Growt h of the Naples area, including lead launch church, St. John, Naples. “It was totally scary,” said Adler, 75, who today is the vicar at St. Raphael, Ft. Myers Beach, and helped launch St. Monica in Naples, opening in 1992, and later Iona-Hope in North Ft. Myers, which he led from launch 1998 to parish status in 2014.
Furthermore, Adler learned he would receive the calling only after only a cursory visit with the Naples startup committee, which quickly told him that he was found “acceptable.” While he did not have church planting experience, the launch group saw additional skills that would be needed in a start-up, as Adler had been an Army pilot in Vietnam and had had a career as a successful trial lawyer in Illinois before answering his call to ministry, and attending seminary at SeaburyWestern and ordination in 1989.
January of the next year. They quickly began meeting with people. “We drove up and down the street, checking names on mailboxes,” said Adler.
Many church plants take time before they launch services, but the launch moved quickly. Early on, they found a place to meet, a training room in North Collier Community Hospital, and jumped at the opportunity. “I was amazed they gave it to us,” said Adler, who remembered that each Sunday, they brought to the hospital a six-by-eight covered trailer, with all the pieces of the church, from altar to table. The church start quickly went to two services, mostly a result of the size of the lecture room at the hospital. “Every day was a surprise,” said Adler. “We were pulling people out of the bushes. It was wonderful.” The
church plant found a supporter in the late Robert S. Hardy, a generous Canadian-born developer who built out an office building space to suit the church. Hardy, in addition to developments in Ontario, came to Southwest Florida and built golf courses and subdivisions. At Quail Creek, they found one of Hardy’s office buildings in a location off of Immokalee Road. “He was a very nice guy. He built out the space to suit us.”
It did not seem abnormal to be in an office building. One of the early members was a Naples golf pro who later relocated to Ohio. The startup would occupy the office building until October of 1994, when the parish would move to its planned site on Immokalee Road, and begin services in what is now St. Monica’s parish hall.
The solution? Attend a nondenominational church planting boot camp, where over a few days, The Rev. Adler and his wife Wanda would gather with about 30 others to learn the basics and craft of a congregation startup. There was only one other Episcopalian in the group; the rest were from every type of church background, all consumed with learning the best new, workable methods for church planting, all making their plans outside the structures of denomination and liturgy styles. “It was a ball,” said Adler. “There were people from all over, from everywhere.” Move to Naples
The Adlers began almost immediately to build what would become St. Monica’s, heading in 24
At the 2011 Annual Convention, The Rev. John Adler and his wife Wanda celebrated the arrival of Iona-Hope as a parish.
Through the launch period, they moved from residence to temporary residence until they sold their house in Sarasota. Worship and Liturgy
For a church launch, the style of worship needs to both express the Episcopal Church liturgy while reflecting the community. Adler came to the Episcopal Church as a priest in the tradition of the high church. However, the worship style for both of his church launches ended up being very different from his tradition. “I have not found that helpful and effective for me,” said Adler. Instead, the worship style evolved from the needs of the Prayer Book and Hymnal, and the audience, which was about half Episcopal, half from other traditions. “I think that the worship style can be just about anything but it needs to be something that can makes sense to the people you have gathered.”
Iona Hope, his next call, was the first church in the diocese to use overhead projection screens for liturgy. “I thought I was doing it to attract a younger crowd,” said Adler. Instead, the overhead was equally appreciated by some of the older members, who could see the words easily. In addition, some of the elderly, or even those with back problems, had trouble standing and holding the Prayer Book at the same time. At one point, he angrily remarked, at the end of a service with a failed projector, that he might need to go back to the Prayer Book. Mrs. Bigsby, a parishioner, said otherwise. “Well I hope you enjoy your next call.” The projector stayed.
Church planting continues. The first service at our new Wesley Chapel Episcopal Church.
What a church plant becomes is determined by calling on local businesses and homes. In both cases, there were many young families searching for a place, and the look and the feel of the church developed on a daily basis, organically, out of the people it was charged with serving. Nearby Church Support
One key factor in the success any church plant is the support of churches in the area. In the case of St. Monica’s, the key to success was to complement the other parishes, and attract a large portion of the new congregation from outside the Episcopal world. It had the effect of introducing the Episcopal way of doing church to a larger audience, and expanding the pie. “We never cut in on them,” said Adler. “We sent them people.”
plant business, though he wishes that the wider Episcopal Church would get back to having more new church starts. “We are missing the boat by not doing more planting,” said Adler.
The hardest part of the church plant for the priest is being the priest, alone. While there is always a committed group that supports the new ministry, often if the priest does not do it, often the task does not get done. And because of the peculiar nature of Southwest Florida the church is not always the first priority, and tasks often get interrupted by daily life, and things like weekly golf dates. That is a small price to pay, says Adler.
“For myself and Wanda, it was some of the most enjoyable years of our lives.”
Looking back on those successful plants, at a time when the diocese is launching a new parish in Wesley Chapel, Adler is encouraged that the diocese is back in the church-
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