Students from multiple states and countries come here, attracted to a school that aims to be an “evangelical seminary in the Anglican tradition” ”” that is, blending the piety and urgent sense of mission that characterize evangelicals with the time-tested liturgy and sacramental tradition associated with Episcopal Church and its Anglican counterpart.

“This is really the place” for that blend, said Jim Hearn, a doctoral student from California, who joined an Anglican congregation through the influence of his wife and a trip to Israel.

Now Trinity is celebrating its 40th year, and while the mission remains the same, it’s being defined in new ways. The school says it has about 285 students, either full-time, part-time or on-line.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Updated with new signatories, July 7
Statement in response to the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church resolution regarding same sex marriage

We are deeply grieved again by the Episcopal Church USA (TEC) Resolution to change the definition of marriage in their church canons in their current ongoing General Convention.

By this action, TEC has chosen by its own will and actions in clear knowledge to depart from the Anglican Communion’s standard teaching on human sexuality according to Lambeth Resolution 1:10. This TEC Resolution is another example of such unilateral decisions that are taken without giving the least consideration to the possible consequences on other provinces and the Anglican Communion as a whole, the ecumenical partnerships, the mission of the church worldwide, and the interfaith relations. This Resolution clearly contradicts the Holy Scriptures and God’s plan for creation as He created humankind as man and woman to complement each other physically and emotionally.

Indeed the church must provide pastoral care for all, whether heterosexuals or homosexuals. However the church should not alter the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, that was interpreted by the majority churches globally, to provide such pastoral care. The aim of pastoral care is to restore people to the bosom of God where they encounter His love and design to live a life according to His plan. We are against any criminalization of homosexuals, they are like all of us, need God’s mercy, grace and salvation. The church is intended by its Lord to be the holy leaven to shape society by its spiritual and moral values
in line with God’s design. But sadly, by this action of TEC, the church gives way to the society to alter and shape its values. In other words the church is losing its distinctiveness as salt and light in this world.

“do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2)

This statement is approved by:
The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Anis, Archbishop, Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa and Chairman of the Global South.
The Most Rev. Ian Ernest, Primate of the Indian Ocean and General Secretary of the Global South.
The Most Rev. Bolly Lapok, Primate of South East Asia and treasurer of the Global South.
The Most Rev. Stephen Than Myint Oo, Primate of Myanmar.
The Most Rev. Hector “Tito” Zavala, Primate of the Anglican Church of South America.
The Rt. Rev. John Chew, member of the GS Global South steering committee, former GS chairman.
The Most Rev. Onesphore Rwaje, Primate of Rwanda.
The Most Rev. Eliud Wabukala, Primate of Kenya
The Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi, Primate of Burundi

* The above mentioned GS Primates are the ones who sent their approval and amendments before posting this statement. We will add the names of those who will send their approval after.

Read it all.

There is a summary article there and a summary of resolutions here.

The executive council of the Episcopal Church met in Linthicum Heights this weekend to discuss topics that included its presence in Cuba, initiatives to address racism and an upcoming national conference in Salt Lake City.

However, the council didn’t discuss a high-ranking Maryland bishop who was recently charged with manslaughter in the death of a bicyclist last month.

The three-day meeting of 70 of the church’s bishops, priests, deacons, laypersons and staff coincides with the latest developments involving the death of bicyclist Thomas Palermo, 41, a married father of two, who was killed Dec. 27 in a crash on Roland Avenue in Baltimore. Bishop Suffragan Heather Elizabeth Cook was identified as the driver. Cook, 58, left the scene of the crash in the 5700 block of Roland Ave. but returned shortly after, police said.

Read it all.

The liveliest discussion during the opening session of the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council June 10-12 meeting here surrounded how much money the General Convention ought to ask dioceses to contribute to the church-wide budget ”“ and what should be done about dioceses that do not pay the full amount.

The discussion took the form of an informal poll of council members by Diocese of Ohio Bishop Mark Hollingsworth, chair of council’s Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission. FFM, as the committee is known, is in the process of helping to shape the draft 2016-2019 budget that council must construct by February 2015. Hollingsworth gave each council member 30 seconds to share what they are hearing around the church about the budget-funding process, and what they think ought to be done.

In the 2013-2015 triennium, dioceses are asked to contribute 19 percent of their annual income to help fund the church-wide budget. Each year’s annual giving in the three-year budget is based on a diocese’s income two years earlier, minus $120,000.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Thank you so much for the outpouring of love and prayers today for our community. Our prayers are with the family of Deacon Terry Star. Deacon Terry left this earth for the glories of heaven on March 4. His death was unexpected, caused by a heart attack that likely happened suddenly and peacefully in the night or early morning hours of March 4.

Read it all and enjoy the pictures.

Read it all.

Read it all.

From: The Rev. Timothy Fountain, Good Shepherd, Sioux Falls

Re: United Thank Offering Board Takeover

It is not comfortable to write to you about this concern, but it is necessary.

In the last month, the General Convention’s favorable review of the United Thank Offering (UTO) has been set aside, arbitrarily, by the Presiding Bishop and others in her inner circle.

