The link for this was typed incorrectly yesterday, alas–KSH.
This is my Lenten talk from this past Wednesday at the Church of the Holy Comforter in Sumter, South Carolina, as part of their series on the cross. It is an mp3 file,it lasts a little more than 30 minutes and you may find the link here.
You may also be interested in the brochure for the whole series there (pdf).
For centuries the words Church and culture were all but synonymous. This close linkage posted challenges for both culture and Church, but it gave artists the opportunity to ply their craft with the patronage of the Church, and to express their faith through their art. With the collapse of Christendom, these connections have frayed or broken. The disconnect has become so pervasive that many outside the Church, while not hostile, are unconcerned with faith in general or Christianity in particular. The Church has more recently wrestled the dragon of relevance: Do Christians still have anything to offer culture?
With its new St. George’s Institute of Church and Cultural Life, St. George’s Church, Nashville, aims to slay the dragon of relevance by equipping Christians to engage with culture in meaningful and lasting ways. The institute sponsored its first conference, “C3: Christ, Church and Culture,” Feb. 24-26 in Nashville. Far from being another in a long line of Christian quests for relevance, the conference explored deeper questions surrounding the interface of culture and faith.
Austin Ihiekwe knows firsthand just how deadly malaria can be. He grew up in Nigeria and watched as his baby brother died from the mosquito-borne disease even though his parents could afford medicine and were diligent in treating their children.
“In the rainy season, all kids had malaria, every month or every other month,” said Ihiekwe, 67, of Cottage Grove. “But the availability of medicine is not universal. Some could afford it, some could not.” And the medicines didn’t always prevent the disease.
From Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday, Ihiekwe and members of Christ Episcopal Church in Woodbury are raising money to buy 364 insecticide-treated mosquito nets to be sent to Africa. The 364 nets represent one for each member of the congregation. The effort is part of a larger mission project during Lent involving Episcopal churches statewide and their nearly 20,000 members, said Brian Prior, bishop of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota.
The Episcopal churches of the Naugatuck Valley share a unique and historic clergyman. The Rev. Richard Mansfield served as minister to a circuit that extended from West Haven to Waterbury, nearly 60 miles.
Mansfield’s father, Jonathan, was a deacon in the New Haven Congregational Church. The son studied to become a Congregational clergyman. He finished all the required studies for admission to Yale College (now Yale University) at age 11. College rules required him to wait until he was 14 before admission. He graduated in 1841 with first honors of his class. This earned him a prize that led to his conversion to Episcopalian.
St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church in Chelsea is embarking on a 40-day Lenten celebration of forgiveness and freedom.
Rev. John Mark Ford, St. Catherine’s rector, decided to breach the Lent season with a specific focus on forgiveness.
“I want to introduce my congregation to the unburdening ourselves of some of the things that grind on us and keep us beaten down, things the church and God have offered to relieve us of,” Ford said. “I wanted to do this through this Lent series.”
Marti Fritz has put her heart and soul into St. Luke’s Episcopal Church for 30 years.
She sings in the choir, served twice on the lay board, raised her children in the congregation. Her husband is the church archivist. The ashes of Fritz’s mother and sister are in the church’s memorial wall.
“It’s really my home,” Fritz said of the church.
Right now, it’s a home in turmoil.
The Rev. Jay R. Lawlor resigned Wednesday as pastor at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, three days after an elderly parishioner filed a police report accused him of assault, according to a letter received today by church members.
The letter from Bishop Robert Gepert, who heads the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan, said the church is launching its own investigation into the incident, which allegedly involved Lawlor shoving Marcia Morrison, 76.
Morrison was not injured, but told police she was emotionally traumatized.
“Regardless of what happened, and without laying blame, it does not reflect well on the whole community,” said Gepert’s letter. “As a result, I am obligated to initiate an investigation under Title IV of the Episcopal Church Canons. It also means I will begin searching for a priest-in-charge.”
In less than two years, founders of Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church have not only managed to fill the pews, they have raised enough money to buy the former St. Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church property outright.
Christ the Redeemer, which broke away from Christ Church in Hamilton over what they saw as “moral drift” in the Episcopal Church as a whole, had been leasing the former Catholic church since 2009.
On Feb. 16, the Anglican church paid $1.6 million for the property, after raising $800,000 for a down payment in just six months. The deed was placed on the altar.
A simmering, months-long conflict between congregants at Kalamazoo’s St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and church officials reached a boiling point Sunday, with a police report filed against the pastor for allegedly shoving an elderly parishioner.
The Rev. Jay R. Lawlor was accused of pushing Marcia Morrison, 76, whose family owns Morrison Jewelers, during a heated discussion about recent events at the church. A witness said Morrison was not injured in the incident, which occurred immediately after Sunday morning’s service.
The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety confirmed that a police report was filed. Neither Lawlor nor Morrison could be reached for comment Sunday.
When Episcopal Bishop Peter Trimble Rowe mushed into Fairbanks in February 1904, he found a certified boom-town. The previous time an Episcopal priest had visited the gold camp, in March 1903, it consisted of E. T. Barnette’s store, a partially-constructed two-story log hotel, two saloons, a half-dozen rough cabins and a few tents.
