The Diocese of Georgia made national news in 1990 as Christ the King entered the Episcopal Church in a historic liturgy in Valdosta. In the year before, The Rev. Stanley White, a fourth generation ordained minister in the Pentecostal church, approached Bishop Harry Shipps about the process required for him and his congregation to enter the Episcopal Church.
A Christianity Today article described the transition leading to that moment: “In the midst of rethinking evangelical worship, White became seized with what he calls an ‘ecumenical spirit.’ He studied Roman Catholicism as well as Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and other liturgical traditions. A friend gave him a copy of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, which White began using in his private devotions. Most important, he attended a liturgical church and felt a spiritual quickening. ‘I experienced God there,’ White says, his voice still registering astonishment several years after the event. ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen. It shocked me.’”
In the Episcopal Church, White could see the possibility for a church which was founded upon the strength of an ancient tradition and an exquisite liturgy, yet was powerfully enlivened by the Spirit, and reached out into the world with a passionate ecumenism.
White would later write of what animated the church he envisioned, “We have not worried so much about external style or external programs. Instead we have reconstructed our interval values to include things like compassion, inclusion, diversity, social justice, community, spirituality and spiritual practice, honor for science and reason, honor for other religious traditions, honor for doubters and those with questions, care for the environment, modest budgets and facilities, to be non-hierarchical and non-clerical and non-patriarchal thus honoring the dignity and wisdom of all people regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, educational level, financial means, or one’s politics.”
Bishop Shipps encouraged the move and the canonical process was begun. Shipps charged two nearby priests, the Rev. Jacoba Hurst of St. Anne’s in Tifton and the Rev. Henry Louttit of Christ Church in Valdosta, with preparing the pastor for ordination to the diaconate and priesthood, and the congregation for confirmation. Hurst described going before the commission on ministry to a Christianity Today reporter saying that feared he had ushered White into the seat of the scornful. “Some of these guys are rather hostile, dour clerics who don’t suffer fools gladly,” Hurst recalled. “They were reserved and cautious at first,” he said; but then something extraordinary happened: “There was the presence of God in that room.” He continued, “I couldn’t speak. It was like some kind of revival” noting several committee members were weeping.
On Easter Eve 1990, before a congregation of more than 800 persons and a 50 member choir and orchestra in the Church of the King in Valdosta, Bishop Shipps, with four neighboring bishops, confirmed 222 baptized persons from the formerly Pentecostal congregation. Stan was ordained as an Episcopal priest on June 9, 1991, on the birthday of his Grandmother White, who he described as an amazing Pentecostal preacher and pastor ahead of her time. The Very Rev. Stan White continued to lead Christ the King until his death in 2020. The congregation is now in the deliberate process which will lead to calling its second rector.
Pictured: (top) A Christianity Today cover story on Christ the King entering the Episcopal Church, and (bottom) the Rev. Stan White and Bishop Harry Shipps during the liturgy as the Rev. Jim Bullion looks on.
