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Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana Archives

St. Alban's, Fort Wayne, Bishop Little and confirmands, 4 Dec 2011

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St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Fort Wayne
As early as the late 1940s, the leadership of Trinity Episcopal Church in Fort Wayne had considered the possibility of missionary expansion. The Rev. George B. Wood, who became Trinity's rector in 1947, was surprised that a city the size of Fort Wayne had only a single Episcopal church. After constructing a major new educational wing addition to the downtown church in 1956, Trinity's vestry began to turn its attention to founding a mission as other churches in the diocese were doing at that time. In 1960, the vestry purchased a tract of seven and a half acres at the corner of St. Joe and Flutter roads. Wood and the vestry had determined that this first parochial mission would be located in the northeastern section of the city where new residential growth was expected. In September 1961, the Rev. John B. Hills, the Director of Christian Education at Trinity, accepted the call to become the new vicar of the mission, which was named St. Alban’s. An organizational meeting held at Trinity on January 28, 1962, drew sixty-one people. Wood encouraged those parishioners who lived on the north side of Fort Wayne to support the venture.
On February 4, 1962, the church held its first service in temporary quarters at the Bojrab Club House, 5258 Lahmeyer Road. There were 35 families present: 114 individuals of whom 58 were children.The clubhouse remained the church's home until May 5, 1963. For many years afterward St. Alban's held an annual birthday celebration on the first Sunday in February to commemorate the church's founding.

The first vicar's committee appointed by Father Hills met in January 1962 and included Richard C. Matz, Earle Rabus, Darrell B. Hedrick and John L. Diver. Hills further appointed Gertrude Miller as director of the Altar Guild; Bernard Lewis as Acolyte Warden; and Anne Miller as president of the Women’s Guild. William Smith conducted chapel for the kindergarten. Further appointments included Robert Belcher as superintendent of the church school; George Fuzy as director of the Mens’ Club; and Douglas and Irene Lewis and Nancy Miller as advisors to St. Alban’s Youth groups. Maurice Bonjour headed the ushers, while John Diver became Property Chairman.
Ground breaking for St. Alban’ s Church, located at 8840 St. Joe Road, took place on November 7, 1962. The contemporary-designed church would have a nave that seated 170. The building was completed in May 1963 at a cost of $114,672, and the congregation held held its first service on May 5. Members joined in a procession from the clubhouse with cars loaded with everything that was used for worship. Fr. Hills led the procession driving his red Volkswagen with the processional cross protruding from its sunroof. The cornerstone laying ceremony for the finished church took place on May 10. A time capsule was placed in a copper box that contained a number of mementos, including a stone from the original St. Alban’s Church in England.
By 1964, the congregation had doubled in size with eighteen confirmands that year. In the spring the church built a vicarage at a cost of $25,000. Later that year, Hills married Gwen Hughes, a Fort Wayne native. He resigned the post the following year and moved to Michigan. As a mission of Trinity, the first six clergy at St. Alban’s were all hired by Trinity's rector, which irritated the mission's congregation. The Rev. Rob Roy Rhudy, an alcoholic, had a troubled tenure as vicar in 1965 and was removed by Father Wood early the following year. In 1969, Trinity changed its bylaws to assure that the congregation of St, Alban's would have at least one representative on the vestry, and that person would serve a three-year term.
With the congregation continuing to grow, a group of worshipers circulated a petition for enlarging the church school in February 1970. Signed by sixty-two families, it was presented to the vicar's committee under the leadership of the Rev. Larry Smellie, who had become vicar three years earlier. The committee agreed to form an expansion fund and purchased two mobile trailers for five hundred dollars each to serve as extra classrooms. On February 7, 1971, Bishop Klein consecrated St. Alban’s to signify the end of its indebtedness. Wood announced that the mortgages on both the church and the vicarage were paid. The church had tripled in size by this time and now numbered 112 families. Smellie, who enjoyed a successful pastorate, resigned in September 1971.
The Rev. William Martin supplied through February 1972, and in March, the Rev. Robert Howell Anderson was appointed St. Alban’s new vicar by the Rev. Corydon Randall, Trinity’s new rector. Anderson, Randall's former professor of Homiletics at Yale, was a volunteer fireman and became chaplain of the St. Joe Township Fire Department. He died suddenly of a heart attack while on duty as a fireman on November 1,1972. A month later the Rev. Kenneth Williams, an associate rector at Trinity, was appointed St. Alban’s new vicar.
At the beginning of the following year St. Alban’s hired a fund raising company to launch a capital campaign for the church school. By May, Williams reported having collected $110,000 out of an estimated $234,000 needed. In the meantime, Brookside Evangelical Mennonite Church at 7308 St. Road listed for sale its property and building for $190,000. The vicar's committee determined that buying the Brookside church was a better option than adding on to the existing church. This plan received the approval of Trinity’s vestry, and the moving date was scheduled for September 1974. The congregation borrowed $200,000 for the new mortgage and $40,000 for improvements. The old facility was sold to the Church of the Brethren on September 17, 1974. for $147,000. St. Alban’s moved again and received the welcome of the Mennonite minister, the Rev. Loren Pine. The procession to the new St. Alban’s was led by Bishop Sheridan, clergy, vicar’s committee, and the combined choirs and the congregations of the three Episcopal altars of Fort Wayne.
During the term of the sixth vicar, the Rev. Todd Smelser, St. Alban’s became an independent parish. The 80th Diocesan Convention in 1978 voted to grant St. Alban’s individual parish status in the diocese. Smelser, the former vicar. became the first rector on February 2, 1979 and proved extremely popular. In the fall of that year St. Alban’s hosted the 81st Diocesan Convention. Smelser accepted another call in 1981, and the parish extended a call to the Rev. William Martin as rector. Martin suffered from poor health and served from 1982 until his death in 1986. He was followed by Harold "Skip" Comer, a seminarian who had been raised up in the diocese, who served as rector from 1985 to 1998. He was followed by the Rev. Martin B. Lavengood from 1998 to 2000 and the Rev. Lloyd Johnson from 2001 to 2006.
The Rev. Daniel K. Layden became its seventh rector in 2007 and served until 2018. For many years the parish has hosted one of the food banks for Associated Churches. The congregation of St. Alban’s, a caring group of Christians, strives through worship, education, and outreach programs to be a light of God’s love in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Clergy:

