Heart of Jesus Church
Anglican Church in North America
Services: 10 a.m. Sundays (online only; normally held at Sequim Seventh Day Adventist Church, 30 Sanford Lane)
Where: www.facebook.com/Heart-of-Jesus-Anglican-Church-666034583844041
On the web: www.heartofjesussequim.org
For a spiritual leader who’d built a reputation as one who planted new churches or revived ones in decline, it may be little surprise that Father David Byer is spearheading the revival of Sequim’s own Anglican Church in North America congregation.
But it is, at least a bit, of a surprised to Byer and his wife Debbie.
Byer, who celebrated one full year of leading the Heart of Jesus Church on April 1, said the couple absolutely felt led to move from their most recent calling in McComb, Ill., to Washington state.
“We knew the holy spirit was anointed on us to move to Washington and start a church; it flooded us,” Byer recalled.
Byer thumbs a map of Washington and notes the dots indicating all of the cities and towns with an Anglican Church in North America presence, peppering both east and west sides of Puget Sound. It was the summer 2018 that he and Debbie went from Western Washington town to town, seeking a sign.
“We did quite a bit of work figuring out where we were going to go,” he remembered. “We had to pray daily: ‘Where does God want us to start a church?’”
The couple traversed the sound but didn’t feel led in particular to any I-5 corridor city.
They hadn’t been considering the Olympic Peninsula, a dot-free presence on their map.
“It (seemed) like the Wild West,” Byer said.
On a July 2018 day they took a tour of Sequim with a real estate agent and, as the story goes, signed a contract for a piece of property that day. A year later, they moved into their home.
“It was like God said, ‘This is it.’”
An encounter at a local grocery store led Byer to his new church home.
Byer, who had a veterans ministry in St. Louis some years ago, got into a conversation at the Sequim QFC one day. A fellow coffee-drinker who overheard their conversation turned out to be the treasurer of an Anglican Church congregation in Sequim that had folded nearly 20 years ago. That congregation member told Byer, “We’ve been waiting for you since 2002.”
Guiding hands
Byer credits God and his mother for leading him into ministry, although he wound up with a dual career for a number of years.
He recalled that when he was 6 his mother sat him and his three brothers down and told them, “One of you boys are going to become a priest.”
One by one his brothers went off to non-clerical careers, so Byer figured it was up to him.
“I owe it to my mom. I can’t do it without God but I got there because of my mom,” he said.
Byer grew up in Evansville, Ind., and rather than seminary he earned a degree in biology, then went into chemistry and eventually took a job in the coal mining industry, travelling internationally while working quality control for Peabody Energy.
But he followed his mother’s vision and worked a second full-time job in ministry in towns and cities he and Debbie —his wife of 41 years — were moved to.
When receiving his commission for ministry, Byer recalled, church leaders asked him why he wanted to be a priest.
“’Because I love Christ and I want to be a priest … and I want to serve his people.’ I feel like that’s what I’ve done since.”
He started his pastoral ministry in the Episcopal Dicese of Wyoming in 1987, leading a church in Esterbrook, a small southeastern Wyoming town, for a decade and 17 years overall in that state. He served as pastor and vicart at various churches in Wyoming and Illinois before moving to St. Louis, Mo., headquarters of Peabody Energy.
At age 58, he said, Peabody offered him a retirement package, which he accepted.
“I didn’t have to work two full-time jobs anymore,” Byer said.
While leading St. George’s Church in McComb, Byer and his wife were able to spend time close to a son and three grandkids who lived just 20 miles north.
But the couple felt led to move to Washington state, where they had more family: they have one daughter in Spokane and another with grandchildren in Federal Way.
“Most of my ministry was staring up a church or trying to revive churches that are in decline,” Byer said. But he noted that Sequim could be the place he completes his ministry career.
Starting small
At its outset, the Heart of Jesus Church was truly a “home church” — the Byers’ — before they ran out of parking space and began meeting at the Shipley Center on East Hammond Street.
A recent opportunity came up that allowed the growing church to lease space at the Sequim Seventh Day Adventist Church just off of Sequim-Dungeness Way. While that congregation meets on Saturdays the Heart of Jesus Church is able to meet at 10 a.m. on Sundays.
That was, of course, until Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay at Home” directive effectively closed in-person church gatherings, as state and community leaders seek to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
These Sundays, Byer celebrates mass live on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. via Facebook Live on the Heart of Jesus Church’s page (www.facebook.com/Heart-of-Jesus-Anglican-Church-666034583844041).
All are welcome to join in, Byer said.
“We can even make arrangements to receive Holy Communion from the reserve sacrament while watching,” he said. “People may contact me and we’ll arrange for delivering the reserve sacrament.
“We will resume meeting in person again when the restrictions are lifted.”
Sermons are available on the church’s website at www.heartofjesussequim.org. Recent messages have included “Whispers of Plausibility based on Matthew 4:1-11,” “Does God Deliver? – Luke 2:22-40” and “Rooted in Spiritual Knowledge – Matthew 2:1-12.”
Prior to the meeting restrictions, Heart of Jesus Church also hosted a weekly bible study at a members’ home. Byer, who also serves as chaplain for the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, had a regular time to help with a worship sing-along once a week at Discovery Memory Care.
“We’re looking for opportunities to serve in the community,” he said.
With 14 regular members, including three clergy members, Heart of Jesus Church is technically a church “plant” under the Anglican Church in North America umbrella, but Byer said it has to show it can be “sustainable” to be officially considered a church.
“It’ll come if we’re rooted in following Christ,” he said.
That comes from growth — spiritually and in numbers — in small groups, eh said.
“We pray together, we worship together, we fellowship together … and it grows,” Byer said.
“It’ll come if we’re rooted in following Christ.”
For more about Heart of Jesus Church, see www.heartofjesussequim.org.
