“I was really attracted to this place. I felt like I was being called to come to Block Island,” said [Eileen] Lindeman, who moved here from near San Francisco in late August and now works part-time as vicar, also known as the priest, of St. Ann’s.

Lindeman’s duties involve leading the Sunday worship services, which begin at 9 a.m. each week and last about an hour. At the service, she leads the prayers, “consecrates the elements” (preparing for the holy communion, Lindeman explained) and she also delivers a sermon. She helps lead a monthly Taizé prayer service, which happens the fourth Wednesday of each month. She also performs weddings, funerals and baptisms ”” the first Saturday of her job she said she performed renewals of marriage vows for two couples.

Aside from these roles, Lindeman said she really wants to be there for her congregation, and for the community as a whole, regardless of a person’s religious denomination. She said that often people call or visit with specific situations or concerns ”” sometimes they just want to talk, she said ”” and she wants to have enough flexible time to be there to accommodate each person. According to Lindeman and Parish Administrator Erica Tonner, for a little over a year, St. Ann’s has had an interim priest who has not lived on the island year-round.

Read it all.

The invitations are in the mail. Jennifer Beltz and T.J. Gurski of Commerce Township, Mich., are defying the odds ”” they’re taking the plunge a second time.

“When I got divorced, I said, ”˜I’m never getting married again,” says Beltz, 41, who works in marketing.

That sentiment seems to be quite common among those jaded by a failed first union: A new analysis of federal data provided exclusively to USA TODAY shows the USA’s remarriage rate has dropped 40 percent over the past 20 years.

Read it all.

Today, [Marine Sargeant Dana] King has no visible scars from his time in combat. But his injuries are as real as any veteran hit by shrapnel. Instead of losing a limb, King lost functions in his brain that help him remember things, control his emotions and sometimes talk clearly.

He covers it up well. He said most people around him don’t know he’s suffering from the effects of a traumatic brain injury ”“ don’t know the invisible battle with his disability that he wages every day.

And King is far from alone. Since 2000, more than 270,000 troops have been diagnosed with concussions and other traumatic head injuries. Experts say the numbers are likely much higher. A Rand Corp. study in 2008 put the number of brain-injured troops at more than 320,000, and that was two years before a massive surge in improvised explosive device attacks in Afghanistan.

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

At some point in their lives, one of every three Americans will leave Christianity, according to a 2011 study in the Journal of Religion and Society. Called “leavers,” “deconverts,” or “ex-Christians,” they are targets of fresh concern among church denominations watching their numbers shrink. Pollsters and bloggers tick off reasons why so many are leaving, such as intellectual hurdles to belief, immoral or intolerant church leaders, and profound suffering. But the leavers phenomenon is nothing new. It goes back at least to the parable of the Prodigal Son, told by Jesus and recorded in Luke 15:11”“32.

What about the people whom the prodigals leave behind? The ones who love the leavers? The ones left to hold down the forts of remaining families and faith communities? Few theological and practical resources exist for the two out of every three Christians who remain with the Father while they watch their “younger brother” leave.

The biblical parable centers on the relationship between a father and his two sons. But the essence of the story remains the same, whether the prodigal is a child, sibling, spouse, parent, or friend. This is why P. C. Ennis Jr. argues in the Journal for Preachers that “it is crucial that periodically we preach on the Prodigal Son. . . . Like the Easter story and the Christmas story, it bears repeating, for the story of the Prodigal Son is the gospel in capsule.”

Read it all.

The Rt. Rev. Scott B. Hayashi, Episcopal Bishop of Utah, is a smiler.

He loves to laugh, and those who know him best say he can tell a joke with the best of them.

But there is one form of humor that always puts a frown on his face.

“I don’t like jokes that are hateful toward any one group, especially jokes that are hateful toward a religious group,” he said. “In my baptismal covenant I pledged that I would ”˜work for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being.’ Statements of hate, regardless of who they are generated against or how humorously they are intended, are not part of what it means to me to be faithful as an Episcopalian. So I say, don’t do it.”

