by Elizabeth & David Corey
In a scientific experiment, causal agents can be isolated and studied. Life outside the lab is typically more messy. This is particularly true in the religious world. Who really knows, after all, why some people go to church and others do not, or why some churches grow while others decline? It's all quite mysterious.
But sometimes situations arise in which causal connections are laid bare, as if nature herself meant to conduct an experiment. This seems to be the case with the story of our church, Our Lady of the Lake, Laguna Park, Texas. Despite all odds, it’s growing, and the reason for this is simply unmistakable.
Laguna Park, Texas is a faded vacation spot on the shores of Lake Whitney, an Army Corps of Engineers reservoir in the central part of the state. The area looks generally run-down, and it can boast no architecturally interesting Texas courthouse or historic main street. The Lake Edge Motor Inn and the Cliffview Resort advertise themselves as tourist destinations, but neither is thriving. A few convenience stores and gas stations dot the main highway.
The nearest city of any size is Waco, about forty-five minutes’ drive across the rolling prairies and scrubland of central Texas. This landscape would have all the charm in the world if it were southern France, which it resembles, but there are no Michelin-starred restaurants here—only Black Angus cattle, hay bales, and windmills. Still, the land has a certain beauty. Brutally hot summers and gray winters give way in the spring to Texas bluebonnets and, by early June, to glorious purple and orange wildflowers. Though the landscape is in constant flux, beauty seems to prevail every year.
Like the landscape of the area, The Anglo-Catholic church of Our Lady is in flux. The entire diocese of Fort Worth, led by Bishop Jack Iker, withdrew from The Episcopal Church USA in 2008. Our Lady of the Lake then became a mission under the aegis of the Anglican Church of North America. Currently, The Episcopal Church is suing the Fort Worth diocese for all its property and actively subverting its mission by establishing shadow churches of its own alongside traditional parishes. If the Texas Supreme Court rules in favor of The Episcopal Church, Our Lady will be without a building for worship.
Despite this institutional turmoil, though, Our Lady of the Lake is thriving. Sunday services have begun to draw more and more curious visitors from around the area, many of whom eventually join the congregation. There are now as many children as adults in the pews, a sure sign of growth. But the place itself has little of what ostensibly appeals to modern sensibilities: it offers no extensive children’s ministry, no “life groups,” or professional music; no particular aesthetic beauty or impressive buildings—and certainly not prestige or convenience. One wonders, then, what accounts for the increasing contingent of people from nearby Baylor University and elsewhere who are willing to commit to the cross-country drive. Why undertake such a pilgrimage?
The priest of Our Lady, Father Michael Heidt, is the antithesis of everything typical in a Texas pastor. Most positively radiate friendliness and informality. Father Michael, by contrast, is reserved. Raised in England and educated at St. Stephen’s House, Oxford, he speaks with an accent and sounds erudite. He comes from a family of clergy—his father, John Heidt, having spent a career in the United States and England as a canon lawyer and Anglo-catholic priest. Church legend has it that as children Father Michael and his brother used to hone their skills by engaging in “homily contests” with their father—extemporaneous speaking on the day’s readings. The practice produced a strong and incisive homilist, but not the kind of warm sentimentalist we’ve come to expect from American seminaries.
Nor does Father Michael seem to harbor any hopes of advancement or special recognition as a priest. He makes a meager living, drives an old pickup truck without air-conditioning, and seems to care only for ministering well to the particular souls God has put in front of him. He is not vying for bishop. He does, however, have a passion for guns and horses, a fact which makes the area a congenial place for him to live. At Our Lady, men and women alike show up at Sunday services in cowboy boots, and nearly everyone has some association with horses. The church’s Senior Warden is a former winner of the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association World Championships, and she and her husband run a cattle brokerage from their ranch just down the road.
Virtually the only thing Our Lady has to offer—something increasingly hard to find today—is its orthodox liturgy and worship. And like so much else in Texas, this is offered utterly without pretense. Father Michael reminds us that we are part of the Catholic tradition, that our church has no doctrine of its own to boast, except the Catholic doctrine of the Catholic Church enshrined in the Creeds and enacted without addition or diminution.
But people are evidently eager to hear this. Many of the church’s visitors and new members are seekers of one kind or another, often disaffected Protestants looking for something more permanent and liturgical than their religious backgrounds can offer. Others are spiritually unformed but intellectually sophisticated (not to say jaded)—like Augustine when he arrived in Milan, unable to believe that the Christian faith could be preached eloquently and with integrity. They are shocked at what they find. Some homilies are simply exegesis of scripture, typologically relating the Old Testament passages to the New, or providing a spiritual interpretation of a parable. Others are restatements of basic patristic thought about Christian doctrine—the more striking for their foreignness to most of us.
