Dear Friends in Christ,

As we enter the porch of Lent when life’s pace for many of us quickens, I’m reminded of a story. The Roman Emperor Hadrian was accosted once by an old woman whom he brushed aside by saying he was too busy to give her a hearing. She replied, “Then you’re too busy to be emperor” whereupon he stopped and listened to her complaint. So before you add to an already pressured life what you think it will mean for you to have a well observed Lent, consider these few thoughts.

The outward forms of the Lenten disciplines are not spelled out in our prayer book with any specificity, nor should they be. For I suspect that if each of us went to a doctor of the spiritual life, as one goes to a physician for a checkup, the diagnosis, and subsequent prescription for our spiritual maladies would be different for each of us. Perhaps in many cases we would not find the “soul doctor’s” prescription some dreadful duty of denial, but a welcome relief that we would gladly embrace if given “permission” to do so. I can easily imagine a devout, overly busy Christian being told by a doctor of the spiritual life that what he or she needs for Lent is physical exercise (I Timothy 4:8a), to read a good novel (note: good not cheap), sleep more, learn to laugh again, and fall in love with the Author of Life (I Timothy 4:8b).
One memorable spiritual master of Twentieth century England was Father Hugh Maycock. Connected with Cambridge between 1944-1952, and Oxford during 1952-1970, he was a formative influence on many young scholars. One of his former students, Kenneth Leech in recounting what he had learned from Fr. Maycock, noted two unusual disciplines: the value of sleep and laughter.

Sleep and payer are closely related, as any student of the Bible can observe. In fact on more than one occasion the disciples slept when they should have been vigilant in prayer, and at least once Jesus slept when the disciples thought he should have been praying (or at least bailing water). Both sleep and prayer call for slowing down, a relaxed condition, and “abandonment in trust.” Since many committed Christians today live their lives in a permanent state of semi-exhaustion to embrace a discipline of proper sleep can be spiritually helpful-a true preparation for the Sabbath rest of the people of God.

Then there’s the importance of laughter. Kenneth Leech writes, “Laughter is necessary to our sanity: a person with no humor is like an iron bridge with no give in it. It is vital, too, that we learn to laugh at ourselves.” Laughter has been shown to have therapeutic qualities for the mind and the body. It also has value for our life with the Lord. As the psalmist recalled in the day of God’s restorative presence:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
Then were we like those who dream.
Then was our mouth filed with laughter,
And our tongue with shouts of joy. (Psalm 126:1-2)

So, how does one go about choosing a discipline for Lent? Oddly enough, one of the more spiritually refreshing Lenten seasons that I can remember as a busy parish priest was a year I decided I would take better care of myself physically. Regular exercise, eating well, and fully taking my day off was spiritually restoring in ways I did not anticipate-though do not misunderstand me here; I remained steadfast in prayer, in study of Scripture, the rhythm of Eucharist, and fully engaged in ministry. So don’t just decide you will do without chocolate, coffee, or some equally knee-jerk, and, possibly, fruitless undertaking. Rather, consider seeking the advice of a wise, discerning Christian friend or spiritual mentor. Ask the counsel of a priest or pastor; prayerfully listen to God while in prayer or in church. Just don’t be too surprised at what you hear. It may be a delightful prescription you hear uttered in stillness: “slow down,” “sleep more,” “laugh a lot” or “spend more quality time with your family.” Of course there will be those who hear, “get the lead out,” (Hebrews 12:12-13) “quit nursing your wounds and get on with the rhythms of grace,” (see Hebrews 12:15) and for most of us: “face into your sin, repent, and enter the joy of being reconciled to God and your neighbor.” It is just that the last of these, facing into our sin may include for some of us the recognition that we have been engaged in a vain attempt to shoulder a heavy yoke the Lord has not called us to carry alone and certainly not without the joy of a Sabbath rest or the Hope of the Easter Resurrection.

Gratefully and gracefully yours,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Mark J. Lawrence is Bishop of South Carolina

St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach went back before the state Supreme Court Tuesday in the latest chapter in its long-running battle with the Episcopal Church.