Read it all.

A Youtube video of a mom doing the “happy dance” after putting her children on the bus for the first day of school went viral this week. The school bus pulls up, the kids hop on, N’SYNC’s “Bye, Bye, Bye” is cued up, and the Framingham mother starts dancing wildly on the curb.

I think it resonates because it captures the swirl of emotions this time of year….

The reality is that we both fear and crave routine.

Read it all.

Amid increasing calls for legalization of abortion in Africa, botched cases among young women are on the rise, according to recent reports.

Governments are responding by distributing contraceptives, but the Roman Catholic Church, some Muslim groups and anti-abortion groups are waging their own campaigns against contraception, warning it will further escalate the problem.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) has launched a free cell phone application or ‘app’ to aid communication between parishes and parishioners in the Province.

The Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in the Polokwane area of South Africa, the Very Revd Luke Pretorius, is also a member of ACSA Media Committee.

“I am excited at what may be a world first from Africa,” he told ACNS, “and [also] for how this app will improve the communication between churches and people by using cell phone technology, an essential and already popular tool in Africa.”

Read it all.

Many have mourned theology’s separation from the Church, but in the last 30 years we have witnessed resurgent efforts to reconnect academic theology to its ecclesial roots. The Scholar-Priest Initiative stands in this vein, endeavoring to be the servant in the background of Rembrandt’s picture: to do everything in our power to reintegrate theology back into the life of the parish; to rekindle theological vocation and imagination; in short, to welcome theology home.

The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada face three intractable and seemingly unrelated problems: the double bind of ordained parochial leadership, the diminishment of theological discourse in parish life, and the overall decline of North American theological education.

First, while debates rage on whether and to what extent North American Anglicanism is in decline (and what to do about it), we suffer from an undeniable and debilitating double bind in our parochial leadership. In the Episcopal Church nearly 40 percent of congregations operate without full-time, permanent ordained ministers. Our churches ”” ever increasingly, it seems ”” simply cannot afford full-time clergy. Many dioceses have accordingly found themselves with a glut of ordained ministers. Several have suspended their discernment processes because they already have too many unemployed and underemployed priests. We have an overabundance of well-trained, capable priests. We have too many congregations in need of priests. We need to somehow connect the dots.

Second, there is a disconnect between theological discourse and parish life….

Each Sunday, Ashley Ridge Church collects about $200 to $300 in its Change for a Dollar buckets.

Then, church members email requests or suggestions for how to use the money that week.

Church leaders pick someone, and then watch what happens.

Take a young man who recently suffered a seizure disorder but lacked the resources to see a neurologist. He had visited the Medical Outreach Clinic of Summerville but needed more specialized care than it could provide.

Read it all.

After the Mass [for the Death of my Father], people from the church gathered around to console. A priest friend accompanied me to the funeral home to work out the details of the wake. The parish where the funeral Mass was held assigned a laywoman volunteer who, in a very sensitive and knowledgeable way, helped me to plan the service. A contingent from my home parish in Brooklyn came to the wake and funeral. Sisters and others who work with my wife at a Catholic high school in Brooklyn arrived in large numbers.

I saw a theological term made real””that God’s people make up the Body of Christ, a mystical concept of the church that encompasses the living and the dead, the visible and invisible, my deceased father and me. As St. Paul wrote, if one part of the body suffers, all the parts suffer. This is the church I would not be lured to leave, even on the frequent occasions when its leaders disappoint me.

Read it all.

Southern church culture, including Birmingham, celebrates nearly anyone who claims to reach teenagers. We often assume the inherent goodness of any ministry that draws large numbers. And we idolize reaching the next generation to the point that we largely ignore what we are winning them with and what we are winning them to. Despite warning signs, youth pastors continued to take busloads of teenagers to The Basement and Christian radio relentlessly promoted Pitt’s meetings.

