Listen here if you wish.

Filed under: * By Kendall • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Ascension • Pentecost • Missions • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Holy Spirit (Pneumatology) • Theology: Scripture

One of the Ten Commandments is "thou shall not steal," but an Episcopal priest has been suspended for allegedly lifting more than a dozen Sunday sermons verbatim from a book.

The Rev. John E. McGinn, 65, who has led the 300-plus families at St. John's Episcopal Church since 1993, was placed on administrative leave amid allegations that he plagiarized sermons dating back to 2006, said the Rev. Mally Lloyd, canon to the ordinary for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, a position equivalent to the bishop's chief of staff.

As many as 15 sermons have been identified as direct copies, Lloyd said.

They were allegedly taken from a book called "Dynamic Preaching," which can be accessed only with an online subscription.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

St Mellitus College, founded in 2007, offers on-the-job experience as well as theology.

The numbers attending church on Sundays may be falling, but an innovative new college to train Anglican clergy has already attracted 500 students, making it the newest and one of the largest in the country.St Mellitus College, which started in 2007, opened the doors of a new building in November. It is the first training college for clergy to focus especially on leadership, and to combine theology with on-the-job experience in churches, youth centres, homeless shelters and Christian work in the inner cities.

“It’s the same pattern as business schools or the way doctors are trained now,” says Graham Tomlin, the college dean. “Previously those training for the ministry went to a full-time residential college. Now they can spend time in parishes as lay workers while coming here part of the week and on several residential periods a year. Or they continue in their jobs as doctors or bus drivers while training part-time for the ministry.”

As a result, St Mellitus, a joint project by the dioceses of London and Chelmsford, has seen a surge of applications from the start, with 110 full-time ordinands and around 400 lay students. A survey showed that three quarters of the ordinands would not have considered going into the church, or would have done so much later, had this work/study pattern not been available.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Education • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

‘There is not going to be a great schism.” The Rev Lorna Hood is sitting on a sofa in the drawing room of an elegant town house in Rothesay Terrace, the official home of the Moderator of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh.

With one sharp sentence she has fired a tranquiliser dart into the pink elephant in the room.

Officially, there is still a moratorium on discussing whether the Church of Scotland should ordain practising gay ministers but next Monday’s debate and vote at the General Assembly is set to be the most divisive the Church has faced since the Disruption of 1843 when a predecessor as moderator, Dr David Welsh, walked out with 450 ministers and founded the Free Church of Scotland. There has been suggestions that, once again, ministers are strapping on their hiking boots.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Scotland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Presbyterian • * Theology • Anthropology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

The first female Dean of Llandaff has resigned two months after being installed, which the Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan accepted with ‘enormous sadness’.
The Very Rev Janet Henderson, 55, became the second female to assume such a role in Wales when she became dean in March, but has now stood down.
No official explanations have been cited for the resignation, but it was initially thought an argument over the choir’s performance on Songs of Praise was to blame.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Wales • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Wales

The number of Catholic priests in Africa and Asia has shot up over the past decade while decreasing in Europe, mirroring trends in the numbers of Catholic faithful that helped lead to the election of Pope Francis as the first non-European pope in over a millennium.

The Vatican on Monday released statistics on the state of the Catholic Church in the world, showing a 39.5 percent increase in the number of priests in Africa and a 32 percent hike in Asia from 2001 to 2011. The number of priests in Europe fell by 9 percent, while remaining stable in the Americas. Worldwide, priest numbers were up 2.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of Catholics overall — or those who have been baptized — rose from 1.196 billion in 2010 to 1.214 billion in 2011. Given the world's population increase, though, the overall proportion of Catholics remained essentially unchanged at 17.5 percent.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Asia • Europe • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

We wondered what kind of reading ministers rely on for inspiration or help in preaching—apart from reading commentaries on scripture or other materials directly related to the task. Do they draw on certain authors of fiction or nonfiction? Are they influenced by essays, poetry, magazines or children’s literature? Here are some reflections

Read them all (eight in all).

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Culture-Watch • Media • Poetry & Literature • Religion & Culture

Archbishop of York John Sentamu is setting up an independent inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse made against a Church of England cleric.

A former Archbishop of York has denied being negligent by failing to notify police when made aware of the claims.

Dr Sentamu's office said the probe would look "specifically into the issues surrounding the reports" and the findings would be made public.

It said child abuse allegations were treated "with the utmost seriousness".

Read it all and there is more here.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Children • Law & Legal Issues • Sexuality • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Former Archbishop of York David Hope has "strenuously denied" he "acted negligently" in not referring sexual abuse complaints against a Church of England cleric to police.

The Times said he was told of claims against ex-Dean of Manchester, Robert Waddington, in 1999 and again in 2003.

They involved an Australian schoolboy and a Manchester Cathedral choirboy.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ • England / UK

According to The Times newspaper Lord Hope of Thornes was made aware of accusations against the former Dean of Manchester, Robert Waddington, in 1999 and again in 2003.

Waddington was stripped of his right to conduct church services but Lord Hope did not report concerns to police or child protection agencies.

The allegations relating to an Australian school pupil were reportedly put to Lord Hope in 1999 and a subsequent allegation relating to a Manchester Cathedral choirboy was made in 2003. Mr Waddington, who died in 2007, denied the allegations.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ • England / UK

The former Archbishop of York stood accused last night of covering up allegations that a senior Church of England clergyman had abused choirboys and school pupils.

Lord Hope of Thornes was made aware of the accusations against the Very Rev Robert Waddington, a former Dean of Manchester Cathedral and once the cleric in overall charge of Church schools, in 1999 and again in 2003. Waddington was stripped of his right to conduct church services but the archbishop did not report concerns about alleged past abuse or a potential continuing threat to children to police or child protection agencies.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Psychology • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

The prominent gay cleric Dr Jeffrey John has been long-listed as a candidate to succeed Archbishop Justin Welby as Bishop of Durham.

If appointed Dr John, the Dean of St Albans, who is in a civil partnership with his partner the Rev Grant Holmes, would become the first openly gay bishop in the Church of England.

He has been long-listed before and blocked for dioceses such as Southwark, but this is the first time his name has been put forward since the Church dropped its ban on clergy in civil partnerships becoming bishops.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

In the Gospel we heard a passage from the farewell discourses of Jesus, as related by the evangelist John in the context of the Last Supper. Jesus entrusts his last thoughts, as a spiritual testament, to the apostles before he leaves them. Today’s text makes it clear that Christian faith is completely centred on the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Whoever loves the Lord Jesus welcomes him and his Father interiorly, and thanks to the Holy Spirit receives the Gospel in his or her heart and life. Here we are shown the centre from which everything must go forth and to which everything must lead: loving God and being Christ’s disciples by living the Gospel.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Theology: Scripture

Listen here if you wish.

Filed under: * By Kendall • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Anthropology • Eschatology • Theology: Scripture

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Theology: Scripture

The day Franklin Graham was born, he received a telegram.

“Welcome to this sin-sick world,” the Western Union message said, “and to the challenge you have to walk in your daddy’s footsteps.”

It didn’t take long for Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, to realize that being a preacher’s kid would be both a blessing and a burden.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

The Ven. Leslie Stevenson, who was to have been consecrated this week as Bishop of Meath & Kildare, in the Irish Republic, withdrew on Sunday after a press campaign against him.

His decision to step aside followed two newspaper articles. One in the Dublin-based Sunday Business Post noted that he would be the first divorced bishop in the history of the Church of Ireland, and that he had had a relationship after his first marriage failed.

