The South Tampa News & Tribune
Experiencing Permanent Change
Kevin Howe/stringer photo
Father Christian Villagomeza (center) leads Sunday morning service at St. Chad's Episcopal Church. At photo left is Dixie White while Gary Buss is seen at photo right. They are chalice bearers. The church is located at 5609 N. Albany Ave in Tampa.
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Published: September 1, 2007
Updated: 08/30/2007 06:33 pm
TAMPA - Georgette Gardner-Johnson likes the coziness of St. Chad's Episcopal Church.
But the educator is part of a growing parish that faces a major change brought on by the doubling of its attendance in the past few years.
'We are willing to go forward,' senior warden Charles Hull said. 'Never in the history of St. Chad's have we had a full-time vicar.'
The priest job will go to Christian Villagomeza, who has served part time at St. Chad's since 1991, mostly weekends. His full-time job is as a Hospice chaplain.
Under his guidance, St. Chad's, 5609 N. Albany Ave., has provided what parishioners such as Gardner-Johnson seek in a church.
'I like the diversity and the family atmosphere,' said Gardner-Johnson, assistant principal at Cleveland Elementary.
The plan is to have Villagomeza, who emigrated from the Philippines in 1985, in place by January, said Hull, a native of Trinidad.
Historically a mission church served by a supply priest, St. Chad's is set on 3 acres next to the community of Riverbend, near Hillsborough Avenue.
The church was founded 53 years ago by Arthur Joy Lively, a priest who later moved to St. James Episcopal Church, said Herman Monroe, a local historian and St. Chad's member. Monroe is working on a history of St. James, the vacant church in the center of Central Park Village, a public housing complex being torn down to make way for new housing. St. James will become a black history museum.
Why Lively decided to set up a church is a mystery, Monroe said. A commercial building on North Armenia Avenue served the first congregation; the current church was constructed by 1957, the year Lively moved to St. James.
St. Chad's attracts about 95 people to its Sunday service. Villagomeza said about 45 are members, and he wants to boost that number if the diocese approves the bishop's committee's recommendation about his full-time employment.
'We have a diverse group of members - Asians, blacks, Hispanics, Caucasians,' said Villagomeza, who can read Spanish but not speak it. 'But there is also cohesiveness. There's no segregation. Everybody sits together.'
Choir treasurer Martha Humbert agrees.
'I will tell you, it's wonderful,' she said, bustling around during the coffee hour after Sunday's service.
She came to St. Chad's in 1997 when St. James, Tampa's first Episcopal church, and The House of Prayer, founded in 1907, were about to merge. St. Chad's was asked to join the merger because it was struggling at the time, according to a Tampa Tribune article.
'In recent years, there have been more funerals than baptisms and weddings,' the article stated.
St. Chad's didn't join the merger because the process was taking too long, and members thought they could expand the church, according to the article.
Chuck and Frankie Bash moved to Tampa 27 years ago as Roman Catholics. But when a St. Chad's priest came to their house and offered a church key if they needed anything, they decided to check out the place.
'We weren't sure what an Episcopalian was,' Chuck Bash said. 'But we found out and have been here ever since.'
Rosemary Borel-Hull, who serves on the newcomer ministry, said most people in her native Jamaica are Anglican. So to come to St. Chad's is like a slice of the islands.
'But really everyone is from some place interesting,' she said.
The church also has an African-American hymnal; the choir sang 'Just A Closer Walk With Thee' on a recent morning, a spiritual not in the standard Episcopal hymnal.
St. Chad's has a longtime Over 50 outreach program. Kitty Aycock, who lives nearby, said the social agenda has been a lifeline to her.
The 83-year-old Aycock, a St. Chad's member since 1973, said the church is her family, especially since her husband died a few years ago.
'I don't think I could still live in my house,' she said, 'if the members here didn't look after me the way they do.'
IF YOU GO
WHAT: St. Chad's Episcopal Church, 5609 N. Albany Ave.
SERVICES: 9 a.m. Sunday
CONTACT: (813) 872-7545 or www.stchadstampa.org
Reporter Janis D. Froelich can be reached at (813) 835-2104 or jfroelich@tampatrib.com.
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