The earlier priest, under-awed by Fairbanks and its prospects, held church services and promptly returned to Circle City. What a difference a year made. Bona fide big gold strikes were made on several creeks in the fall of 1903, and by 1904 Fairbanks had several thousand residents. Bishop Rowe was warmly welcomed, and with the encouragement and financial support of Fairbanks residents, set in motion efforts that culminated in the building of St. Matthew’s Church and hospital.
Central Wisconsin Episcopal churches are one step closer to finalizing a regional ministry that would provide stability amid aging congregations and tight budgets.
Representatives from seven area churches — in Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids, Mosinee, Marshfield, Wausau, Merrill and Antigo — drafted a mission statement and name for the group, the Episcopal Ministries of Central Wisconsin.
The mission statement lays out a commitment for the congregations to work together, but does not bind any one church to the group. Many of the details about how the regional ministry would work have yet to be determined, and not all churches are 100 percent sure of their roles.
As much as Church of the Redeemer’s members will miss the glowing mural of the risen Christ, the sanctuary echoing with music, the basement lined with old photos and the historic buildings themselves, they’re most heartbroken to leave the place where they served the Eastwood neighborhood for more than 90 years.
Redeemer can’t afford the $7 million needed to bring the church up to code, so after Sunday’s service, the congregation will move from its crumbling structure to a shared space in a nearby Lutheran church, where a group of small-but-committed parishioners will try to keep up with its outreach programs.
“It’s not just about us,” said Daniel Coleman, who has led the 70-member congregation as senior warden since September. “We want our congregation to continue the ministries we have here,” including gatherings for neighborhood kids, Scout troops, a bike repair shop and weekend meals for the homeless.
After first opening its doors in 1960, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church will hold its last services Sunday.
The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, who have supported the church financially for decades, said they can no longer afford to do so.
About 10 to 15 families regally attend, said Rev. Peter Tagdulang, who served as the church’s leader since March 2009.
“Their hearts are bleeding right now with the closure,” Tagulang said. “It’s a very sad thing.”
A judge Friday sentenced the Rev. Donald Armstrong to four years probation for his no-contest plea to one count of misdemeanor theft of funds from the Colorado Springs church where he once served as rector.
Fourth Judicial District Judge Gregory R. Werner also ordered Armstrong to pay restitution in the amount of $99,247 that was diverted to pay for his son’s and daughter’s college education. The money came from a trust fund originally set up to pay for the education of seminary students.
Werner refused to order an apology, citing his practice of not wanting to get involved in how such a letter would be worded. He also agreed with [Armstrong lawyer Dennis] Hartley that jail time would serve no purpose.
“There is a huge divide between these two churches,” he added.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
After 30 years of commitment to the ministry, Roger Ard, the rector at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Rome, will conduct his last service March 6.
“I am going to begin my retirement by doing absolutely nothing,” he chuckled. “After that, I hope to start writing and maybe do a little teaching.”
Ard has been at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church for 10 years. The church plans to throw a celebration service for Ard on March 6 after his final service.
This Sunday afternoon in Chestnut Hill, loss will be officially transformed into opportunity, resignation into delight.
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel will be installed as the new rector of the Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the venerable parish that sits next to the green fields of the Philadelphia Cricket Club.
St. Martin’s vestry, the governing board of the church, invited Kerbel to be the church’s new minister, replacing the Rev. Robert Tate, who retired last year after 14 years at the church.
“With Jarrett we get the whole package,” said Barbara Dundon, who headed St. Martin’s search committee. “He’s good in every one of the key areas we were looking for: preaching, liturgy, outreach, stewardship.”
“Bittersweet is not a strong enough word for what I’m feeling,” the Rev. Tommy Tipton told parishioners who packed Holy Cross-Faith Memorial Episcopal Church for his sermon on Sunday.
It was his last at the church after 12 years as rector, and it drew tears from church members who said they will dearly miss him.
Tipton, who was assistant rector at Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church in Georgetown before coming to Holy Cross, is moving to Columbia to be the bishop’s assistant in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina.
Workers at Trinity Episcopal Church in August delicately removed the fractured spires from the steeple and secured the shattered balustrades around the bell tower.
A lightning bolt from a swift afternoon storm fried the landmark’s highest point and rippled through its 200-year-old frame.
While assessing the damage, Phillip Pearson, the church’s treasurer, spotted a freshly charred strip of floorboard along the bell tower’s base. The lightning sparked a small flame, but the fire somehow had put itself out.
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….
What are:
–the number of domestic (USA) TEC parishes? 6,895
–the median membership of said parishes? 160
–the median attendance of said parishes? 66
*No researching–you need to guess first*
What are:
–the number of domestic (USA) TEC parishes?
–the median membership of said parishes?
–the median attendance of said parishes?
At St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, the staff recycles 30 different types of trash. They got rid of the old Coke machine, installed motion-sensor lights that run on solar power and have stacked quite the compost pile.
St. Gregory’s has gone green, and the moves aren’t just about saving the planet – they’re saving the congregation money, too.