The second appeared last Friday in the Belfast-based Nationalist daily Irish News, which suggested that Archdeacon Stevenson's consecration was in doubt. It named the woman with whom he had had a relationship, who is now a serving priest in the diocese of Connor.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Ireland • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Media • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Ireland • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

You recently decided to take the issue of gay marriage on, head-on, at the National Cathedral. What led you to that decision?

There’s my own track record on the issue and then there’s the cathedral’s process. I’ve been a proponent of same-sex marriage at least 20 years. I worked in the ’90s on this stuff at All-Saints Church in Pasadena, California, a progressive church in that part of Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a very large gay and lesbian population, it had an AIDS service center. I got to know a lot of gay and lesbian people well, personally, which I hadn’t before. And during my time there, that parish decided to do same-sex blessings. We aren’t talking about marriage yet. So, I’ve been involved in same-sex blessing and a couple of same sex marriages, really, over the last 20 years. But I had a book of essays about it.

On the public side, it’s that in 2012, thanks to all this activity that I and others did, the Episcopal Church authorized a liturgy, a ritual for same-sex blessings. And in the areas where marriage was legal, nine states plus the District, it could be locally adapted for marriage. The cathedral is an Episcopal cathedral, it’s part of the Episcopal diocese of Washington. So same-sex marriage has been legal in Washington for a while. Maryland just passed a referendum in November saying same-sex marriage is legal now. So all parts of our diocese were where same-sex marriage was legal.

The bishop and I met and said we’re going to start allowing same-sex marriage everywhere, in that diocese in January, and the cathedral would also do it. It was part of a long process in the Episcopal Church. We’ve had controversies over openly gay bishops and all that kind of stuff. We worked through those. Our denomination has come to a place that’s made it possible. And at our general convention in 2015, we’ll probably take up the marriage question.

Read it all (my emphasis).

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

The Latino evangelical Christian movement is ascending from a remote constituency to a force, while also striving to reshape culture and politics in our country.

Believers such as Rodriguez want to marry the righteousness of Billy Graham with the justice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Those two world views are not typically associated in a meaningful way but have found a nexus in Latino cultures, where people are comfortable with invoking God in everyday life while taking a less strident tone on immigration.

Given Latinos' strong influence on the last presidential election, the work of faith leaders such as Rodriguez hint at greater changes within our political culture – some of which could prove surprising.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Immigration • Politics in General • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

A little while back I was in an online chat and was asked this question--do you have a recent sermon you have preached on (the doctirne of) justification? The person with whom I was chatting was in a theological argument with his brother on the topic. I had to think for a while, and found the following one that fits the bill. You can obtain the sermon here (it even comes with an outline)--KSH.

Filed under: * By Kendall • Sermons & Teachings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Theology: Scripture

Read it all. The preface alone, to his two sons and only daughter, is wonderful--KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • Ministry of the Laity • Ministry of the Ordained • Youth Ministry • * Theology

Listen to it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Kenya • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * South Carolina

This gospel is one of the most notable that a man can find in the New Testament, and worthy to be commended with all kinds of commendation. But as it is not possible that a man should sufficiently express this sermon of Christ by words ; first let us call unto God, that he will expound these words more plainly in our hearts, than we can by our words and interpretation, and that he will enkindle them, and make them so plain, that our conscience may receive comfort and peace thereby. Amen.

The pith of this excellent sermon is, that God so greatly loved the world, that he delivered his only begotten Son for it, that we men should not die, but have everlasting life. And first let us see who is the giver. He is the Giver, in respect of whom all princes and kings, with all their gifts, are nothing in comparison. And our hearts might worthily be lifted up and exalted with a godly pride, since we have such a giver, so that all who should come unto us by any other liberality, might be counted of no price in comparison of this. For what can be set before us that is more magnificent and excellent than God almighty. Here God, who is infinite and unspeakable, gives after such a manner as passes also all things. For that which he gives, he gives not as wages of desert, or for a recompense, but, as the words sound, of mere love. Wherefore this gift wholly proceeds of God's exceeding and divine benevolence and goodness, as he saith, God loved the world. There is no greater virtue than love, as it may hereby be well understood, that when we love anything, we will not hesitate to put our life in danger for it. Verily, great virtues are patience, chastity, sobriety, &c., but yet they are nothing to be compared with this virtue, which comprises and includes within itself all other virtues. A good man does no man wrong, he gives every man his own ; but by love, men give their own selves to others, and are ready with all their heart to do all that they can for them. So Christ saith here also, that God gives to us, not by right or merit, but by this great virtue, that is by love.

This ought to encourage our hearts, and to abolish all sorrow, when this exceeding love of God comes in mind, that we might trust thereto and believe steadfastly, that God is that bountiful and great Giver, and that this gift of his, proceeds of that great virtue of love. This sort of giving, which has its spring of love, makes this gift more excellent and precious. And the words of Christ are plain, that God loveth us. Wherefore for this love's sake ought we greatly to esteem all things that he gives us.

--Writings of the Rev. Thomas Becon (London, J. Nisbet), pp. 494-495

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Anthropology • Atonement • Christology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

O Lord, we most humbly beseech thee to give us grace not only to be hearers of the Word, but also doers of the same; not only to love, but also to live thy gospel; not only to profess, but also to practise thy blessed commandments, unto the honour of thy holy name.

--Thomas Becon (1512–1567)

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Spirituality/Prayer

Melrose resident Jurgen Liias’s spiritual journey has led him down an unusual path: Last weekend he became one of the first Episcopal priests in the country to be ordained as a Catholic priest.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, ordained Liias as a Catholic priest on Saturday, April 20, at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Beverly.

Citizens have likely seen Liias around the city, gardening at his Melrose Street home or on MMTV’s “Wellsprings of Faith” — a religious show that focuses on various people’s journeys in faith.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

A Church of England minister will make history this weekend when he becomes the head of a Free Church of Scotland congregation in St Andrews.

The Rev Paul Clarke has been appointed to a three-year placement with St Andrews Free Church, whose congregation has been without a minister since 2012.

Mr Clarke, widely regarded in Anglican circles as one of its most promising preachers, previously served at one of the biggest congregations in England – St Helen’s Bishopsgate in inner city London.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Scotland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Presbyterian

The Rev. John Wykes, director of the St. Francis Chapel at Boston's soaring Prudential Center, and the Rev. Tom Carzon, rector of Our Lady of Grace Seminary, were among the priests who were turned away right after the bombings. It was jarring for Father Wykes, who, as a hospital chaplain in Illinois a decade ago, was never denied access to crime or accident scenes.

"I was allowed to go anywhere. In Boston, I don't have that access," he says.

But Father Wykes says he has noticed a shift in the societal role of clergy over the past few decades: "In the Bing Crosby era—in the '40s, '50s, '60s—a priest with a collar could get in anywhere. That's changed. Priests are no longer considered to be emergency responders."

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Sports • Urban/City Life and Issues • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Terrorism • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

The clergy's is one of the few professions to show a higher level of care at work than in their personal lives, the findings of a psychometric test completed online by more than 80,000 people worldwide suggests. The drive to be obedient, however, is even stronger than the drive to care.

The MoralDNA test asks people to what extent they agree with a series of statements describing how they make decisions. For example: "I won't take the easy option if it's the wrong thing to do." Some of these questions relate to the workplace. The answers are used to create a "Moral DNA profile" that reflects the user's "decision-making preferences": the ethics of obedience, care, and reason....