All the while The Basement’s theology was largely ignored. Viewing the videos on The Basement’s website reveals an exciting atmosphere that lacks substantial understanding of God as revealed in his Word. Pitt’s sermons might have been “in your face,” but they did not point teens to the Bible and the gospel message revealed in it. Much of the public also ignored the Bible’s teaching about character in leaders because Pitt claimed to have a “calling” from God to lead this ministry. And who could question his results?

But internal calling is only part of what it means to be a gospel minister.

Read it all.

The Most Rev Justin Welby told an audience of traditional born-again Christians that they must “repent” over the way gay and lesbian people have been treated in the past and said most young people viewed Christians as no better than racists on the issue.

Archbishop Welby, who as a young priest once opposed allowing gay couples to adopt children, said the church now had to face up to what amounted to one of the most rapid changes in public attitudes ever.

While insisting that he did not regret voting against same-sex marriage in the House of Lords, he admitted that his own mind was not yet “clear” on the wider issues which he was continuing to think about.

Read it all. Also, there is an article in The Independent on this there.

There is something indulgent about boredom. It makes me think of posh people in Russian plays complaining they have nothing to do while other people work their arses off in the field. As Schopenhauer insisted, life for the person of means becomes a question of how to dispose of surplus time. Maybe that’s why boredom feels like a problem especially associated with August and not least with children on long car journeys.

But according to the Norwegian philosopher Lars Svendsen, author of A Philosophy of Boredom, boredom comes to take on a particular and possibly darker inflection with modernity. Having been bored witless writing his PhD about Kant, Svendsen came to see a connection between his subject and his state of mind. With Kant, God is replaced by the self as the ultimate source of meaning. As traditional structures of meaning are wiped away, boredom comes to be regarded as a very personal sort of failing. And in order to avoid it, various distractions are entertained: travel, drink, drugs, the Xbox, sex, transgressive behaviour ”“ all strategies of avoidance, all hinting at a desperate desire to hold off the acknowledgment of meaninglessness. It is, says Svendsen, a problem characteristic of modernity. Whereas boredom has once bragged about as a mark of nobility, now it is the ultimate in personal failing. Those who are bored are losers.

Perhaps this is why the entertainment industry is more important to us that we are often prepared to admit.

Read it all.

It was my attempt in those far off days to combat the spirit of anti-intellectualism that I still believe is such a bane on the Christian church today. It was then that I dared for the first time to say, though I have said it often since, that anti-intellectualism and the fullness of the Holy Spirit are mutually incompatible. And I dare to say it because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. Jesus our Lord himself, referred to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, and therefore, it is only
logical to say that wherever the Holy Spirit is given his freedom, truth is bound to matter. So, I have argued, and argue still, that a proper, conscientious use of our minds is an inevitable part and parcel of our Christian life.

Read it all.

An unlikely chain of events made him not only a national celebrity but a stand-in for every priest who has ever ministered to the faithful in an emergency.

But Father Patrick Dowling — who was dubbed a “mystery priest” and a “guardian angel” after praying with a woman trapped in a wrecked car in northeastern Missouri — hopes all the hype surrounding his simple deed won’t overshadow the real message.

“God loves us, he is here close to us, and when we’re in trouble, he’s there,” said Father Dowling.

Read it all.

Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

The past week has been traumatic for Egyptians. We witnessed bloodshed on our streets, vandalism and the deliberate destruction of churches and government buildings in lawless acts of revenge. One of our Anglican Churches was attacked, and other ministries received threats. We praise God that our churches and congregations are safe, but we grieve for the loss of life and for the churches which were burnt over the past week in Egypt.

The Anglican Church in Egypt serves all Egyptians, especially the disadvantaged and marginalized, through our educational, medical and community development ministries. We seek to be a light in our society, and we continue to serve our neighbours in the difficult situation which surrounds us. Unemployment is at a record high, there is a lack of security on the streets, the economy is in decline, and poverty is crushing for many people in Egypt.

