I wish that we in the Episcopal Church were just a bit bolder about what it is that we do believe; that we could put out our message with more fervor and enthusiasm. For example, I believe that we have allowed those who are outside our church to define us, usually negatively. What if we spoke with more clarity about our dedication to our baptismal covenant, and about our belief in the creeds?
Domestic totals for The Episcopal Church for 2007 are now public. They show a 2 percent decline in membership from 2006, and a cumulative 10
What does God want? I mean really – what’s God looking for in people? What’s he want from us? The Bible says – the prophets
I am so weary, Father, of using myself
as the measure of everything and everybody.
Just for this one day, I beg you,
help me to find release from the old pattern
of seeing the different-from-me
as either less-than or more-than me.
I propose that the most real and most effective “instrument” of our Anglican Communion is the set of actual personal relationships that exist among parishes and dioceses across national and cultural boundaries. These relationships … are what have inspired Anglicans to deeper faith and service to God. These are personal relationships of witness, service, and prayer; and they have been the efficacious symbols of communion in its highest degree.
Moses did not set foot on the land below for which the people were longing by reason of the promise. He who preferred to live by what flowed from above no longer tasted earthly food. But having come to the very top of the mountain, he, like a good sculptor who has fashioned well the whole statue of his own life, did not simply bring his creation to an end but he placed the finishing touch on his work.
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We do not understand what the Bible is apart from its being woven up from and into the fabric of the Church, nor can we interpret it apart from a location within the life and activity of the Church. That being said, what guidelines can be found to clarify things a bit? Well, I think the Diocese of New York teaching document Let the Reader Understand is excellent.
Give, looking for nothing again, that is, without consideration of future advantages: give to children, to old men, to the unthankful, and the dying, and to those you shall never see again: for else your alms and curtesy is not charity,
Bennett grew up in the Episcopal church. She sang in the choir. She was married in one and baptized her five children there. Her mother’s ashes are buried under a tree outside an Episcopal church in Massachusetts. But being openly gay now in the Colorado diocese, she says, is like being given “half-a-loaf acceptance.” Gays are offered some sacraments but not others.