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Theology

Sunday mornings at Wayman AME Church in Minneapolis brings a faithful crowd. But it’s quite likely no one there has said as many prayers as Noah Smith. It’s not just because he’s a preacher, it’s because he’s had more time to worship – over a century in fact.

At 105, Smith is still hard at work, preaching at Wayman.

“My life is so busy with church and things now. I don’t even get to read the paper sometimes,” said Smith.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Aging / the Elderly • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

Listen here if you wish.

Filed under: * By Kendall • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Culture-Watch • Urban/City Life and Issues • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Terrorism • * Theology • Anthropology • Eschatology • Theology: Scripture

Pastor Rick Warren will join Ed Stetzer on his webshow, "The Exchange," Tuesday afternoon to talk about his 27-year-old son's suicide earlier this month.

Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, will host The Exchange live from the Exponential church planting conference in Orlando, Fla., where Warren had been scheduled to lead two Bible studies.

Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, Calif., agreed to an interview with Stetzer about what pastors need to know about grief in their congregations, how his son's death has changed him and what church leaders can do to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of mental illness.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Children • Marriage & Family • Psychology • Suicide • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Anthropology • Eschatology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

...some in Jerusalem, when they heard this, became 'nervous and sent Barnabas on an "apostolic visitation": perhaps, with a little sense of humor we could say that this was the theological beginning of the Doctrine of the Faith: this apostolic visit by Barnabas. He saw, and he saw that things were going well.

And so the Church was a Mother, the Mother of more children, of many children. It became more and more of a Mother. A Mother who gives us the faith, a Mother who gives us an identity. But the Christian identity is not an identity card: Christian identity is belonging to the Church, because all of these belonged to the Church, the Mother Church. Because it is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church. The great Paul VI said: "Wanting to live with Jesus without the Church, following Jesus outside of the Church, loving Jesus without the Church is an absurd dichotomy."

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis

This is a very sobering time for ecclesiastically minded Americans. At a steadily growing rate, more and more Americans — especially the young — claim no religious affiliation. The figure has climbed from 15% to 20% of all Americans in the past five years. Pew researchers call the trend “nones on the rise.”

In reaction, Protestants and Roman Catholics are proving that the author of the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes had it right when he wrote that there is nothing new under the sun. In a classic attempt to turn adversity to advantage, Christian leaders who once assumed a cultural dominance (in the beginning of the baby-boom era, Christian identification among Americans was at least 91%; today it’s down to 77%) are now arguing for a double-down strategy. Rather than softening the Gospel message to make it more marketable to an America skeptical of institutions — a frequent reform point of view — what draws the real energy among the faithful is a renewed commitment to what Christians call the Great Commission, the words the resurrected Jesus spoke to his apostles at the end of Matthew: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

At the center of this strategy of unapologetic apologetics stands George Weigel, the papal biographer and prominent Catholic writer who has just published Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church, a handbook for Catholics seeking to keep the church out of the catacombs. “It’s a recovery of the basic dynamic of New Testament Christianity, but that passionate impulse to live the Great Commission and convert the world cooled during centuries when the ambient public culture helped do the church’s job,” says Weigel.

Read it all from a recent issue.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • Evangelism and Church Growth • Ministry of the Laity • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Young Adults • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Anthropology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

Can you lose a home? Yes. Can you lose a career? Yes. Can you lose a marriage? Yes. Can you lose your health? Yes. Can you lose your youthful beauty? Yes. Can you lose your relationship with God? No.

Christians get to approach tragedy differently than the rest of the world. We get to rely completely on Christ. We get to have hope. But how? By intentionally leaning on Christ for stability, listening to Christ for direction, and looking to Christ for salvation. He is our Rock, our Shelter, our Great Shepherd, our Hiding Place.

Suffering and tragedy are inevitable in a sinful world, but Jesus Christ makes all the difference. Decide that you will rely on Him even in the darkest of hours of your life.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Pastoral Care • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Editor's Note: The gay marriage debate has reached an apex nationally as the U.S. Supreme Court considers two cases that could expand the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples and extend a large set of rights, benefits and privileges to such couples. The court's decisions are expected this summer. In the meantime, The Post and Courier has invited two local clergy to share their views on the matter.

Read them both.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * South Carolina • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

I would especially like to draw your attention to the article entitled "St. Christopher Celebrating 75th Diamond Anniversary on June 22-24--"read it all (pdf).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • Ministry of the Laity • Ministry of the Ordained • Pastoral Care • Youth Ministry • * South Carolina

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, which includes Worcester and surrounding communities, said today that he is against the proposal to locate at $200 million slots parlor on the former Wyman-Gordon Co. parcel in Green Island.

"For those who have little, the illusory chance that they can gain much, even in a game stacked against them, is tempting and ultimately destructive," said Bishop Douglas J. Fisher. "Our churches stand with the economically poor of our society, and that always means taking a stand against gambling establishments in our cities."

Bishop Fisher is the latest prominent church leader to take a stand against the proposal.


Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Gambling • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

At first, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., could see itself as exempt from the economic forces shaking seminaries and theological schools nationwide. Luther is the biggest seminary for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. Among its peers, it had a reputation for being innovative. Individual donors continued to give, and its local area -- in one of the country’s most Lutheran states -- was supportive.

Last fall, though, it all came crashing down. Enrollments were dropping. The seminary found it was running multimillion-dollar deficits, spending down its endowment and relying on loans. In December, its president, the Rev. Dr. Richard Bliese, resigned, as the seminary’s board began to look at options to trim at least $4 million from the seminary’s $27 million annual budget.

The results were announced...[not long ago]: layoffs for 18 of its 125 staff members, many effective within a few weeks; the voluntary departure of 8 of 44 faculty members at the end of the academic year, who will not be replaced; the termination of a master’s program in sacred music; and the decision to no longer admit Ph.D students for at least three years.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Education • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • United Church of Christ • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

As Britain’s youngest vicar you could say Jude Davis walked into the priesthood on something of a wing and a prayer.

But the real-life Vicar of Dibley is hoping her leap of faith helps bring the message of the church to a new generation of believers.

Preaching from her Doncaster Minster parish in Yorkshire, reverend Davis is finally realising a dream she has harboured since she was 17.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained

When the Rev. Gordon Cosby founded Church of the Saviour in the late 1940s, it was one of the first interracial churches in the still-segregated District of Columbia. Cosby, who died last month at the age of 95, is remembered not only for his work as a pastor, but also for his commitment to social change.

"Many people have never heard of him, but he shaped the vocations of so many of us that he shaped the church more than any pastor of his generation," says Jim Wallis, a prominent Christian writer and evangelical leader, and one of the many pastors whom Cosby mentored over his life.

Cosby was born in Lynchburg, Va., and raised Southern Baptist. When he was 16, he and his brother, P.G., were walking through the African-American part of town and came upon a small church.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

St. Luke the Evangelist Anglican Church, the 106-year-old church at Brock and Elgin streets, brought in Hudson after months of searching and interviewing.

"It takes a very special individual to work here because we have a lot of ceremony," says parish council warden Jim Blyth.

"We needed an individual who is passionate about living the ceremony and we had a difficult time finding a clergyman with that skill set and passion, but we found Bob."

Hudson, 63, has just shepherded his new flock through the extensive and almost daily services of Easter week but continues to fulfil his duties as the chaplain at the Mission to Seafarers in Hamilton.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained

"Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church's credibility," the pontiff said in his homily.

"Those who listen to us and observe us must be able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips, and so give glory to God!"