Read it all.

….despite his national renown, he’s a pastor at heart. Gentle, gracious, and filled with concern for his congregation, for over 25 years he’s counseled his flock at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio through countless painful experiences””the marriage that’s fallen apart, the 5-year-old who died in a car accident, the war vet burned from head to toe in Afghanistan. These experiences led to his latest book, You’ll Get Through This: Hope and Help For Your Turbulent Times, an extended reflection on suffering, pain, and hope based on Joseph’s story in Genesis. Jeff Haanen, executive director of Denver Institute for Faith & Work, spoke with Lucado on living through tragedy, a theology of suffering, and the hopefulness that flows from trusting in God’s sovereignty.

Why did you choose Joseph’s story in Genesis as a basis for your book?

Well, I’ve been pastoring for a long time””over 30 years””and I’ve found myself wanting to give people a real hope-filled message that they can consider during tough times of their lives.

Read it all.

In his most stark comments yet about divisions over issues such as homosexuality, the Most Rev Justin Welby said the Church is coming perilously close to plunging into a “ravine of intolerance”.

He even drew parallels between the crisis afflicting the 77 million-strong network of Anglican churches and the atmosphere during the English Civil War.

And he likened the collective behaviour of the church to a “drunk man” staggering ever closer to edge of a cliff.

Read it all and the sermon text being cited is there.

“It was hard to know where to start after my last album. The song Blessings started as a diary entry and God blew us away by using it in the lives of so many around the world. And as I began to write for my new project “God of Every Story”, I went back to that deep place of vulnerability before the Lord, and honesty — with myself. The path God has led our family down is not one I would have chosen for myself. It has been much harder than I had envisioned, yet it has required deeper faith than I ever thought myself capable of. And that’s what God of every story is really about: It’s trusting that the same God who orchestrates the rising and the setting of the sun each day pays the same attention to every detail of my life. It’s believing that at the end of the day, we will look back on this amazing God story that is my life and view it as a beautiful sunset, where the blues and reds, the laughter and tears, all meld together to show the faithfulness of God in a way that makes us stand in applause.”

“God of Every Story” is a collection of songs about where God’s love and grace intersect with our real life situations. It’s about God working all things together for good and love always winning. It’s a celebration of God’s faithfulness, even when we don’t always understand His plan this side of heaven. Yet we praise Him because He is the keeper of the stars, the One who holds all things together and always, always, deserves our worship.

Read it all (note there is an excerpt from one of her new songs if you wish to listen) and you can find a Godtube interview to watch there.

Dear Friends,

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

As I write these words, our St. Saviour’s Anglican Church in Suez is under heavy attack from those who support former President Mursi. They are throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the church and have destroyed the car of Rev. Ehab Ayoub, the priest-in-charge of St. Saviour’s Church. I am also aware that there are attacks on other Orthodox churches in Menyia and Suhag in Upper Egypt (photo above), as well as a Catholic church in Suez. Some police stations are also under attack in different parts of Egypt. Please pray and ask others to pray for this inflammable situation in Egypt.
arly this morning, the police supported by the army, encouraged protestors in two different locations in Cairo, to leave safely and go home. It is worth mentioning that these protestors have been protesting for 6 weeks, blocking the roads. The people in these neighborhoods have been suffering a great deal””not only these people, but those commuting through, especially those who are going to the airport. The police created very safe passages for everyone to leave. Many protestors left and went home, however, others resisted to leave and started to attack the police. The police and army were very professional in responding to the attacks, and they used tear gas only when it was necessary. The police then discovered caches of weapons and ammunition in these sites. One area near Giza is now calm, but there is still some resistance at other sites. There are even some snipers trying to attack the police and the army. There are even some rumors that Muslim Brotherhood leaders asked the protestors in different cities to attack police stations, take weapons, and attack shops and churches.