St. James was one of three Episcopal churches in Southern California to split from the denomination in 2004, after the national church ordained a gay man as bishop in New Hampshire. The Los Angeles Diocese, later joined by the national Episcopal Church, sued St. James after the split, asserting ownership of the church property at 3209 Via Lido.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The holy season of Lent is soon upon us. The invitation to its devout observance as set forth in the Ash Wednesday liturgy gives prominence to “reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” I am convinced that all other spiritual practices and observances find their surest foundation in the plain words of Holy Scripture.

One of the main goals of the English reformers was to make the Bible in the English language accessible to every person. A cornerstone of Anglican Spirituality for the past four and a half centuries has been the provision for ordinary people to read the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament in the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer. Those who pray the Daily Office regularly know what a gift it is and how the Lord can speak to us through this invaluable spiritual discipline.
During the recent Diocesan Parish Leadership Conferences, Whitney Kuniholm, President of Scripture Union U.S.A., introduced to the clergy and people attending the PLC’s another means of being fed and nourished by God’s Word through the E-100 initiative. It’s a simple method of reading and meditating on 100 of the most important or essential passages of the Old and New Testament (50 from each) which help provide the ‘big picture’ of the story of salvation. God’s love and our neglect is a repeating cycle. The E-100 passages help open the door for God through Holy Scripture to directly enter into our minds, our memories and our hearts, reminding us of His love and commitment to our welfare and salvation.

As Ash Wednesday approaches, ushering in the season of Lent, I encourage you to take part in your parish Lenten programs, to attend church every Sunday, to engage in Lenten devotions such as the Stations of the Cross, to fast and to pray. I especially encourage you to begin the E-100 on Ash Wednesday, and to faithfully follow it as a family or individually. Copies have been given to every Parish in the Diocese. If you begin now, you will complete the E-100 by Pentecost. It takes only a few minutes a day- far less than the news, the soaps, facebook a telephone chat or a nap. Many of our parishes are taking the E-100 Challenge as a parish family. Please give it a try. In so doing, may the Lord bless you richly as you grow ever closer to Him through His holy Word.

The Letter to the Hebrews (4:12-13) reminds us that “The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.”

My prayer for each of us this Lent is that the Word of God will actively penetrate our heart and mind, that we might be transformed, and that God can then use us to transform His world.

Your brother in Christ this holy Lent,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Bill Love is Bishop of Albany

Please keep him and Marilyn in your prayers. My understanding is that he is intending to pursue ministry in the Roman Catholic Church, likely under the provisions of the Ordinariate when that all becomes clear.

The Right Rev. Geralyn Wolf, a convert from Judaism who stepped into the history books 15 years ago by becoming only the second woman in U.S. Episcopal Church history to be ordained a diocesan bishop, is planning to retire as Rhode Island’s Episcopal bishop late in 2012.

Wolf, who turns 64 next month, broke the news to some of her staff Thursday, her first day back after undergoing knee replacement surgery on Jan. 31.

She made a more public disclosure on Saturday at the close of an evangelism convocation attended by priests and lay people at the Providence Marriott.

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In a colorful and joyous service, the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri today is consecrating and installing the Very Rev. Martin S. Field as its eighth bishop…

Field was rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Flint, Mich., from June 2003 to January 2011. An Ohio native, he served churches in Tennessee, Hawaii, Maryland and Ohio and was a chaplain in the United States Navy.

He succeeds the Rt. Rev. Barry Howe, who had led the diocese since 1998.

“An ordination service typically is one of the happiest occasions in the life of a diocese, and bishop-elect Field’s ordination is sure to be a colorful and joyous event,” said the Rev. Samuel A. Mason of Trinity Episcopal Church in Independence, chairman of the ordination committee.

