An Episcopal parish in the eastern state of Maryland will be the first in the United States to join the Roman Catholic Church under a new streamlined conversion process created by Pope Benedict XVI, leaders of both church groups said Monday.
St. Luke’s Episcopal parish in Bladensburg will come under the care of Washington Catholic Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who is forming a U.S. ordinariate ”” effectively a national diocese ”” for Episcopalians converting under the pope’s plan.
St. Augustine’s in-the-Woods Episcopal Church will dedicate its new addition next weekend, a 9,400-square-foot, two-story expansion that nearly doubles the size of the church’s facilities.
“This is the parish’s commitment to the future with the same sense of optimism of the people who came before us,” said Harry Anderson, who as senior warden is the top lay person in the church.
“This will be our testament and our legacy,” Anderson said.
The Church of Our Savior, an Episcopal parish on rural Johns Island, was established a little more than 30 years ago to serve the growing populations on the nearby barrier islands of Kiawah and Seabrook.
Its austere interior contains unintentionally Celtic elements, especially the cross inside a circle, which has pagan-Druid origins. When the Rev. Michael Clarkson arrived at Our Savior three years ago from England, where he had been forming Anglican congregations and working for the Church of England for two decades, the Celtic characteristics of his new parish immediately were evident.
And soon he understood why a Celtic theme, which emphasizes the connections between faith and nature, was appropriate for his new parish home.
Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.
On Wednesday, June 1, attorneys for the Diocese initiated our direct appeal to the Texas State Supreme Court, arguing that the high court should review the trial court’s Feb. 8 judgment in favor of local Episcopal Church (TEC) parties without the delay of an intermediate appeal.
The Statement of Jurisdiction asks for the Supreme Court’s immediate attention to what it describes as ”the largest church property dispute in Texas history,” involving ”60 churches and over $100 million in property.”
The Statement shows that the case meets all the statutory requirements for a direct appeal. Foremost among these is the requirement that the lower court’s decision challenges “the constitutionality of a state statute.” It explains that the trial court order, if allowed to stand, would overturn trust law in the state and set a precedent against the use of neutral principles to decide church property cases. The neutral principles approach has been established in Texas and most other states since 1979 and has been upheld in five Texas courts of appeal, as well as the state Supreme Court, as recently as 2007. The effect on trust law would extend to virtually every non-profit organization in the state, making it difficult or impossible for them to hold bank accounts, take loans, or conduct other business anywhere in Texas.
TEC supporters have 10 days in which to respond to the filing. Diocesan attorney Scott Brister explains that “the Court holds conference and takes votes every Monday in June; thereafter, it does not convene again until August.” Attorneys for the Diocese hope the court will accept the appeal before its summer recess and set a hearing date for early fall.
St. Mark’s, a historically black church within the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, has reached the end of a 146-year first phase that began Easter Sunday in 1865, the year the Civil War ended and black churchgoers chose — and sometimes were forced — to strike out on their own.
At the cusp of its uncertain next phase, parish leaders said they are confronting a convergence of challenges and tensions that at once hold promise for a vital future and threaten to tear the congregation asunder.
Its survival, they said, depends on a careful strategy that balances respect for its heritage, pride in its racially integrated character and an acknowledgement of contemporary reality.
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral announced Wednesday that it will close The Cathedral School at the conclusion of the school year.
Preschool programs serving children ages six weeks to 4 years will remain open.
The 54-year-old Episcopal school serves students in pre-K through fifth grade and had become something of a Little Rock institution. Its enrollment started to decline after the opening of an elementary school at Episcopal Collegiate School in 2009, but had grown by 34 percent in the last three years, according to school officials.
Due to declining enrollment and a lack of funding, the preschool at Trinity Episcopal Church in Pottsville will close June 3.
“I think it’s a shame because there aren’t many programs in the area that offer a spiritual component to a sound educational background,” said Tiffany L. Reedy, Pottsville, whose daughter, Samarra, 5, is a preschool student there. Reedy is also principal of D.H.H. Lengel Middle School, Pottsville.