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis

The Rev. Canon Jim Lewis of the South Carolina Diocese told The Christian Post that he personally received one of vonRosenberg's letters and took issue with whom the letters were sent to.

"The Episcopal Church has every right to update its roster of clergy. However, it is disturbing that letters were sent to retired clergy, many of whom have no need or interest to be embroiled in these matters," said Lewis.

"In fact, my first notice of these letters came through a phone call from a medically disabled, retired member of the clergy, who was concerned about losing his benefits."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Amidst allegations that Anglicans worldwide do not recognize the Diocese of South Carolina and its Bishop, Anglican Bishops from East Africa strongly announced their support for the Diocese’s dissociation from The Episcopal Church Tuesday during comments at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul in Charleston. 


The Bishops from Sudan, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania proclaimed unqualified endorsement of Bishop Mark Lawrence and the Diocese. Their comments seemed to dispute the claims of Bishop Charles vonRosenberg, the newly elected Bishop of the recently formed Diocese - The Episcopal Church in South Carolina. In January, vonRosenberg announced that the Anglican Communion has not acknowledged Lawrence’s Diocese, even though it represents the vast majority of local Anglicans. However the four Bishops, all members of the Anglican Communion in good standing, specifically recognized the Diocese during the gathering.


The four were guests of the Diocese following their participation in the New Wineskins Conference in Ridgecrest, North Carolina, the largest Anglican missions conference in the world.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Kenya • Anglican Church of Tanzania • Church of Rwanda • Episcopal Church of the Sudan • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • Ministry of the Ordained • * South Carolina

Listen to it all (an MP3 file).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * South Carolina • * Theology • Christology • Eschatology • Theology: Scripture

(Please note the article to which this responds was posted here on the blog last week--KSH).

The ’60s secularizing and “modernizing” that orders went through, discarding habits, common prayer life and so on, were a strategic error for which many orders today have paid the price: drastically shrinking numbers and remaining members who are in their 70s and older.

But some traditional Dominican communities, male and female, are seeing a significant uptick in their applications from younger people. The same can be said for some branches of Franciscan friars and sisters. I don’t think that this is an accident.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Other Faiths • Secularism

[Tracy] Wilder, who arrived at St. John's Ruskin campus in 2001, experienced an abrupt and unexpected role reversal in September. The man who spent his life caring for others learned he had leukemia. Enduring months of intensive chemotherapy, he became reliant on nurses and doctors, on the love of his wife and the kindness of parishioners.

Though hopeful his cancer may go into remission, Wilder, 67, announced in March he is retiring from St. John.

"It's no fun," he said. "There is a terrible sense of loss. It's painful. But I can look back on the last 12 years and feel good about a lot of things."

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * South Carolina

In Togo, the Rev. Rodolphe Folly used to conduct exuberant Sunday services for a hundred believers of all ages, who sang local gospel music and went up to him to offer what they had.

In this quiet town in Burgundy, he preaches to a more somber audience of about 40 gray-haired retirees in an unadorned 19th-century church that can accommodate up to 600 people.

“In my country, we applaud, we acclaim, we shout,” said Father Folly, a Roman Catholic priest who spoke in the living room of his modern, modest house. “Here, even when I ask people to shake hands, they say no.”

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Togo • Europe • France • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

This is what my father as a Jew discovered.
During Rabbinical school studies he was assigned to visit a Christian Church.
But over the course of a year found himself drawn back to that church over and over and didn’t
know why…
One day he finds himself going to the altar rail, not to get communion, but to simply receive a blessing,
when all of a sudden, as a Jew, the Living and resurrected Jesus Fills his body-
And in his mind just one sentence,
What if this is all true…
What if this is all true?
A year later he’s baptized and receives the Living Lord Jesus through the power of the Holy
Spirit.

• Are you looking for the dead, among the living?
• Or the Living among the living?

Read it all and listen if you wish.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Eschatology • Theology: Scripture

The possibility of dividing the United Methodist Church as a way out of persistent conflicts over homosexuality has been raised enough times in recent years to warrant serious reflection on what it would entail. The fact that Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Lutherans have all seen either formal divisions or significant withdrawals of congregations from their denominations over these issues does not bode well for the UMC.

But as tempting as the idea might be as a way out of our conflicts, we would have to think about realities like the following....

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Methodist • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Read it all and you can find A.S. Haley's comments on this there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Stott: I believe that to preach or to expound the scripture is to open up the inspired text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God’s voice is heard and His people obey Him. I gave that definition at the Congress on Biblical Exposition and I stand by it, but let me expand a moment.

My definition deliberately includes several implications concerning the scripture. First, it is a uniquely inspired text. Second, the scripture must be opened up. It comes to us partially closed, with problems which must be opened up.

Beyond this, we must expound it with faithfulness and sensitivity. Faithfulness relates to the scripture itself. Sensitivity relates to the modern world. The preacher must give careful attention to both.

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An Episcopal pastor and former hospital chaplain has released a book titled Revealing Heaven: The Christian Case for Near-Death Experiences, which chronicles over 200 near-death experiences that people have shared with him. The accounts describe both heavenly and hellish experiences, some of which challenge conservative Christian beliefs.

The Rev. John W. Price, 74, who continues to serve at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, shared in an exclusive phone interview with The Christian Post that he has spoken to more than 237 people who have had near-death experiences, despite his initial reservations.

Ordained as a priest in 1965, Price admits that at the start of his career, he did not believe in near-death experiences at all, and even turned away the first couple of people who tried to share with him visions of what they went through. As he explains in Revealing Heaven, when he became a chaplain at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston and more people starting coming up to him with their stories, he started paying closer attention – and his views began changing....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Theology • Anthropology • Eschatology

Moist, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly) be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard, or foul,
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death, bring misery,
If in thy little book my name thou enroll,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which ’twas;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sins sleep, and deaths soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.

–John Donne (1572-1631)

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Poetry & Literature

Listen to it all (about 29 1/4 minutes).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Eschatology

Today we follow Jesus on a journey. We walk with him what has been called the Via Dolorosa, the way of grief. In doing so, we join with pilgrims from all over the world who go to Jerusalem, to take that ancient walk through the Old City following in his steps.

It’s still called the Via Dolorosa, the way of grief. But paradoxically Jesus always claimed that the Cross would not only be his moment of grief. It would also be his moment of glory. To the eyes of faith it would be that moment when people would see once and for all that God does not stand aloof from human pain. God accepts the pain – even the pain of our sin -- and turns the moment of grief into a moment of glory.

My grandparents had a painting of Christ on their bedroom wall that always fascinated me. It depicted the gray, dead body of Jesus hanging on the cross. But when you looked closely, you could see – emerging from behind that gray corpse – a glorious Christ, radiant and triumphant. The artist understood that the Cross was both Jesus’ moment of defeat, and also his moment of triumph.

