Dear Christ Church Leaders,

I first want to thank you for your prayers and encouragement over the last few weeks. I am very thankful for the support of the vestry and congregation, and the support and confidence of my family. And, of course, I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I have had a few weeks to pray through and reflect on the decisions that our vestry has reached. We have had incredible support. I sense that we all feel released to do our mission. Praise God. You are the leadership base of our church and I want you to understand my heart and my head -- what I feel and what I think -- as we move forward.

First of all, as you may have read, I wrote a pastoral comment that might touch a great number of our members and their families. That brief essay appeared in the July 2 Homepage. If you missed it, you can read it here. Please feel free to send it to your friends and family. It is an important statement.

Secondly, I have come to a personal awareness of the Episcopal Church through all of this. For nearly two decades I had thought that the Episcopal Church was in denial. I imagined that if they could only see a church in action with a gospel witness and a biblical mission (and there are many such churches all around the country) they would reverse their course and begin to embrace this kind of ministry.

But over the last few weeks, I came to know that ECUSA has an agenda, a drive, a passion and a momentum all of its own. And this is primarily why I see that we couldn't go with them. They are headed in a direction that is wholly different than what Christ Church has been about for the last two decades. In fact, in hindsight, I see that the issues of disagreement are not primarily about human sexuality. Rather, they are about the mission and the message of the church. Let me explain...

Christ Church has always been a church "on mission". From the early meetings in living rooms around the city of Plano to the planning and sending of mission churches around us, we have been about mission. One of our first meetings was held in a living room in Plano in May of 1985. We prayed that God would multiply our congregation. I asked people to pray about a big number. We prayed to God to send at least 225 people to our opening service. We were blessed with 242! We were off. We saw God answer a prayer abundantly. He continues today! Today, we welcome thousands to the Christ Church campus each weekend for worship. We have nearly 1,000 adults in small groups and Bible studies!

Did you know that Christ Church has helped to plant two missions in the Diocese of Dallas? Faith Church in Allen and St. Philip's Church in Frisco are both plants and daughter churches originally seeded with Christ Church families. Did you know that Christ Church supports 10 full-time missionaries in the field? Did you know that we have over 600 children in Sunday School? That we send 100 kids to middle school camp? That by the end of 2006 we will have sent 13 teams on short term mission trips this year?

Our DNA is about mission. We have had a clear and focused mission from the beginning of our ministry. It is taken from the book of Matthew: Make disciples and teach them to obey the commands of Christ. (Matthew 28:18-19)

I have assessed the mission of the Episcopal Church and it is clear that they are going in another direction. Sometime in 2006, the 300 millionth citizen of the U.S. will be born. Our country has seen enormous population increases over the last few decades. Yet, during that time, the Episcopal Church has lost members and is losing its foothold in the American culture. ECUSA now has fewer than 800,000 attendees each week in their 7,200 churches. There are (on average) 37 pupils in an Episcopal Sunday School.

And I might add that in the middle of this unprecedented decline - and quite likely the cause of the decline - is that the church has been engaged in endless debates and conflicts about sex: sexual identities, sexual expressions, sexual lifestyles and sexual freedoms. And with this comes a whole package of teaching, theology and core convictions that have moved ECUSA outside the Christian mainstream. (Take a minute and click on some of these links. You will be amazed.)

It has been monotonous. And now as I look back on it, it has also been self-centered and very expensive. The 2006 General Convention cost around 10 million dollars! I have come to believe that the country does not need one more agency or institution demanding or defending sexual freedom. It needs a missionary church with a clear message about Jesus Christ and the Cross.

But it is not just the mission emphasis that is different. It is also the message. The message of the church is the energy that propels its people into the world to make disciples and teach them to obey the commands of Christ. Christ is the message. It is all about Christ: His work on the Cross, His life and teaching, the impact of His life upon the lives of all who follow Him, and His death and resurrection, ascension and coming Kingdom. The message of the Gospel is a message simply about what God has done in Christ. The church has no other point to make until that message is clearly understood and clearly proclaimed.

There were lots of opinions about Jesus in His own time. His work and wonders were well known. He could draw a crowd for a sermon and for lunch! People had interest and fascination with this teacher/healer from Nazareth. But Jesus never cared about being famous and well known, like a celebrity. He wanted to be known for who He truly was: the Son of God. Only after the disciples understood the true identity of Jesus Christ would they comprehend the purpose of His life. And, when Peter gets it right at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus then reveals the final outcome of His life: death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. (Matthew 16)

The point is very simple. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus gave His life for the sins of the whole world. No one comes to the Father except through the Son. (John 15) Or, put another way, "This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life, He who does not have the Son of God does not have life." (I John 5:11)

In an interview with Time magazine, the Presiding Bishop-elect was asked a question about the necessity of belief in Jesus for eternal life. Read and mark her answer to this question: "We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box." This is a different message than Jesus' message concerning Himself. (John 15) The Presiding Bishop-elect disagrees with Jesus. Her answer is incorrect at almost every level, but it is very revealing. She sees that Christianity is about a practice and not a person. Her metaphor of a "vehicle to the divine" actually reduces the Trinity down to a limited partnership between "the divine" who receives and Jesus who brings. It is a denial of the co-equal and co-eternal nature of the Trinity. (This "vehicle" language is totally foreign to Judeo-Christian teaching.) It is a different message.

These then are two key differences between where Christ Church is going and where the direction and agenda of the Episcopal Church is going. They are different ... stunningly different. And these differences are just the beginning of the divergence. When I think about the dichotomy of these two issues alone I realize that we have no other choice but the one we have chosen.

I sense a return of joy and excitement for the mission and message we bear. I see a path clearly ahead of us that I am committed to and energized by. The vestry and I are engaged in a process of due diligence with the Diocese of Dallas. We are supporting our bishop in his process of discernment, running up to the next Diocesan Convention in October. The vestry and I will continue to explore other options within the Anglican family of faith as well. But our journey now is a walk of faith, and to the best of my ability I will remain prayerful, obedient and transparent about what lies ahead.

Faithfully Yours in Christ,

P.S. You will notice that the "Episcopal" has been removed from our Legacy Drive signage this week. There may be a totally new sign erected in the weeks/months to come. The staff is working diligently to affect a complete name change to "Christ Church" but the process will take some time.

--The Rev. Canon David H. Roseberry is Rector of Christ Church, Plano, Texas.

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