All in all there is a freshness and vitality that derives from the patent unoriginality of the service. Without ever invoking nostalgia, the rite feels connected to the roots of the faith. One visitor, who would later become a member of Our Lady put it this way. He said, “The whole experience here reminds me of something. It reminds me of . . . Christianity.”
That indeed is virtually all Our Lady has to offer. And yet it seems all the more powerful for its stark simplicity, as if it needs no accoutrement. Scripture, creed and sacraments: these are the essential foundations of our faith. And thus, characteristically, after an exegesis Father Michael will simply say, “So there it is.” The phrase has become something of a slogan for many of us in the parish for what we have been seeking from the start—something we did not create and do not control.
Of course the danger in coming to love a church, like loving anything in the world, is that we fear to lose it. Since the lawsuit continues to menace us, this is not a remote possibility. And people, like the members of this parish, who desire to conserve a place of worship or a tradition tend to be especially sensitive to loss. For while others may embrace change and hope for constant “improvement,” traditionalists are acutely aware of what they already possess and would rather not be deprived of it. They see, with Pope Benedict, that our world (not an imagined future world) is something positive. “It is good, despite all the evil in it and despite all the sorrow, and it is good to live in it.” And so we wait to hear the outcome of the lawsuit, wondering what will happen to the church and the diocese, but in the meantime continuing in our ancient tradition of worship, as we grow.
But why do we grow? Reflecting back on the description above, one is struck by the radical improbability of a blossoming Christian community in remote Laguna, Park, Texas. But then again, there seems to be a lesson here for all those churches that try so hard (and fail) to “sell a product.” Because it does not offer convenience, a long roster of events, a“music team,” multiple services, singles’ nights, etc., and yet it grows, there must be something in what Our Lady does offer that is permanently and profoundly valuable.
It could be nothing else but the doctrines of the Catholic and apostolic church straightforwardly expounded. People desire—or so it appears—to hear something else besides their own fads and fancies echoed back to them from the pulpit. They desire to hear that the gospel message is true, even if it demands concrete and difficult actions from us: self-sacrifice and charity.
Indeed, as things currently seem from the vantage point of this unexpected quasi-scientific experiment in church life, if the message is true, no accoutrement is necessary. If it is not, no accoutrement can compensate. And so there it is.
In a scientific experiment, causal agents can be isolated and studied. Life outside the lab is typically more messy. This is particularly true in the religious world. Who really knows, after all, why some people go to church and others do not, or why some churches grow while others decline? It's all quite mysterious.
But sometimes situations arise in which causal connections are laid bare, as if nature herself meant to conduct an experiment. This seems to be the case with the story of our church, Our Lady of the Lake, Laguna Park, Texas. Despite all odds, it’s growing, and the reason for this is simply unmistakable.
Laguna Park, Texas is a faded vacation spot on the shores of Lake Whitney, an Army Corps of Engineers reservoir in the central part of the state. The area looks generally run-down, and it can boast no architecturally interesting Texas courthouse or historic main street. The Lake Edge Motor Inn and the Cliffview Resort advertise themselves as tourist destinations, but neither is thriving. A few convenience stores and gas stations dot the main highway.
The nearest city of any size is Waco, about forty-five minutes’ drive across the rolling prairies and scrubland of central Texas. This landscape would have all the charm in the world if it were southern France, which it resembles, but there are no Michelin-starred restaurants here—only Black Angus cattle, hay bales, and windmills. Still, the land has a certain beauty. Brutally hot summers and gray winters give way in the spring to Texas bluebonnets and, by early June, to glorious purple and orange wildflowers. Though the landscape is in constant flux, beauty seems to prevail every year.
Like the landscape of the area, The Anglo-Catholic church of Our Lady is in flux. The entire diocese of Fort Worth, led by Bishop Jack Iker, withdrew from The Episcopal Church USA in 2008. Our Lady of the Lake then became a mission under the aegis of the Anglican Church of North America. Currently, The Episcopal Church is suing the Fort Worth diocese for all its property and actively subverting its mission by establishing shadow churches of its own alongside traditional parishes. If the Texas Supreme Court rules in favor of The Episcopal Church, Our Lady will be without a building for worship.
Despite this institutional turmoil, though, Our Lady of the Lake is thriving. Sunday services have begun to draw more and more curious visitors from around the area, many of whom eventually join the congregation. There are now as many children as adults in the pews, a sure sign of growth. But the place itself has little of what ostensibly appeals to modern sensibilities: it offers no extensive children’s ministry, no “life groups,” or professional music; no particular aesthetic beauty or impressive buildings—and certainly not prestige or convenience. One wonders, then, what accounts for the increasing contingent of people from nearby Baylor University and elsewhere who are willing to commit to the cross-country drive. Why undertake such a pilgrimage?