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Notice how the conclusion does not even begin to follow from the premise. Because the Constitution does not circumscribe the authority of the Presiding Bishop does not mean either (a) the authority must be unlimited; or (b) that General Convention has the power to define the authority of that office — or to add to, or detract from, its authority on its own. And since duty flows from (and is defined by) authority, having the power to prescribe duties appropriate to the authority that has been given is not the same as having the power to create new authority by creating new “duties.”

Can anyone today seriously argue that the office of the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA is without any limits on its authority? The Title IV Task Force II seems to think so — and they defend their extension, sub rosa, of metropolitical authority to that office on the ostensible ground that such authority is “nothing new,” because General Convention “has never considered that office to be limited as the Runyan & McCall paper states.”

Only persons who were determined to ignore the evolutionary history of the office of Presiding Bishop could make such an outlandish statement….

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Thus, the justification offered by the “Task Force II” on Title IV has no historical basis in fact, and constitutes a misreading of the intent of those who enacted the language. And as argued at the outset of this post, there is no rational basis for dividing the power to establish courts from the power to define their jurisdiction, constitution, and procedures. Read in that way, Article IX becomes a mere fig leaf: the real power to create the courts, notwithstanding the language of Article IX, lies in General Convention.

And so to read Article IX, in a paper submitted by the authors of the revisions to Title IV, is to express everything that is wrong with the current views of the leadership of ECUSA as to its polity. In the state court lawsuits, over and over again, that leadership has beat the drum for ECUSA’s “hierarchical” polity, when — as shown in the first post in this series — there is no such hierarchy as between the dioceses themselves, or when assembled in General Convention. The proof of this point lies in the latest revisions to Title IV themselves. On the “Publications” page of General Convention may be found links to various documents regarding the revisions, including a set of “model” canons for the dioceses to enact in order to implement the revisions.

Without the dioceses enacting those (or similar canons) in their own separate conventions, the changes to Title IV approved at the national level in 2009 could never take effect….

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Leaders from four Christian denominations are calling on Mississippi lawmakers to reject an Arizona-style immigration bill that would let officers check during traffic stops to see if a person is in the country illegally.

Bishops from the Catholic, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran and United Methodist churches in Mississippi said Friday residents must be willing to forgive immigrants who enter the United States without permission.

In an open letter to legislators and Gov. Haley Barbour, the bishops said the U.S. immigration system is “broken and outdated,” but should be reformed by the federal government, not by states.

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Officials of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina affirmed this month their sovereignty and discussed the need to encourage growth by starting new congregations.

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The Diocese of South Carolina’s 220th convention has revised six articles [PDF] of its constitution, distancing itself from canon-law revisions approved by General Convention in 2009.

The revisions met the required two-thirds majority for a second consecutive meeting of the diocesan convention, and the diocese’s constitution is now revised.

South Carolina was the first diocese to challenge major revisions to Title IV of the Episcopal Church’s Constitution and Canons, which regards ecclesiastical discipline.

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In light of our call to continue and deepen our disciplined practice of open dialogue, I am, with the full support of the Diocesan Executive Council, calling a special, non-legislative convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina. The purpose of this 1st Theological Council of the Episcopal Church in Upper South Carolina is to engage in substantive biblical and theological dialogue on norms for how we are in relationship with one another and to practice these norms in a dialogue on human sexuality.

How will we go about this dialogue?

Our first priority will be to ensure a safe, secure, and open environment that will keep us mindful of our unity in Christ Jesus. The introduction to the proposed Anglican Covenant, as well as The Rule of St. Benedict, provides helpful scriptural guidance for being together in this way. We will ground our dialogue in a rhythm of prayer and worship, flowing from meals, to worship, to spoken meditation, to reflection, to small group discussion, and then to plenary discussion.