John Bigelow Hills, 1962-1965
Rob Roy Rhudy, 1965-1966
Larry Gene Smellie, 1967-1971
William Evans Martin (int.), 1971-1972
Robert Howell Anderson, 1972
William Kenneth Williams, 1972-1976
Todd Dudley Smelser, 1976-1981
Raymond E. Dage, 1981-1982
William Evans Martin, 1982-1986
Harold Leroy Comer, 1986-1998
James L. Nodwick (int.), 1998
Martin B, Lavengood, 1998-2000
Edgar B. Parrott (int.), 2000-2001
Lloyd W. Johnson, 2001-2006
Margaret Harker (int.), 2006-2007
Daniel K. Layden, 2007-2018
Michael Roeske, 2020-
Adapted from St. Alban's website: https://saintalbanfw.org/history-2/
Edward Stuart Little II, Seventh Bishop Edward Stuart Little, the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Northern Indiana, held office at a time of intense changes in the national church. An outstanding preacher, he brought an evangelical zeal for the Gospel that ushered in a new leadership style for the diocese. As Linda Buskirk has written, Bishop Little personified "the lighthouse on the diocesan seal" and "delivered powerful messages that illuminate priorities for Christ centered living and ministry."

Little was born in New York City on 29 January 1947, the son of a nominally Episcopalian father and Jewish mother. He grew up agnostic and attended school in Manhattan and Norwalk, Connecticut. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California in 1968. He credits a college class on the Bible as literature as bringing about his conversion to Christianity and his joining the Episcopal Church. The same year of his graduation he married Sylvia Gardner at Palm Desert, California. They had two children: Gregory and Sharon.

After deciding to enter the Episcopal priesthood, Little received a Master of Divinity degree from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in 1971 and was ordained a deacon and priest that same year in the Diocese of Chicago. He served as a curate in two parishes: St. Matthew's Evanston and St. Michael's, Anaheim, California, before becoming vicar of St. Joseph's Episcopal Church in Buena Park, California. When that church achieved parish status, he became its first rector. Little became rector of All Saints Church in Bakersfield, California, in 1986, and from here he was elected bishop on the first ballot on 5 November 1999.

Little was consecrated bishop at a ceremony in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame on 30 April 2000, with Bishops Gray and Sheridan, his two predecessors, among the consecrators. His sixteen-year episcopate that followed might best be understood as defined by three distinct eras: The Mission and Evangelism era lasting from 2000 to 2003; the Reconciliation Era from 2003 to 2007, and the Congregational Development Era from 2007 to 2016.

