Who We Are
As a parish.
Carolina Forest is one of the largest and fastest growing areas in the Grand Strand, yet there is only one Anglican church located on the very edge of the area. After years of discernment, Fr. Cameron and his family moved back to the area and began to gather a group of locals to discuss and pray about forming a new Anglican church in the heart of Carolina Forest. With the support of the Anglican Diocese of the Carolinas and the KARDIA Church Planting Initiative, Church of the Ascension was planted out of Christ Church, Murrells Inlet in August of 2024.
Our life as a church seeks to embody the rich sacramental and communal life of Christ’s people through the Anglican tradition of prayer and worship.
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The Christian life is prayer—being present to God—which we practice in three ways:
The center of this life is the weekly gathering on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharistic Feast together, where we together offer ourselves to God and are nourished by Christ at the heavenly Table.
Then, throughout the week, we are formed and filled as our parish lives into the ancient rhythm of beginning and ending the day with prayer—the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer.
And finally, throughout each day, we each seek to live in constant conversation and communion with our Father, growing in our attentiveness to the Spirit and our friendship with Jesus.
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Christian worship is full of symbols that communicate the presence and blessings of God to his people of all ages and backgrounds through the beauty of his creation. Through this embodied way of worshiping, every sense is engaged and our imagination becomes an active participant in forming our experience of the new world of the Kingdom of God.
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We live as members of one body, building up and caring for one another, because we have been united together through the sacramental realities of baptism, through which we are born again into God’s family through Christ’s death and resurrection, and the Lord’s Supper, in which we feast together at the Table of the kingdom of heaven.
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Having been welcomed into God’s house because of his great love for us, we open our lives and homes to love and serve those around us as the hands and feet of Christ, especially those who are neglected and forgotten.
We celebrate the feasts of the church’s calendar, sometimes as a whole group and sometimes in our own homes, inviting those who live around us into our rhythms of memory and celebration.
As Anglicans.
The Anglican tradition goes all the way back to the 3rd century, when Christian communities had already formed in the British Isles. Though the Anglican Church owes much of its current organization to the period of the Reformation, the roots of her spirituality go back nearly to the time of the apostles. In this way, Anglicanism provides a way between the dichotomy of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism—our identity includes but is not limited to ‘protesting’ errors present in the medieval Roman Church. Instead, Anglican worship and spirituality draws upon more than a millenia of Christian thought and prayer, from the ancient Celtics to the liturgical reforms of the late twentieth century.
As Anglicans today, we seek to worship in a way that is faithful both to our inheritance from the universal (catholic) Church and to our own contemporary times and places. Both ancient practices and modern expressions come together as an ever-new invitation to worship the God who loves all things. Our faith is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, the early Church fathers and mothers, and the councils and creeds. We seek to be a living continuation of the faith of the church for the world today by continuing to affirm the centrality of these four elements:
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The holy writings of the prophets and apostles record the story of God bringing his people into his kingdom, providing us with our own story that places us within our world.
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The three ecumenical creeds—the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian—affirmed by the vast majority of the Christian church, provide the confession of the church to guide us in our interpretation of Holy Scripture.
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The sacraments of the Church, particularly those given to the Church by Jesus himself, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, provide the nourishment of our life together.
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The historic line of bishops, through which the apostolic gift has been passed down through the laying on of hands, provides sacramental grounding for the presence of Christ’s church in the Eucharistic feast and gathering of his people.
Church of the Ascension belongs to the Anglican Diocese of the Carolinas (ADOC) within the Anglican Church of America (ACNA), and as a church plant, Ascension also benefits from the oversight of the KARDIA church planting initiative. Beyond providing us with episcopal and pastoral oversight, these structures provide accountability, training, and avenues for reporting abuse. This is an important topic for us: as a church in the ADOC, our staff is required to complete Ministry Safe training, and we require everyone who works with our children to go through an extensive background check. Please click on the logos above for more information.
As a Staff and Leadership Team
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Fr. Cameron Crickenberger
Father Cameron and his wife, Julia, grew up on the Grand Strand and moved back home in 2022 with their three children, Charis, Eli, and Rosie. He holds a PhD in Systematic and Historical Theology from the University of St Andrews and is the planting vicar of Church of the Ascension.
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Fr. John Gibson
Father John moved to Myrtle Beach as a kid in the early 90s. He is ordained in the Jurisdiction for Armed Forces and Chaplaincy and serves as Associate Pastor for Pastoral Care at Ascension and as a chaplain in local hospitals.
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Tyson Matthews
Tyson, his wife Grace, and their two boys, Emil and Ezra, were among the first families to commit to planting Church of the Ascension. He serves as the Pastor for Worship and Spiritual Formation, and hopes to pursue Holy Orders upon finishing his training and schooling at the Renovaré Institute.
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Grace Matthews
Grace, a Myrtle beach native, and her husband Tyson now live in Conway with their two sons Emil and Ezra. She serves as our parish coordinator, organizing feast days, scheduling volunteers, and helping to connect the members of our parish together.
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Betty Ann Lowell
Betty Ann and her husband Ernie moved to Murrells Inlet in 2022 and are enjoying a new season of life in the South. Betty Ann serves as the Pastor for Family Formation. She leads St. Brigid’s Chapel, our discipleship ministry for our children, and helps with congregational care.
Mission Council
Ernie Lowell
Sarah Howington
Camp Melton
Becky Williams
