About

Who We Are

Established in June 2013, Saints Simeon and Anna Anglican Church is a community of Christians dedicated to loving God with all our heart, and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all people. Part of the Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest, we are members of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), a church uniting 132,000 Christians in over 1000 congregations across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As part of the ACNA, we are engaged in reaching Walworth County with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. Through Biblical preaching and Sacramental worship, through missional outreach to the poor, the needy and the lost, and through Christian fellowship and teaching we are growing together into the People of God.

Our History

In the first decade of the 21^st century, church planters Steve & Helen Buchanan felt God’s call to plant an Anglican Church in Walworth, WI. After several years of prayer, in 2012 they heard a presentation by a pastor who planted a church in a senior residential facility. He spoke of not just “doing ministry to seniors, but empowering seniors to do ministry.” The Buchanans felt God speaking directly to them. Because of longstanding connection with the Golden Years of Walworth, they approached the owner, Rich Austin, about planting a church that would meet there. Mr. Austin enthusiastically welcomed this new ministry to the life of the Golden Years community.

A Lenten study was held in the spring of 2013 which involved a group of residents from Golden Years. At the end of the study, Pastor Steve shared the vision of planting a church. The group responded favorably, and they became the core of the new congregation. Sunday Services began on June 2, 2013. For six months the congregation met for worship once a month, but always longed for more. On the First Sunday of Advent, December 1, 2013 the congregation launched weekly Sunday Services. Pastor Steve was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church in 2015, and a priest in 2016.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Mission is in the Anglican “DNA.” In October 2014 we began supporting our first missionaries, Fr. Jens & Karen Notstad, as they engaged in church planting work in Wisconsin. In July 2015 we undertook support for a second missionary, a young lady doing long term mission work in Nepal.

Closer to home, we provide ongoing support to the Big Foot Food Pantry, The Time is Now to Help, Agape House and School, and the New Day Women’s Clinic. The congregation has also partnered with the Walworth Grade School in providing backpacks full of school supplies for needy students.

Although Sts. Simeon & Anna was planted with the vision of “empowering seniors to do ministry,” our congregation is now drawing members as well from the wider Walworth community. God is doing a new work in our midst to which we joyfully respond, as He calls more people to His saving grace.

In August 2017, one of our members moved to Ridgestone Terrace in Elkhorn, WI. She sent word that there was no church there. In October of that year, Sts. Simeon & Anna began its second congregation at Ridgestone Terrace. This new congregation currently meets for worship every other Friday at 10 a.m. In 2020 and 2022, other members moved to Whispering Willows CBRF in Elkhorn and Golden Years of Lake Geneva. As members moved, they carried the church with them to these new locations. Currently we have four congregations meeting regularly to worship and celebrate the saving love of Jesus. We have become a church that plants churches as we seek to live out the vision of “Reaching Walworth County with the Transforming Love of Jesus Christ.”

Meet Pastor Steve

The Rev. Steven G. Buchanan is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. He has served in pastoral ministry in Walworth County for over 40 years, originally in the Baptist tradition. Pastor Steve came to Anglicanism in the mid-1990’s. There he met his wife, Helen, and they were married in 2001. Helen and Steve truly believe God brought them together and has made them a ministry team. A bi-vocational priest, Pastor Steve also owns a painting and decorating business. You will see him up on a ladder as well as in a pulpit! In his spare time, he loves to listen to music, attend concerts at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera, and read a good book, especially about history.