A few hours later, violent demonstrations from Mursi supporters broke out in different cities and towns throughout Egypt. The police and army are trying to maintain safety for all people and to disperse the protestors peacefully. However, the supporters of former President Mursi have threatened that if they are dispersed from the current sites, they will move to other sites and continue to protest. They also threatened to use violence. There have been a number of fatalities and casualties from among the police as well as the protestors, but it seems that the numbers are not as high as expected for such violence. However, the supporters of former President Mursi claim that there are very high numbers of casualties. The real numbers will be known later on.

Please pray that the situation will calm down, for wisdom and tact for the police and the army, for the safety of all churches and congregations, and that all in Egypt would be safe.

May the Lord bless you!

–(The Most Rev.) Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis”¨ is Bishop of the Episcopal / Anglican Diocese of Egypt”¨ with North Africa and the Horn of Africa”¨ and President Bishop of the Episcopal / Anglican”¨
Province of Jerusalem and the Middle EastӬӬ

The title of this article may seem both presumptuous and audacious. Do I really believe every pastor should have a blog? Yes I do. I speak to pastors in numerous settings, and I am able to share with them the benefits of such a discipline in writing.

Understand that writing a blog can begin simple with little time pressure. The pastor can commit to write 400 words a week in one post. I do recommend that the number of posts increase to at least twice a week later, but you need to start somewhere.

I think you will be amazed how much the blog benefits the church and your ministry. Here are seven reasons why it is so important….

Read it all.

High-profile pastors have long complained (along with other celebrities) of impersonators on social media. But Rick Warren recently revealed just how widespread the problem is.

Warren announced Tuesday that in the months since his son Matthew’s suicide, more than 200 fake Facebook pages have popped up, soliciting funds in Matthew’s memory. So far, he has succeeded in shutting down 179 of them, which he said were “making money on my son’s death.”

Read it all.

We fear being sued, finishing last, going broke; we fear the mole on the back, the new kid on the block, the sound of the clock as it ticks us closer to the grave. We sophisticate investment plans, create elaborate security systems, and legislate stronger military, yet we depend on mood altering drugs more than any other generation in history. Moreover, “ordinary children today are more fearful than psychiatric patients were in the 1950s.”

Fear, it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversize and rude, fear is unwilling to share the heart with happiness. Happiness complies and leaves. Do you ever see the two together? Can one be happy and afraid at the same time? Clear thinking and afraid? Confident and afraid? Merciful and afraid? No. Fear is the big bully in the high school hallway: brash, loud, and unproductive. For all the noise fear makes and room it takes, fear does little good.

Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. People who refused to consult or cower to their timidities did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors.

Wouldn’t it be great to walk out?

Imagine your life wholly untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, and doubt, what would remain? Envision a day, just one day, absent the dread of failure, rejection, and calamity. Can you imagine a life with no fear? This is the possibility behind Jesus’ question.

“Why are you afraid?” he asks (Matt. 8:26 ncv).

–Max Luxado, Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear (Thomas Nelson, 2009), pp.5-6 ; quoted by yours truly in the morning sermon

In its passion to pursue a progressive theological paradigm embracing cultural sensitivity (inclusiveness) and intellectual freedom, TEC cast aside fundamental Christian doctrines, professing, among other things:

* Jesus was not born of a virgin, was not God incarnate, and his resurrection is questionable at best;

* Man needs enlightenment, not salvation; we are to reconcile ourselves with one another, not with God;

* Scripture is not authoritative nor the revealed word of God, but rather metaphorical.

Simply put, Anglicans left TEC because of their faithfulness to the fundamental and historical Christian foundation that the Holy Scriptures are the final authority of its faith.

