In Search of Growth
In the heart of Waco, Texas, stands a stone church. On a pleasant corner lot, with its bell tower and rose window, the unsuspecting passerby might consider St. Alban’s a charming sight but lacking the ability to speak to today. Instead, through the Church’s traditions, St. Alban’s offers a crucial and relevant message of grace and forgiveness.
“St. Alban’s is traditional, but not stuffy,” said the Rev. Aaron Zimmerman, rector. “Stained glass can be intimidating, and church is often an anxious place for people, but it is important to remember that liturgy was made for man, not man for liturgy. … We take the gospel seriously, not ourselves.”
St. Alban’s is marked by “grace, humor, and creativity,” Zimmerman said. He added that the parish extends hospitality by “focusing on newcomers, committing to caring for people, knowing people’s names, and following up.”
St. Alban’s offers five opportunities for worship on Sundays, from Holy Communion with folk music to traditional choral Evensong. “Our liturgy is not innovative, but it is exciting,” Zimmerman said.
Each of the services draws from the prayer book. “For 99 percent of Americans, the Book of Common Prayer might as well be in Klingon,” Zimmerman said. St. Alban’s places a high priority on clarity and accessibility. “Every Sunday is somebody’s first Sunday and likely their first time using a prayer book. That is why we explain everything we do through rubrics. Do not assume people already know what words like Eucharist mean.”
St. Alban’s also stresses Thomas Cranmer’s Comfortable Words. “We want people to leave church feeling forgiven and free,” Zimmerman said. “Sometimes we do not hear the fullness of God’s forgiveness in the priestly absolution alone — it sounds too good to be true.”
Cranmer knew this, Zimmerman said, and thus included four scriptural examples of God’s mercy. “The message of grace lands with people,” Zimmerman said. “Our God isn’t a God who needs our help, or who judges us on the curve of grace, but instead God is a God who fully and truthfully offers us grace every day.”
For Zimmerman, this is why St. Alban’s can help people find healing and reconciling through God’s love.
Another way St. Alban’s shares the grace of God is through preaching. “The pulpit is a place for the proclamation of the gospel: that Jesus is a friend of sinners,” Zimmerman said. The goal at St. Alban’s is for every sermon to be “existentially and pastorally grounded and rooted in the text.”
Zimmerman added: “The sermon is also a place for humor, a place for people to feel welcome, and a place to remind people that we live in the same world as they do.
“People appreciate that our sermons do not linger in the political,” he said. “While there are times to talk about citizenship and policy, the sermon is not one of those times.”
This clarity and emphasis on grace attract people from many different backgrounds and traditions to St. Alban’s.
“From university and hospital administrators to plumbers, all sorts of people call St. Alban’s their spiritual home,” Zimmerman said.
In 2013, the year Zimmerman arrived at St. Alban’s, the average Sunday attendance was 150. Last spring, it was over 500. The parish’s annual budget has over quadruped since 2013.
“Although we have seen demographic growth across the board, from graduate students at Waco’s Baylor University, to grandparents, to young families, the commonality between all these groups has been that very few were Episcopalian before attending St. Alban’s,” Zimmerman said.
Weston Curnow, a recent Kansas University graduate, is a student at Duke Divinity School, preparing for ordination in the Diocese of Kansas.