The priest of Our Lady, Father Michael Heidt, is the antithesis of everything typical in a Texas pastor. Most positively radiate friendliness and informality. Father Michael, by contrast, is reserved. Raised in England and educated at St. Stephen’s House, Oxford, he speaks with an accent and sounds erudite. He comes from a family of clergy—his father, John Heidt, having spent a career in the United States and England as a canon lawyer and Anglo-catholic priest. Church legend has it that as children Father Michael and his brother used to hone their skills by engaging in “homily contests” with their father—extemporaneous speaking on the day’s readings. The practice produced a strong and incisive homilist, but not the kind of warm sentimentalist we’ve come to expect from American seminaries.
Nor does Father Michael seem to harbor any hopes of advancement or special recognition as a priest. He makes a meager living, drives an old pickup truck without air-conditioning, and seems to care only for ministering well to the particular souls God has put in front of him. He is not vying for bishop. He does, however, have a passion for guns and horses, a fact which makes the area a congenial place for him to live. At Our Lady, men and women alike show up at Sunday services in cowboy boots, and nearly everyone has some association with horses. The church’s Senior Warden is a former winner of the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association World Championships, and she and her husband run a cattle brokerage from their ranch just down the road.
Virtually the only thing Our Lady has to offer—something increasingly hard to find today—is its orthodox liturgy and worship. And like so much else in Texas, this is offered utterly without pretense. Father Michael reminds us that we are part of the Catholic tradition, that our church has no doctrine of its own to boast, except the Catholic doctrine of the Catholic Church enshrined in the Creeds and enacted without addition or diminution.
But people are evidently eager to hear this. Many of the church’s visitors and new members are seekers of one kind or another, often disaffected Protestants looking for something more permanent and liturgical than their religious backgrounds can offer. Others are spiritually unformed but intellectually sophisticated (not to say jaded)—like Augustine when he arrived in Milan, unable to believe that the Christian faith could be preached eloquently and with integrity. They are shocked at what they find. Some homilies are simply exegesis of scripture, typologically relating the Old Testament passages to the New, or providing a spiritual interpretation of a parable. Others are restatements of basic patristic thought about Christian doctrine—the more striking for their foreignness to most of us.
All in all there is a freshness and vitality that derives from the patent unoriginality of the service. Without ever invoking nostalgia, the rite feels connected to the roots of the faith. One visitor, who would later become a member of Our Lady put it this way. He said, “The whole experience here reminds me of something. It reminds me of . . . Christianity.”
That indeed is virtually all Our Lady has to offer. And yet it seems all the more powerful for its stark simplicity, as if it needs no accoutrement. Scripture, creed and sacraments: these are the essential foundations of our faith. And thus, characteristically, after an exegesis Father Michael will simply say, “So there it is.” The phrase has become something of a slogan for many of us in the parish for what we have been seeking from the start—something we did not create and do not control.
Of course the danger in coming to love a church, like loving anything in the world, is that we fear to lose it. Since the lawsuit continues to menace us, this is not a remote possibility. And people, like the members of this parish, who desire to conserve a place of worship or a tradition tend to be especially sensitive to loss. For while others may embrace change and hope for constant “improvement,” traditionalists are acutely aware of what they already possess and would rather not be deprived of it. They see, with Pope Benedict, that our world (not an imagined future world) is something positive. “It is good, despite all the evil in it and despite all the sorrow, and it is good to live in it.” And so we wait to hear the outcome of the lawsuit, wondering what will happen to the church and the diocese, but in the meantime continuing in our ancient tradition of worship, as we grow.
But why do we grow? Reflecting back on the description above, one is struck by the radical improbability of a blossoming Christian community in remote Laguna, Park, Texas. But then again, there seems to be a lesson here for all those churches that try so hard (and fail) to “sell a product.” Because it does not offer convenience, a long roster of events, a“music team,” multiple services, singles’ nights, etc., and yet it grows, there must be something in what Our Lady does offer that is permanently and profoundly valuable.
It could be nothing else but the doctrines of the Catholic and apostolic church straightforwardly expounded. People desire—or so it appears—to hear something else besides their own fads and fancies echoed back to them from the pulpit. They desire to hear that the gospel message is true, even if it demands concrete and difficult actions from us: self-sacrifice and charity.
Indeed, as things currently seem from the vantage point of this unexpected quasi-scientific experiment in church life, if the message is true, no accoutrement is necessary. If it is not, no accoutrement can compensate. And so there it is.