The tragic fallout of this split is multifaceted. A lady I have known and worshipped with for 30 years approached me, saying homosexuals were not welcome at St. Paul’s. I was taken aback by her misconception. I reminded her that on every Sunday, the priest who is celebrating Holy Communion invites “all baptized Christians as being welcome here at the Lord’s table.” Not blessing same sex unions is an unrelated issue.

Read it all.

Rising healthcare costs for needed items such as shower chairs and grab bars gave parishioners at Immanuel Episcopal Church in Bay Minette the impetus to begin a new outreach ministry.

Offered as an idea at a church retreat held this past spring, the plan has developed into an active ministry with shower chairs, grab bars and commode chairs delivered and more shower chairs, commode chairs and grab bars purchased and ready for delivery.

“After a lifetime spent working hard, raising a family and contributing to their community, many of these people now face multiple health problems and mounting healthcare costs,” said Ryan Gillikin, Immanuel vestry member and coordinator of this ministry. “While Medicare and insurance cover many of these costs, there are certain things like shower chairs and grab bars that are no longer covered. These items can increase a person’s independence, improve quality of life and decrease fall risk.”

Read it all.

Christians and the church can do much more beyond welcome. About half of LGBT adults surveyed report no religious affiliation. While the ones who did attend worship felt welcome, the Pew survey found that most LGBT respondents view major religious groups (Christians, Jews, and Muslims) as “unfriendly.”

A new attitude within churches of openness and hospitality, anchored in biblical grace and truth, would be a startling response for individuals or couples with same-sex attraction. We need to repent of the notion that sexual identity is as easy to change as a light bulb.

What would this new attitude look like? Biblical belief and practice are tested by extreme situations. In this instance, the test occurs inside and outside the four walls of a church.

Read it all.

“His comments only further reflect his desire to reach out to all Catholics and individuals who are marginalized,” said [Marcus] Cox, a history professor and associate dean at The Citadel. “His unassuming leadership style and his message of love and tolerance gives him the ability to connect with individuals seeking a place in the Catholic church.”

Francis might have struck a more conciliatory tone for some, but he surely did not suggest that noncelibate gays and lesbians should escape the church’s judgment, said Warren Redman-Gress, executive director of Alliance for Full Acceptance, a Charleston-based gay-rights advocacy group.

“Pope Francis’ recent ”˜Who am I to judge?’ remark regarding gay clergy has been called an ”˜outstretched hand’ and a shift toward greater understanding,” wrote Redman-Gress in an email. “I don’t believe it is either. When a person, even a pope, uses the ”˜who am I to judge?’ phrase, he is saying, ”˜I won’t judge because I am a sinner as well; I am going to leave the judgment of that person’s sexual orientation to God.’ ”

But this implies that a sexually active gay person nevertheless is subject to God’s reckoning (and, by extention, the church’s), Redman-Gress wrote.

Read it all.

Justin Welby, the 57-year old former oil executive who quit the world of high finance in 1992 to become a priest, was enthroned in March as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury. And now the spiritual leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, has revealed that he speaks “in tongues”.

During an interview with Charles Moore of The Daily Telegraph at Lambeth Palace, London, he was asked by Moore that since he was an evangelical, could he speak “in tongues” which the journalist said is the “charismatic” spiritual gift recorded in the New Testament.

Moore said that Welby answered “Oh yes”, as if he had been asked if he plays tennis.

“It’s just a routine part of spiritual discipline – you choose to speak and you speak a language that you don’t know. It just comes,” the Archbishop said.

Read it all.

Standing at the entrance to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on 17th Street, the Rt. Rev. Chet Talton raised up the blunt end of a 6-foot-tall staff and pounded it against the door.

Again he pounded with his crosier, and again, each time the knock resounding through the 160-strong gathering. From inside, the church warden greeted him, and after a brief exchange, Talton entered.

So began a new era at St. Paul’s, itself the subject of a prolonged battle that, though settled at this congregation, continues to ripple through courtrooms across the country.

Read it all.