2026 Mission Retreat

Hosted by the Diocese of the Holy Trinity, third biennial retreat for promoting evangelism and mission in the Continuing church was held October 12-14, 2026. The retreat had 27 participants from three Continuing jurisdictions: Anglican Catholic Church (including clergy formerly in the Anglican Church in America), the Anglican Province of America and the Anglican Province of Christ the King. The Reformed Episcopal Church was also represented.

As with the 2024 retreat and 2022 retreat, the 2026 retreat was held over two days and held at the Montserrat Retreat House in Lake Dallas, Texas. In addition to shared worship, meals and fellowship, it further developed the Remnant Mission concept through four plenary sessions on the retreat themes of hospitality, spiritual formation and mission.

I. The Interdependence of Vibrant Spirituality and Biblical Hospitality (Bp. Stephen Scarlett, Diocese of the Holy Trinity)

In his keynote, Bishop Scarlett argued that biblical hospitality is the fruit of a church’s life of prayer. Drawing on Martin Thornton, he called parishes to focus ministry on the Remnant: those willing to embrace a life of prayer and to focus on their own sins. At St. Matthew’s, that reorientation came through spiritual direction and the Pastoral Ministry program, a series of year-long classes in prayer and in spiritual and emotional growth. Without such formation, hospitality digresses into sales and marketing. With it, parishes receive one another as Christ received us and welcome the stranger as a bearer of God’s image, listening before they talk.

II. Parish Testimonies: Hospitality as a Central Mode of Mission (Fr. Kevin Craik, St. Thomas, Fullerton; Fr. Nicholas Harrelson, St. Benedict’s, Chapel Hill)

This panel discussed practical implementation of hospitality. Both clergy described hospitality as a matter of people, not resources. In his turnaround at St. Benedict’s, Fr. Nicholas took a parish that only did liturgy and built community through a coffee hour, a fellowship luncheon and monthly gatherings. From planting St. Thomas, Fr. Kevin emphasized hospitality as an attitude rather than menu or gathering space. Both priests stressed listening: learning a visitor’s name, inviting him to coffee, and starting with where people actually are. Both also said the work begins with the priest, who must first attend to his own interior life.

III. How Spiritual Direction and Friendship Enable Hospitality (Canon Steven Dart, Christ Anglican, Carefree; Fr. Andrew Harrah, St. Alban’s, Peoria; Fr. Hayden Butler, St. Matthew’s, Newport Beach)

This panel emphasized spiritual formation of the congregation. Canon Dart described leading parishioners through an adaptation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: an hour of prayer daily for six months, which leaves them wholly given to Christ. Fr. Harrah presented Ignatius’s rules for the discernment of spirits, emphasizing the rule to never make a change in a time of spiritual desolation. Drawing on Aelred of Rievaulx, Fr. Hayden described Christian friendship as a willingness to be an instrument of another’s sanctification. A culture of such friendship, he said, creates the space from which a parish reaches those not yet near.

IV. Parish Administration and Website: Two Faces of Parish Hospitality (Ashley Stanley, St. Mary’s, Denver; Jill Marion, St. Thomas, Fullerton; Matt Lacoff-Roberts, St. Matthew’s, Newport Beach)

The final panel looked at administration and communications as the initial face of parish hospitality, with three lay DHT participants who previously completed the DHT’s Pastoral Ministry program. Two parish administrators, Jill and Ashley, described the parish office as a front door, where kindness, patience and clear logistics make a parish calm and welcoming. Matt said a parish website should speak mainly to people who don’t yet know the parish, answering the questions they are actually asking; its call to action should be to contact the rector. Bishop Scarlett warned that a priest who does everything condemns himself to a church where he does everything.

Photos

Contact Bp. Scarlett