Read it all (audio also available).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * South Carolina

Listen to it all from the parish in which I serve, Christ Saint Paul's Yonges Island, South Carolina, this past Sunday.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * South Carolina • * Theology • Christology • Eschatology • Seminary / Theological Education

Listen to it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Eschatology

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

1. In the Gospel of this radiant night of the Easter Vigil, we first meet the women who go the tomb of Jesus with spices to anoint his body (cf. Lk 24:1-3). They go to perform an act of compassion, a traditional act of affection and love for a dear departed person, just as we would. They had followed Jesus, they had listened to his words, they had felt understood by him in their dignity and they had accompanied him to the very end, to Calvary and to the moment when he was taken down from the cross. We can imagine their feelings as they make their way to the tomb: a certain sadness, sorrow that Jesus had left them, he had died, his life had come to an end. Life would now go on as before. Yet the women continued to feel love, the love for Jesus which now led them to his tomb. But at this point, something completely new and unexpected happens, something which upsets their hearts and their plans, something which will upset their whole life: they see the stone removed from before the tomb, they draw near and they do not find the Lord’s body. It is an event which leaves them perplexed, hesitant, full of questions: “What happened?”, “What is the meaning of all this?” (cf. Lk 24:4). Doesn’t the same thing also happen to us when something completely new occurs in our everyday life? We stop short, we don’t understand, we don’t know what to do. Newness often makes us fearful, including the newness which God brings us, the newness which God asks of us. We are like the Apostles in the Gospel: often we would prefer to hold on to our own security, to stand in front of a tomb, to think about someone who has died, someone who ultimately lives on only as a memory, like the great historical figures from the past. We are afraid of God’s surprises; we are afraid of God’s surprises! He always surprises us!

Dear brothers and sisters, let us not be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives! Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him.

2. But let us return to the Gospel, to the women, and take one step further. They find the tomb empty, the body of Jesus is not there, something new has happened, but all this still doesn’t tell them anything certain: it raises questions; it leaves them confused, without offering an answer. And suddenly there are two men in dazzling clothes who say: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; but has risen” (Lk 24:5-6). What was a simple act, done surely out of love – going to the tomb – has now turned into an event, a truly life-changing event. Nothing remains as it was before, not only in the lives of those women, but also in our own lives and in the history of mankind. Jesus is not dead, he has risen, he is alive! He does not simply return to life; rather, he is life itself, because he is the Son of God, the living God (cf. Num 14:21-28; Deut 5:26; Josh 3:10). Jesus no longer belongs to the past, but lives in the present and is projected towards the future; he is the everlasting “today” of God. This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples and all of us: as victory over sin, evil and death, over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. And this is a message meant for me and for you, dear sister, dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness… and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive!

Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life! If up till now you have kept him at a distance, step forward. He will receive you with open arms. If you have been indifferent, take a risk: you won’t be disappointed. If following him seems difficult, don’t be afraid, trust him, be confident that he is close to you, he is with you and he will give you the peace you are looking for and the strength to live as he would have you do.

3. There is one last little element that I would like to emphasize in the Gospel for this Easter Vigil. The women encounter the newness of God. Jesus has risen, he is alive! But faced with empty tomb and the two men in brilliant clothes, their first reaction is one of fear: “they were terrified and bowed their faced to the ground”, Saint Luke tells us – they didn’t even have courage to look. But when they hear the message of the Resurrection, they accept it in faith. And the two men in dazzling clothes tell them something of crucial importance: “Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee… And they remembered his words” (Lk 24:6,8). They are asked to remember their encounter with Jesus, to remember his words, his actions, his life; and it is precisely this loving remembrance of their experience with the Master that enables the women to master their fear and to bring the message of the Resurrection to the Apostles and all the others (cf. Lk 24:9). To remember what God has done and continues to do for me, for us, to remember the road we have travelled; this is what opens our hearts to hope for the future. May we learn to remember everything that God has done in our lives.

On this radiant night, let us invoke the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who treasured all these events in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19,51) and ask the Lord to give us a share in his Resurrection. May he open us to the newness that transforms. May he make us men and women capable of remembering all that he has done in our own lives and in the history of our world. May he help us to feel his presence as the one who is alive and at work in our midst. And may he teach us each day not to look among the dead for the Living One. Amen.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis

But we ask ourselves – here we approach to the second word – Why does Jesus come to Jerusalem? Or perhaps better: How does Jesus enter into Jerusalem? The crowd acclaims him King. And he does not oppose this, he does not silence them (cf. Luke 19:39-40). But what kind of King is Jesus? Let us see: he rides a colt, he does not have a court that follows him, he is not surrounded by an army that would symbolize power. Those who welcome him are humble, simple people, who have the sense to see in Jesus something more; they have that sense of faith, which says: this is the Savior. Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honors reserved for earthly kings, to those who have power, to those who dominate; he enters to be beaten, insulted and reviled, as Isaiah foretold in the first reading (cf. Isaiah 50:6); he enters to receive a crown of thorns, a reed, a purple cloak, his royalty will be an object of scorn; he enters to climb Calvary, carrying a tree. And this is the second word: cross. Jesus enters Jerusalem to die on the cross. And it is exactly here that his being a king, as God, is manifested: the royal throne is the wood of the cross!

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis

On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 (the Feast of Saint Joseph) over 85 clergy and guests from the Diocese of South Carolina gathered for the annual Clergy Renewal of Vows service. Bishop Lawrence, in his sermon, drew a parallel between Saint Joseph and the clergy illustrating how Joseph, though often overlooked and discounted in the eyes of the world, remained faithful to Jesus Christ and the call of God on his life. Lawrence said that "the priest's life is a sign of God's covenant love for the church."

Read it all and please note the audio link to Bishop Lawrence's sermon.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology

Nearly 400 people attended the 222nd Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina at the Francis Marion Performing Arts Center in Florence, South Carolina, March 8-9, 2013.

"Wasn't the worship incredible last night?" said Patricia Smith, remarking on the Convention's Friday evening service of Holy Eucharist. Smith is a member of St. Paul's, Summerville, and attended with her husband who is a delegate. "I felt like I was coming in to the gates of heaven. It had that triumphant sound. I guess, now that we've made a stand there was a unity, a lack of confusion. We were uniting in worship. It felt like God's favor was there."

For the second time the Convention voted unanimously to remove all references to The Episcopal Church from the Diocese's constitution--the final step in severing their ties to the denomination they helped to found in 1789, five years after the South Carolina Convention first met in 1785.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • Evangelism and Church Growth • Ministry of the Laity • Ministry of the Ordained • Youth Ministry • Spirituality/Prayer • * South Carolina • * Theology • Apologetics

What a Bishop we have today!

+A scholar
+A pastor to his clergy and la
ity
+Supported by most of his Diocese
+Not supported by members of the National leadership
+Biblically and Theologically orthodox but in uninformed opinions of some canonically disobedient
+Maligned by a small group
+Censure by fellow bishops
+Caring and loving and yet tenacious
+Believes that Anglicanism is a continuation of the Church founded by Christ Himself, that made its way to the British Isles long before St. Augustine was sent from Rome
+More concerned with pleasing God than pleasing man

That is the Bishop we remember today, the Rt. Revd Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, born on the Feast of St. Thomas a Becket 1829 and dying on March 8, 1910, 102 years ago today. What a remarkable servant of God he was, and if his contemporaries, whose names are long forgotten, had any idea that he would be remembered in the Church Calendar, they would have been astounded. After all he was found guilty by the cclesiastical Court of the Church of England for simply believing that the Church must be true to Her roots.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

At our convention last March I stressed two dimensions of our diocesan calling: Our vocation to make Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age working in relationship with Anglican Provinces and dioceses around the world; and secondly our calling to make disciples by planting new congregations as well as growing and strengthening our existing parishes and missions in an era of sweeping institutional decline among almost all of the mainline denominations. These remain two constants for us today even while so much around us is in flux. You will be relieved to hear that it is not my intention in this address to retrace the road we have traveled in these intervening months since our Special Convention on November 17th. Suffice it to say that since these two dimensions of our common life and vocation remained unshaken when the tectonic plates of the diocese shifted, I remain convinced that they were God’s mandate for us then and they are God’s mandate for us now. The reason for this is two-fold: What is at stake in this theological and moral crisis that has swallowed up the Anglican Communion since the latter years of the 20th Century is first and foremost, “What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ as this Church has received it?” We did not create it and we cannot change what we have received. So what is the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Anglicans have received it? There is nothing in Anglicanism that cannot be found elsewhere among the churches of Christendom. What is unique is how we have blended certain aspects of what other churches hold together. But we have received a Gospel. What is it?

