Flanigan Family Oxford Adventure

UPDATE: We’ve reached our goal! Praise the Lord! Thanks to all who have given. We will keep the GoFundMe open for others who may want to donate to our adventure. We are not making as much as we originally thought on the sale of our house, and since we will have very little income over the next year, your gifts above and beyond are welcomed and greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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Dear Family, Friends, and Liturgical Folks,

The Flanigans are moving to England! I (Ryan) have accepted a place on a Continuing Education course at the University of Oxford beginning this fall. We are selling our house in Dallas this spring, moving in with my folks in Chicago this summer, and basing the family adventure from there. We would LOVE for you to come along for the ride. Here is how you can join us, why we're doing this, and our story of discernment.

How You Can Join Us
If you have been blessed by our ministry and believe in our work, or if you simply love us and want to bless us, would you consider partnering with us by praying and, if you are able, by making a financial contribution through our Go Fund Me? We are called to care for one another. We need our community of loved ones to help us get where God is calling us to be in order to prepare for what God is calling us to do.

Concretely, we need funds to pay for my tuition, as well as our travel and living expenses. We are a family of five, so the costs of airfare, insurance, and housing will be higher than the average student’s. We have estimated that we will need about $100K total: $40K for tuition and fees, $60K for travel and living. God is graciously providing for us partway through the sale of our house.

* Our goal is to raise $55K through your donations by September. *

We know this is achievable, because we have already experienced your generosity when we raised $120K to make 6 volumes of Liturgical Folk music.

As a way of saying thank you, we plan to self-fund an album for Matins and Vespers (Morning and Evening Prayer)—8 new musical settings from the Book of Common Prayer’s Daily Office, which we composed during the pandemic to help us pray as a family. Everyone who donates will be among the first to hear and receive these recordings, hopefully by this fall.

The Second Half of Ministry Life
I have been directing church music and composing worship songs for 24 years. I am 41 years old now, so I have about 24 more years to go (until I’m 65). We have come to the end of the first half of our life in vocational ministry. The Lord is calling us into a season of rest and preparation for the second half.

The Theologos Programme at Wycliffe Hall is a 9-month Christian learning community in the heart of Oxford. It is designed in part for people who wish to take a sabbatical from their regular work. I fit that category, but I also look forward to doing some further study, specifically in liturgical theology, formation, and music. In the end I will be awarded a Certificate in Theological Studies. (Watch video below for more about the Theologos Programme.)

I believe there is a great need for the church to expand its approach to music beyond expression and entertainment and to cultivate an imagination for music as spiritual formation—liturgical, theological, catechetical, devotional, intergenerational, artistic, beautiful, and accessible. Our future ministry will follow this vision, continuing in the movement many have begun to experience through Liturgical Folk. This year of study and sabbatical will gird us for the difficult and exciting kingdom work to come.

Our Time in Dallas
As we have reflected on our six and a half years in Dallas, we are overwhelmed with gratitude for the community, spiritual formation, and vocational clarity given to us.

We grieve losing our beloved community in Oak Cliff. Living in this place has challenged us on so many levels to learn how to be good neighbors. We will especially miss the friendships we’ve made through the kids’ schools and Melissa’s Li’l Rhythms classes, front porch conversations, walks and bike rides around Kiest Park, and the wonderful arts culture of Oak Cliff, including the best craft coffee, beer, and food in Dallas.

We will also dearly miss our church family. All Saints Dallas, where I have served as Music Director since 2015, has transformed our family. Our kids were baptized here. Melissa and I were confirmed here. We learned here how to  embody the liturgical rhythms of historic Christianity. We could not have asked for a better entryway into the Anglican tradition.

It was at All Saints that I met Fr. Nelson Koscheski in my second month on the job. Nelson became my hymn-writing partner and the co-founder of Liturgical Folk. More than that, Nelson was a spiritual father, helping me clarify my vocation as a melodist and minister. Our four years of labor yielded the most fruitful and fulfilling ministry of my life—composing, leading, recording, and touring our music as a family. We are so thankful for the blessing and support we received from the Anglican Mission in America to freely minister in this way.

How We Came to This Decision
Fr. Nelson passed away in 2019, and 2020 brought us a pandemic, but the Lord used these events to move us towards the next step of our journey. By the summer of 2020 Melissa and I felt a transition coming. However, we could not envision how it would look. We formulated three plausible options, but none of them seemed right. Having faced a few major life transitions before, we knew that the Lord probably had a fourth option for us, one which we could not yet imagine.

On September 15th, during a heart-to-heart with my vicar Dave Larlee, the Holy Spirit inspired the idea for us to go to England. My spirit leapt. Here was Option 4, the Lord’s option. Melissa and I prayed and processed, and we soon had a strong sense of peace about the idea. We invited those closest to us into our discernment, including our bishop Philip Jones, and it seemed right to everyone. All the arrows were pointing to the U.K.

At the beginning of 2021 Bp. Philip arranged with Bp. Todd Atkinson of Via Apostolica, a missionary district within the Anglican Church in North America, for Bp. Todd to support us moving forward. Via is based in Alberta, CA and is a friend of the Anglican Mission. Bp. Todd is well-connected to the U.K., having lived between Great Britain and Canada over a period of 18 years, including 4 years in Oxford. He has sent out three families and one student from Via to the U.K.

With my ecclesial support in place, I applied to the Theologos Programme at Wycliffe Hall. Two months later I had a formal interview, and then on March 17th I received my official offer. The significance of these dates reveals God’s guiding hand and instills even greater faith that we are following his plan: 

September 15th, the day the Lord first gave us the idea, was Fr. Nelson’s birthday;

March 17th, the day I was offered a place, was the day on which Fr. Nelson died.

This letter would turn into a treatise if I were to list the many other confirmations we have received along the way—dreams, visions, words of knowledge and encouragement. God knows I need these Ebenezers to withstand the late-night doubts and uncertainties surrounding our decision. And although we are sure of his leading, he is shining a light only on this stepping stone. We don’t know exactly what comes next, but we trust that God will show us whilst in England.

Melissa and the kids are excited and a little nervous about the coming changes. Imagine homeschooling in the city of dreaming spires, reading Tolkien and Lewis and Carroll in their shadows. The kids might think they are going to Hogwarts!

Finally, Melissa and I want to celebrate our daughter Lily’s incredible accomplishment of getting accepted into Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts in Dallas. Our move, of course, means that she will not be attending. It is a heavy loss for Lily, but she finds some comfort knowing that if she can get into a prestigious school like Booker T, she can do anything. We believe the Lord will bless Lily a hundredfold for her sacrifice.

If you have any questions or want to hear more, feel free to contact me by clicking the button below. If you would like to make a donation directly to us instead of online, contact me and we’ll work that out. We are thrilled for you to take part in this adventure with us. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

❤️

Ryan, Melissa, Lily, Liam, and Noelle

Thanks to Andrew Cagle for making our support video and to Meaghan Smith for snapping our family pic.