“The school’s been operating in the red for the last three years,” said the Rev. James Rinehart, a member of Trinity Center for Children’s board of directors. “We had some money invested, but we’ve gone through our investments … Last year, we didn’t even hold our summer program because of lack of registration.”
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church is helping tornado victims get back on their feet through the use of a disaster emergency response trailer.
This trailer does not carry your usual non-perishable items. Instead, it is outfitted with heavy duty tools and equipment, such as chainsaws, nails, generators and power tools, for home repairs.
“Our parish stocked it with 50 pounds of nails and screws and other emergency needs, including first aid kits,” said Father Ray Waldon, parish priest at St. Peter’s.
Read more: The Daily Home – Church uses trailer to help tornado victims….
The Episcopal Church’s national office has given a backhanded blessing to the practice of allowing those not baptized to receive Holy Communion””a practice forbidden by canon law.
Supporters of Communion without Baptism (CWOB) have argued that relaxing the church’s Eucharistic discipline will serve as a recruiting tool for those outside the faith. However, traditionalists have rejected the practice as uncanonical and contrary to church teaching.
Last month the Episcopal Church Office of Congregational Vitality posted a video to the national church’s website highlighting the ministry of parish of St Paul & the Redeemer in Chicago. The congregation “exemplifies transformative work,” the Rev. Bob Honeychurch, the Episcopal Church’s officer for congregational vitality, said, adding that the parish “sees its primary point of contact with the wider community through its Sunday morning experience. The worship becomes its witness to the world.”
What brought 100 parishioners to a Sunday Adult Forum at St. Paul, Chattanooga, for three Sundays in Advent?
“Reasonable and holy conversations” about sexuality, facilitated by members of the Bishop’s Committee on Inclusivity, were the big draw. In the course of three Sundays in December, more than 100 adult parishioners came together for plenary sessions and for 14 small group discussions each Sunday.
The 70th anniversary of the blitz on Liverpool is to be marked by a service at the Anglican cathedral later.
The Dean of Liverpool, the Very Reverend Justin Welby, and the city’s Lord Mayor, Councillor Hazel Williams, will be among those attending.
The impending closure of the beloved 111-year-old Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Woodhaven is sending shadows across a community whose residents worry the diocese could sell the site to someone with little reverence for the historical building and the cemetery behind it….
According to a message in the church’s May 8 service bulletin, the rector, the Rev. Tracey Williams, will continue to live on site until plans for the sale of the church are finalized. Diocese officials did not say when they expect to sell the church, nor to whom. They said the building will be deconsecrated during the last service.
“This action has been taken after many years of faithful ministry in the midst of a declining population and dwindling resources,” the Rev. Lawrence Provenzano, bishop of the Long Island diocese, wrote in a recent e-mail to supporters.
During a daylong trial Friday, there wasn’t much disagreement about whether a 74-year-old at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church was bumped by her pastor hard enough that she lost her balance.
But it took a Kalamazoo District Court jury less than 45 minutes to decide that the incident didn’t rise to the level of assault and battery. That cleared the Rev. Jay R. Lawlor of the misdemeanor charge.
“I’m very relieved,” Lawlor, 41, said of the not guilty verdict. “I feel vindicated.”
Two months after the Rev. Jay R. Lawlor allegedly shoved an elderly parishioner at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Kalamazoo, both sides are standing their ground.
Marcia Morrison wants Lawlor to be prosecuted for assault; Lawlor wants a trial to prove his innocence. There were no resolution during a status hearing earlier this week, and the case goes to trial today before District Judge Vincent Westra, said Carrie Klein, Kalamazoo County chief assistant prosecutor.
Lawlor, 41, is facing a charge of assault and battery for allegedly shoving Morrison during a confrontation at the church on March 6. Lawlor resigned as pastor three days later.
A new iPhone application has brought the traditional Book of Common Prayer together with today’s technology, courtesy of a group from a Nichols Hills church.
The new app, iPray, became available in mid-April, much to the delight of the group of people who helped create it.
