seek to have a perfect church here on earth, but merely one that is willing to converse and acknowledge its faults. The leadership structure designed to facilitate this conversation has either silenced or inflamed it. Rather than serving as a beacon of unity and love, the College of Bishops has given laity a witness of division and confusion and leaving us with disillusionment. Instead of modeling Christ’s love and reconciliation, this season has unfortunately become an example of discord and strife.

We desire to continue in the communion from whence we came, but also to continue in orthodoxy. This becomes more difficult by the day with the ACNA. Those considered conservatives are quiet or chastised for speaking out while the organization remains silent of the consecration of a new female archbishop. We are becoming the uncommon voices in our communion.

I am thankful and continue to pray for God’s protection of the young hearts in our community. I pray for our bishops, and our clergy. It is a blessing that despite the personal hurt and separation and loss our own clergy has endured the past few weeks, they still pour themselves out to our flock. I am encouraged by them even as I have tried in the feeble ways I can to care for them in their hurt. May God bless them for this. I pray that as we discern where we will find communion, these are the priests whom the episcopate sees when we arrive, ones who love Christ, his church, and desire orthodoxy. No one ought to be judged poorly or penalized for striving to serve faithfully where God has called them.

Our Lord called us to be one so that the world may believe. Division and schism undermine our witness and make it harder for others to see Christ in us. What I have seen is that the work of Christ is alive and well at St. Alban’s Anglican Church, and for this I am richly blessed. Bishops, show us how to walk forward together.

With humility,

Mrs. Danielle Adams