The second thing is “What will Anglicanism in the 21st Century look like?” While the former is the more important, the latter is the more complex. Put another way, proclaiming the Good News, “the whole counsel of God” as St. Paul declared in his parting address to the presbyters of Ephesus in Acts 20:27, that should be our first concern. Proclaiming the good news – the whole counsel of God. But the charge to “care for the Church of God, which he obtained with his blood” (Acts 20:28) or as our text last evening put it, “which he obtained with the blood of his son.” was also part of St. Paul’s charge to the bishop-presbyters. If we apply this second charge to take care of the church of God, which he obtained, with the blood of his son, if we apply this charge to ourselves – those of us whose leadership is in this vineyard where the Lord has placed us – I believe this means caring for emerging Anglicanism in the 21st Century. Frankly, this caring for Anglicanism in the 21st century gets wearisome at times, painful almost daily, exhausting, but it is a charge we cannot relinquish without abandoning our vocation. What does this mean specifically for us here in this Diocese of South Carolina? Let me take up three aspects of this charge as it I believe it applies to us.

Read it all and a pdf version is available top right of the page.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • Evangelism and Church Growth • Ministry of the Laity • Ministry of the Ordained • Pastoral Care • Youth Ministry • * South Carolina • * Theology • Theology: Holy Spirit (Pneumatology)

More than 350 people are expected to attend the 222nd Annual Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina at the Francis Marion Performing Arts Center in Florence, March 8-9. The last time the Convention was held in Florence was 1976.

This year the Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence, the 14th Bishop of South Carolina, is focusing on the future. “We cannot afford to focus on the backward glance,” said Lawrence “Christ calls us to look forward and carry out the Great Commission to make disciples and to proclaim the Gospel to a hurting world.”

This year’s convention workshops are designed to equip the Diocese’s lay members and clergy for the work of ministry. Bishop Lawrence promised that such workshops would be key parts of future annual Diocesan Conventions....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • Ministry of the Laity • Ministry of the Ordained • Youth Ministry • * South Carolina • * Theology • Apologetics

Listen to it all if you so desire.

Filed under: * By Kendall • Sermons & Teachings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • Spirituality/Prayer • * Theology • Theology: Scripture

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • Ministry of the Ordained • * South Carolina • * Theology

Listen to it all if you so desire.

Filed under: * By Kendall • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics

Today, Ash Wednesday, we begin a new Lenten journey, a journey that extends over forty days and leads us towards the joy of Easter, to victory of Life over death. Following the ancient Roman tradition of Lenten stations, we are gathered for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The tradition says that the first statio took place in the Basilica of Saint Sabina on the Aventine Hill. Circumstances suggested we gather in St. Peter's Basilica. Tonight there are many of us gathered around the tomb of the Apostle Peter, to also ask him to pray for the path of the Church going forward at this particular moment in time, to renew our faith in the Supreme Pastor, Christ the Lord. For me it is also a good opportunity to thank everyone, especially the faithful of the Diocese of Rome, as I prepare to conclude the Petrine ministry, and I ask you for a special remembrance in your prayer.

The readings that have just been proclaimed offer us ideas which, by the grace of God, we are called to transform into a concrete attitude and behaviour during Lent. First of all the Church proposes the powerful appeal which the prophet Joel addresses to the people of Israel, "Thus says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning" (2.12). Please note the phrase "with all your heart," which means from the very core of our thoughts and feelings, from the roots of our decisions, choices and actions, with a gesture of total and radical freedom. But is this return to God possible? Yes, because there is a force that does not reside in our hearts, but that emanates from the heart of God and the power of His mercy. The prophet says: "return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting in punishment" (v. 13). It is possible to return to the Lord, it is a 'grace', because it is the work of God and the fruit of faith that we entrust to His mercy. But this return to God becomes a reality in our lives only when the grace of God penetrates and moves our innermost core, gifting us the power that "rends the heart".

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Listen to it all if you so desire.

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In a sermon she preached to Episcopalians in Charleston on Jan. 26, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori chose a regrettable tone in her characterization of people who were, until only recently, fellow Episcopalians....

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How has constant connection and endless distraction changed the church's task? How are we to advance our ministries without compounding the problem? How do we shepherd overwhelmed sheep?

Possibly the biggest transition since the onslaught of media-saturated culture is that the church's trajectory is being shaped less by where church leaders are trying to direct it and more by the responses of their followers. A leader's course matters less when those being led won't or can't follow due to an avalanche of distraction, competing messages, and overly stressed lives.

Most of the training we receive focuses on the ways of a leader. Allow me to suggest a more pertinent question: How do digital-age believers follow?

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From a letter to the editor in the local paper:

While not in The Post and Courier's coverage of the activities on Jan. 26, it has been reported in other sources that Katharine [Jefferts] Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, made several pronouncements in her sermon during Saturday's "convention" which I find to be highly inflammatory and quite offensive.
First, she has labeled my bishop, who was duly elected to the office and removed from same by a trumped-up ploy, a "tyrant." I have heard this man preach, watched recorded interviews with him and followed his actions. If I may be audacious and paraphrase Piiate's words - I find him to have done no wrong.
Second, as an Episcopalian who has spent his entire life in the faith - choirboy, acolyte, vestryman, member of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew and an elected delegate to a diocesan convention, I feel I am not only well-grounded in the faith, but have grown through the years in my faith which remains relevant in today's world. I am highly offended that because I do not view the world through her skewed vision, nor accept her warped goals for the future, I am to be labeled a member of the ovine species.
Following her nefarious actions of October 2012, I have moved on and have found a far greener and acceptable meadow for grazing and growing my spiritual well-being.

James Ueberroth, Charleston

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My admiration is unbounded for clergy who persist in proclaiming the gospel in the face of the resistance that the world throws at them. But I found too many clergy who allowed congregational caregiving and maintenance to trump more important acts of ministry, like truth telling and mission leadership. These tired pastors dash about offering parishioners undisciplined compassion rather than sharp biblical truth. One pastor led a self-study of her congregation and found that 80 percent of them thought the minister’s primary job was to “care for me and my family.” Debilitation is predictable for a kleros with no higher purpose for ministry than servitude to the voracious personal needs of the laos.

Most people in mainline churches meet biblically legitimate needs (food, clothing, housing) with their checkbooks. In the free time they have for religion, they seek a purpose-driven life, deeper spirituality, reason to get out of bed in the morning or inner well-being—matters of unconcern to Jesus. In this environment, the gospel is presented as a technique, a vaguely spiritual response to free-floating, ill-defined omnivorous human desire.

--Christian Century, the February 4, 2013 edition (emphasis mine)

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The Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma recently gathered for the installation of the new leader of a prominent downtown Oklahoma City church.

The Rev. Justin Lindstrom was installed as the dean of St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral on Jan. 26 in a ceremony that highlighted the diversity of the diocese, among other things.

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See what you think.

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From a letter to the editor in the local paper:

I was saddened and appalled, but not surprised, by the vindictive and mean-spirited language Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori used in her sermon on Saturday.