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To begin to think seriously about church planting is to begin to reframe the opportunities that lie before us. Imagine the vitality that would be released if two of our congregations in the four deaneries which have the greatest unchurched demographics (Beaufort, West Charleston, Charleston and Georgetown) planted two new congregations or satellites in the next five years. What new life would emerge within our communities and within the Diocese of South Carolina from eight new congregations or even twice that number? I believe this can be done even during a season of economic downturn. We often get fixated upon buildings and property. But for many in our present culture it is not the aesthetics of the building which attracts; it is the dynamism of the preaching, worship and fellowship which wins the heart of the unchurched person. Certainly we cannot leave entirely behind the need for property and buildings; a drab setting blesses no one’s heart. But if we can focus upon reaching the lost I believe the issues of property and building will emerge in many cases as quite secondary to the winning of the seeker and the transformation of his or her life in Christ. This change from building church plants to growing missional communities is a concept we need to embrace more fully. This will have the dynamism of a movement rather than the often stagnating effect of tending an institution.

The Diocese has in recent years held to the model of established parishes being planters of new churches or congregations. This has worked well in such places as The Cross, Bluffton where a satellite congregation was established at the Buckwalter Campus. So also with Holy Cross, Sullivan’s Island in the planting of a satellite at Daniel Island and their future plan of a third satellite congregation at ”˜Ion in the Mount Pleasant. Such vision is inspiring. Others like St. Paul’s Summerville, St. James’, James Island, St. John’s, Johns Island, and Christ Church, Mount Pleasant because of adjacent land were able to build ministry centers, essentially planting “congregations” on campus. There has been no lack of vision and creativity among us. Today, two of our congregations in the Georgetown deanery have begun initiatives as well. Trinity, Myrtle Beach, under the leadership of Rob Sturdy and Iain Boyd, has initiated a church plant in the Carolina Forest community. This is making good progress. The Rev. Wilmot Merchant and the people of St. Stephen’s, North Myrtle Beach with the help of the Congregational Development Committee purchased property in the Loris area for a potential church plant in the future. They are presently making a strong witness for Christ by their volunteer work in Loris Elementary School therein making a difference in children’s lives. It will also work as a relational base from which to plant a congregation in the future. Nevertheless, elsewhere we have lagged behind, and others have seized the day””God will have his witnesses ”“ with or without us.

The future of two other initiatives is more complicated and raises the question of Diocesan leadership in planting or acknowledging more complex cases. The Well By the Sea at Market Commons, in the area between Surfside and Myrtle Beach, is a “congregation” that has already outgrown its rented facilities and is at a crossroads….

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South Carolina is thus far the only diocese in the Church to take measures to prevent the changes to the national Canons, which are scheduled to go into effect this July 1, from taking effect within its boundaries. I have explained some of the reasons why those changes are contrary to ECUSA’s Constitution in this earlier post: essentially, they extend unprecedented metropolitical powers to the Presiding Bishop, which that office has never been authorized to exercise, and they radically add to the authority of local bishops over their own diocese’s disciplinary proceedings.

Three other dioceses have protested the scope of the revisions made by General Convention in 2009 to Title IV of the Canons (having to do with disciplinary proceedings against clergy). Some have called for General Convention to revisit the subject, and scale back the powers granted to diocesans and to the Presiding Bishop. But most dioceses (including my own, alas, which I could not deter) have implemented the changes into their own canons, by making revisions in the disciplinary proceedings and in the bodies that carry them out.

Thus ECUSA heads into a Constitutional crisis of its own making, which its leadership seems determined to ride out, confident that the Executive Council and General Convention will back them up. As with the leadership’s current litigation strategy, the course is a very high-risk one for them to take….

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Both important resolutions passed [for the second time as required] on the necessary vote by orders by more than the specified 2/3 vote margin necessary for their passage.

The Bishop’s address focused on church vitality, church planting, stewardship, and our collective future–KSH.

You can find basic information and links here and the delegate packet is there.

We would appreciate your prayers.

A somewhat subdued, intellectual man, [John] Howe is known as an inspirational teacher and preacher. But the brand of Episcopal evangelism he preaches is increasingly rare within the church. Howe never left the church, but in many ways it has left him behind, said Randall Balmer, an Episcopal priest and professor of religion at Columbia University.

“There is progressively less room for someone like Bishop Howe than there was 20 years ago,” Balmer said.