David Hill, CEO of Kimray Inc. and a member of All Souls’ Episcopal Church, 6400 N Pennsylvania, came up with the idea for the app as a way to help his children navigate the Book of Common Prayer more easily.
What are the best *parish* websites in the Episcopal/Anglican realm do you think? The more specific you can be about why you like them the more helpful this will be–KSH.
Try this on for a Holy Week discipline: Arrive at your parish at 9 p.m. Maundy Thursday and stay there until 10 a.m. Good Friday. Fill those hours with 30-minute segments of silence, music, silence, minimal light ”” and listening to a live reading of Dante’s Inferno.
St. Philip’s in the Hills Church in Tucson, Ariz., has done this for three years running, and the program grows in popularity each year, says the Rev. Greg Foraker, a transitional deacon and assistant to the rector.
This year the service involved 59 volunteers and drew 150 people. People come and go during the overnight service.
“Some people do come and stay the entire night,” Foraker said. “Some stay for two or three hours.”
Fifteen teens and youth minister, Oeland Camp, from St. Paul’s, Summerville walked 4.4 miles from Summerville’s town square to the I-26 overpass and back carrying wooden crosses Saturday. Cole Sanders, an 18-year-old Pinewood Preparatory student came up with the idea after seeing the “famous man who carries his cross across town.”
“I thought ”˜Why don’t I do that?’” Sanders said. “I told all my friends and this happened.”
Palm Sunday will mark the last day of services for the former St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, which officially merged with St. John’s in North Adams in December to form All Saints Episcopal Church.
The Commercial Street church, known for its unique stone architecture and iconic red doors, along with its neighboring parish hall on River Street, will be put up for sale, according to spokeswoman Lauren Norcross.
She said the decision to shutter one of the churches, which was voted upon by the congregation’s members, wasn’t taken lightly.
“We had some independent studies done of both buildings,” Norcross said Friday. “St. John’s, which we’ve been calling All Saints North, is in better shape. Recently we had a capital campaign that raised $120,000 which was used for a lot of renovations and improvements. Prior to that, in the 1990s, the church and its adjoining parish hall underwent some major renovations, including the installation of an elevator.”
At the time, [Stan] Winder was disabled and relied on a wheelchair to get around. At age 56, doctors told him his illness would likely get worse.
But the voice returned with its command…[“Get up and walk].
“I went through all kinds of rationalizations why that could not happen,” he said, “and this was a crazy thing, all that sort of thing.”
It seemed to Winder that God was speaking to him, offering to restore his health if only he would cooperate.
“So I said, ‘OK, I’ll do it.’ I got up, and the minute my feet hit the floor, there was absolute freedom,” he said.
–Over half of Episcopal congregations (52.4%) are small, family-sized congregations where average worship attendance is 70 persons or less (2009 Parochial Report data). Pastoral-sized congregations make up the next largest proportion of parishes and missions (28.6%). Corporate-sized congregations with 351 or more in worship represent only 3.3% of Episcopal congregations.
–The median Episcopal parish had 66 persons at Sunday worship in 2009 according to the annual Parochial Report””down from 72 in 2006 and 77 in 2003.
The future leader of the Episcopal Diocese for the Buffalo region has been on a tour, visiting the many parishes under his watch, meeting with congregation leaders and taking a moment to play any nearby organ.
The Rev. Dr. R. William Franklin is the bishop elect for the Diocese of Western New York. In that role he will act as the chief clergy officer for the area, which covers seven counties and has 63 different parishes. He’ll provide oversight to those congregations and act as the main bridge between church and community.
Franklin’s tour recently took him to St. Matthias Episcopal Church in East Aurora, where he met with parish directors and examined the building’s architecture, showing his general appreciation of church history. During that time, Franklin spoke of his goals when he officially becomes bishop next month, including welcoming a younger generation and providing another supportive voice for the community.