Alluding to Bishop Mark Lawrence as a "tyrant" and comparing him to "citizens' militias deciding to patrol ... the Mexican border for unwelcome visitors" was unconscionable.

And to say, "It's not terribly far from the state of mind evidenced in school shootings, or in those who want to arm school children, or the terrorism that takes oil workers hostage," was despicable.

That any Christian, much less a presiding bishop, would use such invective and incendiary words says more about the speaker than the person she is attempting to vilify.

However, she is the same person who has spent over $22 million to sue churches over their property, who refused to sell a church back to its congregation and instead sold it to a Muslim organization, and who sued beloved, retired bishops because they challenged her authority.

It is not surprising that the fruits of Bishop Jefferts Schori's leadership of TEC are a significant decline in members, controversy and confrontation with the majority of the Anglican Communion, and financial problems resulting in the need to sell prized land in Manhattan.

"They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love" has been a favorite hymn of mine for over 50 years.

It is also a good barometer of a person's Christian character. The language used by Jefferts Schori from the pulpit is as unloving and un-Christian as it gets.

Still, as one who believes in a forgiving God and in spiritual transformation, I will continue to pray that TEC and Jefferts Schori may be inspired and imbued with the Holy Spirit and in the process may rise above petty name-calling and invective and embrace the love of Christ in what they say and do.

Dr. Peter T. Mitchell

Broad Street

Georgetown

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

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In a move unprecedented in the American Catholic Church, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez announced Thursday that he had relieved his predecessor, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, of all public duties over his mishandling of clergy sex abuse of children decades ago.

Gomez also said that Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry, who worked with Mahony to conceal abusers from police in the 1980s, had resigned his post as a regional bishop in Santa Barbara.

The announcement came as the church posted on its website tens of thousands of pages of previously secret personnel files for 122 priests accused of molesting children.

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Our bible reading in Church today is a letter from St Paul’s to the church in Corinth, in which he is trying to encourage church-members to work together for the glory of God. Everyone has different gifts and talents, Paul tells them. Each one of you is a body-part of the whole. Don’t all think you have to be the one who leads the prayers, or the one who preaches, the one who does the flowers, or the one who plays the music. He reminds them that our bodies are a marvellous piece of collaborative and co-ordinated working. We may think our eyes are our best feature. But if we decided we just wanted to be all eye, we wouldn’t be able to hear or speak. Similarly, though our football teams need to score goals to win games, if all our players were strikers, where would the defence be!

At the end of this week of prayer for Christian Unity, we need to remember that God has given us all wonderful gifts, but he’s given them to us not just for our own pleasure, and certainly not for our personal pride, but so that we can work together to do more wonderful things than we can do alone. Saint Teresa of Avila’s poem describes the miracle of how the world is changed by each one of us using our gifts and bringing them together to serve others.

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The bottom line for many pastors, said Bales, is that they are afraid to level with their people — person to person.

"Let's face it. Your people can run you crazy. But that's really not where ministers get into deep trouble," he said. "Through the years, I have been especially interested in all the ways that ministers struggle with their own humanity. You see, they expect so much out of themselves, which can be hard since their people keep trying to hold them to standards higher than the saints and the angels."

Try to imagine, he said, a pastor speaking these words to the faithful: "Dear friends, I am undone. My marriage is in shambles and things aren't going great with my kids, either. My emotions are wracked. I'm stressed out. ... You see, I'm prepared to minister to you, but who is going to minister to me?"

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The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a teacher of mathematics at Oxford and a deacon of the Anglican Church. Some colleagues knew him as a somewhat reclusive stammerer, but he was generally seen as a devout scholar; one dean said he was “pure in heart.” To readers all over the world, he became renowned as Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Alice was popular almost from the moment it was published, in 1865, and it has remained in print ever since, influencing such disparate artists as Walt Disney and Salvador Dali. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, just released in movie theaters nationwide, is only the latest of at least 20 films and TV shows to be made from the book. But if Alice has endured unscathed, its author has taken a pummeling....

In 1999, Karoline Leach published yet another Dodgson biography, In the Shadow of the Dreamchild, in which she quoted the summary of the missing diary information and argued that her predecessors, misunderstanding the society in which Dodgson lived, had created a “Carroll myth” around his sexuality. She concluded that he was attracted to adult women (including Mrs. Liddell) after all.

The reaction among Dodgson scholars was seismic. “Improbable, feebly documented...tendentious,” thundered Donald Rackin in Victorian Studies. Geoffrey Heptonstall, in Contemporary Review, responded that the book provided “the whole truth.”

Which is where Dodgson’s image currently stands—in contention—among scholars if not yet in popular culture. His image as a man of suspect sexuality “says more about our society and its hang-ups than it does about Dodgson himself,” Will Brooker says.

Read it all (in honor of his birthday this past weekend, and, yes, the emphasis is mine).

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Critics say the show takes reality TV one step too far, exposing personal, intimate and sometimes unflattering details about pastors' wives. But Domonique Scott, former first lady of The Good Life Ministry church, tells NPR's David Greene that The Sisterhood was somewhat of a calling for her. "We definitely believe that God told us to do it," Scott says. "Individually, and together as a group."

"I think for us, the assignment was to step out," adds Christina Murray, the first lady of Oasis Family Life Church. "We knew it would probably be a little controversial, but we don't do anything just for people to understand and give us our approval; we do everything for what God is trying to lead us to do." But, Murray says, appearing on The Sisterhood was not a decision any of the women made lightly. "Basically, you're putting your life out there with the control of somebody else."

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MARRIAGE: Pastors in conservative Protestant churches are much more likely to be in their first marriage—85% of all conservative congregations. Fewer, but still a majority, of mainline Protestant pastors (62%) are also in their first marriage. Twenty percent of mainline Protestant pastors are divorced or separated, compared to 10% of Catholic priests.

Marital status differs for men and women among ordained Protestant ministers: While 71% of all men are in their first marriage, 37% of women are in theirs. Women clergy are more likely to have never married (about 12%), compared to men (1%). About one in four women clergy are divorced or separated, compared with 3% of men.

AGE: The median age of all pastors is 55. In 2001, the median age was 51....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained

As a deputy to the 2006 convention, Mr. [Michael] Rehill helped lead the legislative fight against adoption of the changes. However, he did not attend the 2009 convention in Anaheim where the deputies accepted the reforms based upon assurances it was “pastoral" and "healing" rather than "legal", and “that it would reduce the number Title IV cases”.

As a result “they voted away virtually all of the canonical rights of Clergy in Title IV matters,” and “unfortunately, the representations of the proponents proved to be wrong, and the results have been devastating for many clergy.”

As an alternate deputy to the 2012 convention in Indianapolis, Mr. Rehill testified in committee hearings seeking to “restore many of those fundamental Clergy rights, and to restore justice as the primary focus of the process,” he said, but noted these “efforts were not successful, in part because of the bureaucratic structure of General Convention and in part because the authors/proponents of the current Title IV were in control of the legislative process.”

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The Asia Society of Houston hosted the most recent TEDx Houston event in November 2012, and the Rev. Patrick Miller was asked to share his wisdom gained through his work as a priest and a boxer.

Read it all and see what you make of the talk.

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Following his ordination, [John] Cornelius will lead the Fellowship of Saint Alban in Henrietta (Diocese of Rochester), a small community of former Anglicans who have joined the Catholic Church. When available, he will also assist with ministry at parishes in Allegany County.