The church partnered with Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, a nonprofit that works with churches, synagogues and all bodies of faith to make them more environmentally friendly. The group’s reach soon may grasp more Athens churches – Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist and nondenominational clergy took in a GIPL presentation last week.
The Super Bowl is Sunday evening, but members of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Prattville hope that won’t keep people from coming out to enjoy a special service filled with fun music in a casual, relaxed atÂmosphere.
The service, held by the church on the first Sunday of each month, is called “EvenÂsong, With a Twist!” The service combines traditional liturgy with modern-day music and feaÂtures the band Epiphany, which is made up of parish members.
A year ago, the church held a special service called a U2charist — a communion servÂice that replaces traditional hymns with the famed Irish rock band U2’s most popular and spiritually moving songs. The U2charist service was open to the public, and proved to be very popular.
Just days after 57 percent of voting members of the Christ Church of Lonsdale rejected their rector’s plea that they merge with Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, opposition leader Walter Scott is calling for a brand new team of lay and clergy leaders.
In a letter to the Rev. Scott Gunn Monday, Walter Scott said of his Committee to Save Christ Church, “It is our sincere hope that the entire clergy will voluntarily resign prior to (the Feb. 13 annual) meeting and that includes the current vestry.”
Scott is offering to take on the role of senior warden, the highest lay position in the church and head of the governing board, which is called the vestry.
The Rt. Rev. W. Andrew Waldo has called the Rev. Tommy H. Tipton, rector of Holy Cross Faith Memorial Church on Pawley’s Island, to serve the diocese as Canon to the Ordinary.
Tipton has served Holy Cross as rector since 1999….
Two Christian churches included Jewish and Muslim readings in their services Sunday to demonstrate respect for other faiths and to counter recent religious conflicts.
The Rev. Denise Yarbrough, pastor of Episcopal Church of the Ascension, 1360 Lake Ave., was joined by Nathan Jaschik, a member of Temple Beth El, who read from the Micah 6:1-8, in the Old Testament, and Abdurrauf Bawany, the Muslim chaplain at Rochester Institute of Technology, who read from the Quran.
At Lake Avenue Baptist, 75 Ambrose St., the Rev. Gordon V. Webster, the pastor, was joined by Paul Duberstein, a member of Temple Beth El, and Farzana Islam, a member of the Islamic Center of Rochester who is on the staff of the Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue at Nazareth College.
Even now, the portable rental marquee sign sitting in the snow outside the Christ Church Parish House reads, in part, “Christmas joy continues.”
“We haven’t been able to change it because of the weather, the way it’s been,” chuckled Rev. Scott Gunn, the Episcopal church’s rector for over three years now.
Fact is, neither Gunn nor his parishioners have had much to celebrate lately. Due to serious financial hardships, he has asked his congregation to vote on Jan 30 to accept a merger with Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland Hill.
The Bishop of North Dakota has proposed putting the cathedra back in cathedral, asking his diocese to consider approving him as the next dean of Gethsemane Cathedral, Fargo.
In the Rt. Rev. Michael G. Smith’s proposal, which appeared on his weblog Jan. 14 and on the diocese’s weblog Jan. 17, the bishop would devote two-thirds of his time to being dean and rector of the cathedral and one-third to being bishop. He envisions a staff of a full-time administrator, a full-time secretary, a quarter-time minister for pastoral care at the cathedral, and a diocesan ministry team (three canon missioners and the bishop’s executive assistant).
“My hope is for the Diocese of North Dakota to become one church with 21 mission outposts and emerging fresh expressions throughout our area,” Smith told The Living Church. “The cathedral could become the center and headquarters for this mission enterprise. My sense is that the future will depend less on our financial resources and more on the creativity and commitment of our members as we become communities of disciples serving the Lord Jesus Christ in our several communities.
Episcopalians who count 175 years of worship on Lonsdale Avenue have a decision to make this month that’s both tearing at their hearts and dividing them into two camps.
On Sunday, Jan. 30, the 300-plus members of Christ Church of Lonsdale will vote on whether to abandon their striking stone structures at the corners of John Street and merge with Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland Hill.
On the same day, Emmanuel’s congregation will be considering the flip side – whether to open their doors to these 200 new families in a move that will immediately crowd the facility where 150 generally worship on Sundays, force extra Sunday services and require an expensive expansion of their Nate Whipple Highway campus.
At first it dispensed aid to hungry homeowners rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. Then the reconstruction volunteers came by the thousands. And so for the past five years, the volunteer ministry of Trinity Episcopal Church has dispensed nearly 100,000 meals, five and six days a week to the young men and women in kerchiefs and tool belts working in neighborhoods all over metro New Orleans.
“After five years, we’re still serving volunteer groups — and that’s wonderful,” said Claire DeBow, the ministry’s only paid staffer. “After we’ve served them they say thank you. And we say, ‘No, thank you. Thank you for being here.’ ”
While still serving volunteer work crews, the ministry has begun to shift focus — showing up with food, coffee, warm clothing and odds and ends to help the homeless around New Orleans.