The initial focus of Little's tenure was mission and evangelism. At the time of his seating as bishop, he articulated four core values for the diocese that he hoped would guide it during his episcopate:
1. A passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ
2. A heart for the lost.
3. A willingness to do whatever it takes.
4. A commitment to one another.

Taking a strongly evangelical and Jesus-centered view of ministry, one of his early actions was to hold a Rally for Mission and Evangelism at Goshen College in 2001 with Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana as the keynote speaker. About 700 attended, and Little intended it as an inspirational kick-off for getting church-goers to invite others to church and help the diocese grow. Bishop Sheridan, the diocese's last tradition Anglo-Catholic bishop, also took part, even though the approaches of the two men to ministry differed significantly.

The second era, Reconciliation, began in 2003, when Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest living in a same-sex relationship, was elected and consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire with the General Convention's consent. The election had occurred against the backdrop at the national level of a church rent by internal divisions over issues of sexuality and same-sex marriage. Robinson's election caused a firestorm within some congregations of the diocese and at the national level, it prompted many conservative Anglicans to leave the Episcopal Church and form the Anglican Church in North America. The election of Katharine Jefferts-Schori as Presiding Bishop in 2006 prompted three dioceses, Quincy, Fort Worth, and San Joaquin, to leave the Episcopal Church. While Little opposed same-sex marriage and forbid them from occurring in the diocese, he remained within the Episcopal fold. As a compromise, he would eventually allow same-sex couples to marry outside the diocese and permit priests in the diocese to perform those rites. He reached out to liberals, even befriending Bishop Robinson, and agreed to provide pastoral care to some congregations who had opposed Robinson's election. Within the diocese, a number of parishes experienced losses as members left the church, but other parishes strongly affirmed gay rights and differed with the bishop's stand on same-sex marriages.

The third era of Little's episcopate, the Congregational Development era, began in 2007. Attendance trends in parishes throughout the diocese followed those of the national church as membership in many parishes decreased and in some, dwindled. Little sought to infuse them with new life through dynamic preaching and encouraging people to tell their own faith stories. He had inherited his first Canon to the Ordinary, David Seger, from his predecessor and acknowledged to Seger his appreciation for the continuity and knowledge he brought with his ministry. After Seger's retirement in 2007, Little called the Rev. SuzeAnne Silla as the new canon, blessing her extensive experience in congregational development with the Diocesan Congregational Development Institute (DCDI). The purpose of DCDI was to give clergy and laity across the diocese more confidence and skill in problem solving, visioning for the future, and conflict management. About 20 congregations took part, and it had the side-benefit of bringing leaders from different parishes together and fostering inter-parish relationships.

In 2013, Little articulated five imperatives for the diocese in using DCDI: Focus on Jesus; Think Biblically; Proclaim Good News; Feed people who are hungry; and Mentor young people. As the vision played out, some parishes began offering bilingual services while others sought new ways of meeting the needs of their communities.

One of the challenges faced by Little's episcopate was the dwindling membership of certain parishes and their inability to support a priest. Many priests were necessarily bi-vocational to support themselves, but the problem of clergy shortage became particularly acute in the Calumet area of the diocese, where some parishes were floundering and in danger of closing. A major success story was the Calumet Episcopal Ministry Partnership (CEMP), which first formed in 2010. Three congregations, St. Barnabas-in-the-Dunes, St. Paul's Munster, and St. Timothy's Griffith, came together in dialogue, and what emerged was a vision of one church in three locations, all sharing the same full-time priest. The program proved successful, and not only was a full-time priest, the Rev. Michael Dwyer, ordained in 2012 for the post, but three other part-time priests also signed on. In June 2015, St. Christopher's Crown Point joined the partnership, followed by two others, St. Stephen's Hobart and St. Augustine Gary, under Little's successor, Bishop Douglas Sparks.

Bishop Little announced his retirement effective 30 June 2016 and served as a consecrator of his successor. He and his wife Sylvia continued to live in Indiana and take up residence in Mishawaka. As his greatest overall goal, Little has said: "When I became bishop, I committed myself to helping the diocese become increasingly Christocentric; to helping every man, woman, and child in the diocese to speak openly of their relationship with Jesus; and to helping parishes to see the world beyond their doors as their mission field." The core values were the guiding principles of his tenure.

Source: Email message of Bishop Edward Little, August 2019.

Holy Eucharist and Ordination of Edward Stuart Little II ...18 March 2000

Pastoral Letter on Same Sex Marriage, 2012