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“The National Prayer Service is an important tradition in the United States,” Hamilton said in a statement released Friday by the Presidential Inauguration Committee. “I am honored and humbled to have been asked to deliver the message for this service as President Obama and Vice President Biden begin their second term.”

Raised around Kansas City, Hamilton was baptized Catholic, converted to Pentecostalism as a teenager and attended Oral Roberts University, according to The United Methodist Reporter.

He later tired of Pentecostalism’s “black-and-white, very conservative theology,” and joined the United Methodist Church after reading its Book of Discipline - perhaps the most unlikely conversion story since Saint Paul.

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But see, how unkindly he turns away the humble request of his mother who addresses him with such great confidence. Now observe the nature of faith. What has it to rely on? Absolutely nothing, all is darkness. It feels its need and sees help nowhere; in addition, God turns against it like a stranger and does not recognize it, so that absolutely nothing is left. It is the same way with our conscience when we feel our sin and the lack of righteousness; or in the agony of death when we feel the lack of life; or in the dread of hell when eternal salvation seems to have left us. Then indeed there is humble longing and knocking, prayer and search, in order to be rid of sin, death and dread. And then he acts as if he had only begun to show us our sins, as if death were to continue, and hell never to cease. Just as he here treats his mother, by his refusal making the need greater and more distressing than it was before she came to him with her request; for now it seems everything is lost, since the one support on which she relied in her need is also gone.

This is where faith stands in the heat of battle. Now observe how his mother acts and here becomes our teacher. However harsh his words sound, however unkind he appears, she does not in her heart interpret this as anger, or as the opposite of kindness, but adheres firmly to the conviction that he is kind, refusing to give up this opinion because of the thrust she received, and unwilling to dishonor him in her heart by thinking him to be otherwise than kind and gracious--as they do who are without faith, who fall back at the first shock and think of God merely according to what they feel, like the horse and the mule, Ps 32, 9. For if Christ's mother had allowed those harsh words to frighten her she would have gone away silently and displeased; but in ordering the servants to do what he might tell them she proves that she has overcome the rebuff and still expects of him nothing but kindness.

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Our new minister pleaded with the congregation for help with a church project. After weeks with few takers. he called our house with this deeply felt, if not diplomatic, request: "I am scaping the bottom of the barrel for volunteers and wonder if you might be able to help?"

--Virginia Nifong, of Auburndale, Florida, in the February 2013 Reader's Digest, page 188

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Dr. Van De Water assumed active charge of the Parish on the date fixed, January 1st, 1888....We had called a young and able Rector to take charge of us, and “the people had a mind to work” with right good will.

It may be interesting to give some approximate figures of the Parish as they were recorded at the opening of the year 1888.

Number of families - 475
Number of Communicants - 1,000
Sunday scholars - 1,050
Debt on the Church, at 5 per cent - $43,500

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The second myth is particularly applicable for Anglicans. William Vaughan Jenkins and Heather Kayan published a fascinating piece of homiletic research, "Sermon Responses and Preferences in Pentecostal and Mainline churches, in the Journal of Empirical Theology.

Three conclusions from their research stand out. First, “The data showed that Anglicans desired significant intellectual content…compared to Pentecostal members.” Second, “Participants from both churches responded to sermons in a predominantly emotional way.” Third, members of “both churches wanted to hear sermons on grace and forgiveness” above all other topics. Despite our preference for cognitive material, we clearly judge sermons by their emotional appeal, and prefer homilies on personal faith issues. It is a myth that the sermon must be aimed at people’s heads rather than equally at the mind and the heart.

The third myth grows out of the second. It is that a university education is extremely important in preparing one to be a good preacher. If this is true, how does one harmonize the postgraduate education of Anglican priests with the poor quality of the average Anglican sermon? A survey of 20 randomly chosen Anglican sermons from Nova Scotia to British Columbia produced the lowest ratings of any group studied. Apparently the worst preaching in Canada comes from our pulpits!

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Instead of reposting the texts of all the questions which I had by email, I see Tom Ferguson already has them all posted, so I will link to him--KSH.

Here is question two and you can find all the rest of the questions there (scroll down if necessary).

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Set 1: Liturgy and Church Music

Limited Resources: A printed one-volume annotated Bible; a printed 1979 Book of Common Prayer; a printed Book of Occasional Services; a printed Lesser Feasts and Fasts; the printed Enriching Our Worship volumes; a printed Holy Women, Holy Men; and printed authorized Episcopal hymnals. NO electronic or Internet resources.

Create a liturgy for a nature-oriented event in your pastoral context. You may imagine any such situation: for example, the planting or harvesting of crops, the blessing of a fishing fleet, the planting of a community garden, the reclaiming of land after a natural disaster, or the blessing of animals.

1. In a well-organized essay of approximately 750 words:

A. Give the pastoral reason for the rite;
B. Explain the theological understanding of creation that informs your liturgical design.

2. In another essay of approximately 750 words:

A. Outline the celebration, explaining why you structured it this way and why you chose the liturgical texts, readings and music, showing how your choices conform to the rubrics of the liturgical books listed above;
B. Describe the roles of the members of the congregation, including the liturgical leaders;
C. Describe the liturgical choreography (the movement of the assembly, including the liturgical ministers) and the use of space.

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Before you look see if you can name the seven areas on the exam, then read it all (page 2 of pdf).

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More bishops, fewer dioceses and the future of women clergy were amongst the main topics of debate at the Anglican Church of North America’s College of Bishops meeting this week in Orlando.

Bishops from the conservative province in waiting in North America in the Anglican Communion approved the election of two additional bishops for the PEAR-USA Network. The Rev. Quigg Lawrence will lead the Atlantic Regional Network and the Rev. Ken Ross the Western Regional Network, while the Very Rev. Clark Lowenfield was elected bishop of the Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast – a diocese in formation.

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From here:

Replace Title IV, Canon 1—Ethical Standards
The proposed change would replace the current text of Title IV, Canon 1

Ethical Canon Draft Revision for the Diocese of Georgia’s Title IV, Canon 1 (“Ethical Standards”) currently reads: “Marriage between a man and a woman or abstinence from sexual activity are the only acceptable forms of sexual behavior for a Deacon, Priest or Bishop in the Diocese of Georgia.”

The proposed substitute from the Committee on Constitution & Canons is as follows:

Deacons, Priests, and Bishops in the Diocese of Georgia are called to be wholesome examples to the Church exhibiting the teachings and virtues of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their personal lives must manifest faithfulness, monogamy, life-long commitment, mutual caring, and the healthy care of themselves and their families. Their public lives must show financial honesty, confidentiality as required, respect of interpersonal and professional boundaries, and the avoidance of fraud, deceit, or deliberate misrepresentations.

References for above:
The ordination rite of the BCP
Title IV, Canon 4

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The pastor offers the congregation’s laments and doxology to God and proclaims God’s holy word to the congregation. Friendships have little to do with this. Should God call the pastor to go to another place, it’s asking too much of the congregation to expect them to discern this with the pastor.

Ordination costs pastors, and one of the greatest costs is maintaining the lonely status of being surrounded by everyone in the church while always being the odd person in the room. [Layman] Jack Anderson will never understand this, but it is critical for his sake that I did.

As a physician, Jack had a similar challenge when he diagnosed me with a condition that required minor surgery. He didn’t ask me to help him discern the best course of action, and he knew that the truly loving act was to say necessary things that I didn’t want to hear. That’s because his ethical responsibility was to treat me not as a friend but as a patient. That makes perfect sense to him and to me. But he’s confused when I treat him as a parishioner.

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