I belong to a small beautiful Episcopal church in McKeesport that is caught in the [Pittsburgh] bishops’ war. Like the Civil War, the church members were pitted against each other. Family members split on which bishop to follow and lifelong friends parted ways. Empty pews far outweigh the occupied pews. The church will survive or fail because of the good people who go there to praise God each week, not from any help from higher up in whatever diocese wins the next round.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
While most Christian ministers’ earliest influences are religious mentors and the Bible, Michael Hill’s involved rock music.
That’s what first impressed the Rev. Dr. Frank Larisey, pastor of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Orangeburg, about the current Bishop of Bristol, England.
“When he was about 17 or 18, he was in a band that opened for The Who,” Larisey said. “He was a good lead guitarist.”
The man who Larisey calls “one of the best speakers I’ve heard in my life” will bring his message, “What Happens When You Get It?” to the Church of the Redeemer beginning with a potluck dinner at 7 p.m. Friday, April 1. Hill will also give the sermon during the 8 and 10:30 a.m. worship services Sunday, April 3.
Last week, the Rev Dr Christina Beardsley, vice-chair of Changing Attitude, a network of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual members of the Church of England, was one of the voices featured on 4Thought.tv’s week of short films featuring trans people and faith.
While the US Episcopal church developed a maverick reputation within the Anglican communion for blessing same sex marriages and ordaining gay and lesbian clergy, the House of Bishops of the General Synod of the Church of England’s report Some Issues in Human Sexuality, issued in 2003, contained a chapter titled “Transsexualism”. Currently, one can find about a half dozen trans clergy in the UK and US. These numbers are imprecise, as some clergy do not wish to go public beyond the scope of their individual parish or diocese ”“ a concern that’s understandable given that the trans community seldom receives even the legal protections afforded gays and lesbians .
Beardsley, who was ordained for 23 years prior to her transition in 2001, observes that “some within the Church of England feel the issue of trans clergy has been settled” by citing such cases as the Rev Carol Stone and the Rev Sarah Jones. However, she says: “Not all trans clergy have been supported by their bishop, as these two priests were, and some have been excluded from full-time ministry because of Church of England opt-outs from UK equality legislation.”
Episcopal Church congregations are more and more turning to the internet and social media in particular to communicate with their members and their communities, according to a just-released summary of a nationwide survey of faith communities.
Results for Episcopalians in the Faith Communities Today Survey (FACT) show that 95 percent of congregations surveyed report that they use email to communicate with members and 86 percent have websites. The latter is an increase from 81 percent in 2008 and 76 percent in 2005. Forty-one percent report having used Facebook or other social media in 2010. Congregations frequently reported using electronic newsletters, text messaging and Twitter, the survey said.
In the late 1940s, women from Old St. Andrew’s Parish Church turned the tea room custom into an annual fundraising event. As described on Old St. Andrew’s website, a group of women would spend the day preparing the church for services and have lunch on the church lawn. Because the surrounding area lacked restaurants, they often would share their lunches with tourists who visited the church. The need to raise funds for renovations prompted them to begin selling sandwiches and beverages to visitors.
Since then, the tea room concept has grown to include several Lowcountry churches and numerous patrons. Last year, St. Paul’s Church of Summerville served around 3,600 dine-in guests and filled 930 takeout orders in a two-week period.
St. Paul’s tea room and gift shop coordinator Selina Hathaway said that guests consider it to be an “annual reunion of the town of Summerville.” About 190 church members contributed to last year’s tea room, and the funds generated from the event were poured into 33 local, diocesan and world ministries, says Hathaway.
Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.
The Rev. Thomas Eoyang still isn’t quite sure what made him return to church after years of indifference.
“I at first thought, ”˜Well that’s a silly idea,’ but you know when you’re trying to brainstorm you try to entertain every notion possible. Including all the silly ones,” said Eoyang about his decision to join a seminary in Cambridge, Mass., even before he had a desire to become a priest. He has been the rector at Grace Epiphany Episcopal Church on Gowen Avenue since 2004.
Eoyang ditched a successful career in medical publishing to join, and it proved to be a genuinely fun and uplifting experience. Eoyang found himself signing up for huge course loads and absorbing everything he could.