Howe said he’s ready to spend more time writing books and traveling with his wife, Karen. They have three children and five grandchildren. There are Clive Cussler novels to read, Benihana meals to eat and lakes to be explored on his boat.

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From this first principle of absolute submission to the supreme authority of the revealed word of God, must proceed another principle, by which our ministrations, like our Church, should be characterized. It is the maintenance and presentation of the obvious doctrine of the Scriptures. My brethren, we assume without hesitation that there is such an obvious doctrine. We assume that it is the general doctrine which, in its simplest form, is expressed in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, and in its more expanded outline spreads itself through our liturgy, articles and offices. We assume it, because, if the Bible be not meant to be less intelligible than the common compositions of upright men, there must be a meaning which shall be obvious; because amongst twenty readers at this day, nineteen are substantially agreed in the general interpretation; and because this interpretation has been essentially the same through all the Christian ages, wherever there has been freedom to read and to interpret.

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The Rev. George D. Young, III, was elected on Saturday, Feb. 12 as fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee, pending the required consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and standing committees of the Episcopal Church.

Young, 55, rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Fernandina Beach, Florida, was elected on the eighth ballot out of a field of five nominees. He received 107 votes of 142 cast in the lay order and 59 of 84 cast in the clergy order. An election on that ballot required 95 in the lay order and 56 in the clergy order.

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Bishop [Thomas] Tobin has found strong support for his position on same-sex marriage in Episcopal Bishop Geralyn Wolf and in Imam Farid Ansari, of the Muslim America Dawah Center of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Council for Muslim Advancement.

“As Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, I firmly support the traditional definition of marriage as the union between one male and one female,” Bishop Wolf said in a statement released to Rhode Island Catholic in January. “I believe that Holy Matrimony is a sacred religious rite, whose definition should not be re-interpreted by legislation or civil courts.”

According to a statement released by the Media Committee of the Rhode Island for Muslim Advancement, the Islamic community of Rhode Island “affirms the standards set forth in the Torah, Gospel and Holy Qur’an on the issue of same-sex relationships and marriage.”

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Before meeting the Episcopal bishop of New York I nose around the massive cathedral. On a wall, between two side chapels, is a brass plaque, inscribed in copper-plate with some august words of sacred scripture: When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, blah blah blah, We declare these truths to be self-evident, and so on. Maybe the Declaration of Independence should be more prominently displayed, for this Church has recently got in touch with its revolutionary side. In a sense the whole crisis in the Anglican Communion originates in its awkward propensity for democracy (bishops are elected).

Mark Sisk doesn’t look like a revolutionary. He looks like an older thinner Bill Bryson: round specs, light beard and genial smile. He has no lordly airs: my pompometer stirs not. His hobby, appropriately for a follower of Jesus, is carpentry: he has built himself a house in the Catskills. He is seen as an old-fashioned liberal, a pragmatist….

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The Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander, who has served as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta for about a decade, announced Wednesday he will step aside to return to the classroom.

Alexander, 57, will join Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in the fall of 2012 as a professor in the practice of liturgy and director of Candler’s Anglican Studies program.

“I suppose I’ve always been a teacher at heart,” said Alexander. “I love the classroom, the interchange of ideas, and the joy of watching students grow and mature as thinkers and scholars. The life of a teacher is a wonderful life and I look forward to getting back to it.”

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You can find them here.

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Central Florida joins three other dioceses ”” Dallas, South Carolina and Western Louisiana ”” in expressing concerns about the new canons on discipline, which become effective July 1.

The diocese asks General Convention “to modify New Title IV, as it applies to the Diocese of Central Florida, so as to comply with the Constitution.” The resolution expresses two concerns about the new Title IV: that it “empowers the Presiding Bishop to take certain actions within the Diocese of Central Florida in violation of Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution,” and “creates a charging and trial system applicable to Presbyters and Deacons in violation of Article IX of the Constitution which provides that presbyters and deacons shall be tried by a court instituted by the convention of the Diocese.”

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I am reliably informed they all passed–take special note of R-2 and R-3 and read them though.