The Diocese of Texas reports:
Three new church plants, which mark the first of seven envisioned by the end of 2020, will take root in early fall. Each reflects a response to the increasingly diverse Greater Houston population. In addition to a church plant in Generation Park, near Lake Houston in northeast Houston, the Diocese of Texas plans two churches that will focus on the Sudanese and Indian populations of Houston.
In the spring of 2016, the Greater Houston area became the first major city in the United States where the Anglo population was no longer a majority, leading a trend that will spread to the rest of the country by 2020. Dr. Stephen Klineberg, a sociologist and professor at Rice University, and primary architect of the survey, reported that Houston’s metro area is “the single most ethnically diverse urban region in the country.”
The three church plants in 2017 are part of the Diocese’s response to share God’s good news in Houston’s growing multi-cultural environment. Earlier in the year, the Diocese began to search for leadership with whom to partner in these new endeavors. Three priests shared their particular passion for the gospel as expressed in the Great Commission and, with the Diocese, have discerned three distinct church planting visions.
The Rev. Agook Kuol, ordained in the Church of Sudan, has been commissioned as missioner to lead a Sudanese congregation in Houston. The Rev. John Soard, most recently rector of St. Thomas, Wharton, will become vicar of the new church plant in Generation Park. The Rev. Roy Varghese, ordained by the Church of South India (CSI) and previously vicar of Holy Immanuel Anglican Church, a CSI congregation in Houston, will serve as vicar for a new church plant for Houston’s Indian population.
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