Four members of the national UTO Board, including Board President Barbi Tinder, resigned when new by-laws were presented, placing the UTO under denominational staff rather than the elected board membership.

The Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies, several staff and their appointed members now make up more than half the board and effectively run the UTO. In fact, the positions of Board Chair and Board Treasurer have been eliminated. A first-time Board member from the Presiding Bishop’s former diocese is now listed as “Convener….”

Read it carefully and read it all.

The Rev. Susan Snook of Arizona said the Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission’s subcommittee on the budget wants to “engage the church in a discussion of the fact that not all dioceses meet their full asking percentage formula.”

A table on the Episcopal Church’s website listing diocesan commitments and payments indicates that just 41 of the 110 dioceses pledged 19 percent or more for 2013.

“Susan is absolutely right when she says that in one sense there are absolutely no consequences to non-payment in the sense that there are no penalties, but there are huge consequences to not paying the asking,” said the Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Bishop of Ohio. “The consequences are that we are not able to do the work that God has proffered for us to do in the ways that we envision doing it productively in the church, so it is a really important discussion for us to have.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

A group of prominent Episcopalians is criticizing their church’s stand on Israel, urging it to join 15 other denominations who call for an accounting of U.S. aid to Israel.

The public letter released on Friday (Jan. 18) notes that leaders of 15 religious groups, including Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists, asked Congress to take that step last October, and that the “voice of the Episcopal Church is woefully missing.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

…it was extremely disturbing to learn that on Wednesday afternoon, November 7, 2012, a majority of the clergy of the Diocese of South Carolina received an email that pretended to be from the Diocese of South Carolina but in fact was not. The sender of the email was not identified beyond an email address registered to an organization in Florida named “Domain Discreet Privacy Service”. The corresponding web page is hosted by a San Francisco organization stating: “This temporary landing page will be replaced when you publish your site.”

The email was an invitation to a “Clergy Day for the Diocese,” to be hosted at Holy Communion, Charleston and presided over by Bishop. Charles von Rosenberg (A retired bishop from Tennessee).

There are several crucial facts that need to be addressed regarding this announcement.

First, this message did not come from the Diocese of South Carolina.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

The U.S. Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops on Saturday approved a proposal that, if it survives a final vote, would give transgender men and women the right to become ministers in the church.

The House of Bishops voted at the church’s General Convention to include “gender identity and expression” in its “non-discrimination canons,” meaning sexual orientation, including that of people who have undergone sex-change operations, cannot be used to exclude candidates to ministry.

Read it all.

The minutes from that [April Executive Council] meeting say, “The Chair reminded Council that it had wanted a different budget process, which it had had. She said that was a success. She asked rhetorically, “Was it perfect?” No, she said, but it was a sign and symbol of change. She noted that complaint was part of the cost of leadership.”

In other words, suck it up and move on.

I left that meeting deeply troubled, not by the criticism the Council was getting ”“ I’ve been a writer for newspapers and television much too long to get my feelings hurt by criticism. What troubled me was that leaders I admire and trusted seemed to me to be acting in confusing ways ”“ saying things that were contradicted by their actions. Again and again they urged Council to see that ministry is carried out as “close to the ground” as possible and by those people who can do it best, which is usually lay people in congregations across the church. Yet what they keep doing is to try to operate from a top-down model.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council began its last meeting of the 2010-2012 triennium contemplating its leadership role ”” and emotional investment ”” in the church’s journey to its future.

The council has spent much of the last three years exploring how the Episcopal Church must change in response to the challenges facing all mainline churches, including declining memberships and thus declining finances, demographic shifts and cultural changes in the place and authority accorded to religious communities in society. When General Convention convenes in July in Indianapolis, deputies and bishops will grapple with a variety of calls…for changes in the church’s structure that their proposers say will help the church meet those challenges.

Read it all.

As Executive Council gathered for its penultimate meeting before General Convention, heavy rain was pelting the south windows of the Maritime Institute like hard little fists, making everyone grateful for the solace of dry warm spaces. This was Executive Council’s third meeting of this triennium in this venue, a reflection of a money-saving strategy to contract to meet in a couple of places, Linthicum Heights, MD, and Salt Lake City, UT. In prior triennia, Executive Council had moved around the church, meeting once in each of our nine provinces, but our new discipline of choosing only two money-saving venues is a reflection of our willingness to adapt to changing financial conditions.

The draft budget for the 2013-2015 triennium overshadowed all the other Executive Council business at this meeting. The budget conversation began at the June 2011 Executive Council meeting, also held at the Maritime Institute, when members were challenged to “change the conversation,” to seek a way to take on the adaptive challenges facing all denominations in a post-Christian era of declining interest in the institutional church. The Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission (FFM) already had begun working with the treasurer in mid-2011 on a financial projection model and determined that the current spending model is unsustainable. At that time, it was pointed out that the chairs of Executive Council’s standing committees had previously not provided much input into the budget process. The Executive Council’s newly formed Executive Committee was charged with developing a process for the triennium budget that would challenge the church to new ways of engaging God’s mission.

Read it all.