1. Availability
In a desire to recapture and deepen the concept of connection to the life of the Church, we offer the option to develop an expanded parish as an expression of ministry.
2. Mission
The Expanded Parish provides a way to connect individuals who might rarely (or never) attend worship and other activities (for a variety of reasons) to be nourished by word, sacrament, and fellowship via contemporary means.
3. Formation
A cleric may drive the formation of the Expanded Parish, or people in a given area may petition for an existing ministry to be cared for under the Expanded Parish model, provided they are willing to make any structural changes necessary to align with the boundaries of practice enumerated in this chapter.
4. Model of Service
In the Expanded Parish model, a blend of technology and personal presence come together to enable full, active, and conscious participation of a wide array of individuals in a particular geographic area.
A. On all Sundays and Holy Days, the pastor shall celebrate the Holy Eucharist. The celebration is offered via a means that is inclusive of in-person and remote attendance, such as streaming the Liturgy via a video-conferencing platform (preferred) and/or through an Internet video service (such as YouTube or Vimeo).
B. Members of the Expanded Parish tune in – either live (if video conferencing) or at their convenience to participate in the Liturgy.
C. Each household associated with the Expanded Parish is visited on a rotation (quarterly is suggested). In that ministry encounter, the pastor resupplies (preferably from the Eucharist consecrated during the visit) the household’s supply of the Eucharist to provide for all anticipated needs across the quarter.
D. Each household maintains a reverent area in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in a dignified container. This area, ideally, includes other religious articles and a table or shelf. A candle (battery powered is fine) is kept burning to signify the Eucharistic presence.
E. When those receiving the Sacrament in person do so, the household is communed from the Reserved Eucharist in their home.
F. Significant events, such as baptisms, confirmations, bishop’s visitations, marriages, burials, etc. should be situations where the whole community comes together and worships in one location to the extent possible.
G. Clerics serving in pastoral roles should determine a radius from their location in which they will accept members. This can be based on mileage, transit time, contiguous zip codes, or another method that is systematic and transparent.
H. A principal Oratory may be designated for the Expanded Parish. Unless that location is a public one that is serving a defined congregation though, the weekly Liturgy should be celebrated at least some of the time in member homes. These celebrations should be streamed, just as a celebration from the principal Oratory would be.
What many do not realize is that the heights of regular attendance in the American Church were largely the effect of The Great Awakening. Before this revival of religious fervor in the American colonies (together with similar revivals in other lands) in the 1730’s, religious engagement was widely governed by compulsion and mitigated by the obligations of daily life and the distances many had to travel to attend worship. A famous witness to this is the Jean-François Millet painting The Angelus, in which farmers in the field (with a town in the distance) pause to pray as the church bells ring signaling the beginning of the evening’s round of prayers.