David Hyde Pierce, the comedic actor best known for his role on the sitcom “Frasier,” presented one of his lesser known talents Sunday afternoon to a capacity congregation at the Bethesda Episcopal Church.

Pierce performed two works on the restored 1921 Skinner organ, which he and his three siblings donated the funds to rebuild. The organ has been renamed the Pierce Memorial Gallery Organ in honor of their parents, George and Laura Pierce.

“I hadn’t played organ in awhile,” Pierce said before the ceremony while standing next to the instrument, which is located upstairs in the gallery of the church. “But I live in New York City, so I practiced in some churches there to bone up.”

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The parish was founded in 1881 by the Rev. N.F. Robinson in the neighboring Fernwood section of Upper Darby and relocated to its Lansdowne site for the first worship service in 1900.

Lack of parishioners and mounting expenses evidenced by the buckets in the side aisle to collect water from the leaking roof, estimated to cost $500,000, are the causes for its closure.

“We usually don’t have this many people,” Joseph Hypolite, senior warden of the church vestry, said of the estimated 100 persons in attendance versus the usual 30 to 40 people worshipping at Sunday services.

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President Barack Obama and his family attended Sunday services at St. John’s Church, an Episcopal church on Lafayette Square just across the street from the White House.

Obama, first lady Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia listened to a sermon about how Christianity has consequences.

Mike Angell, a seminarian of the church, told the parishioners that the consequences vary, whether it’s making a hard decision at work or deciding to give more time to God.

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Calvary Episcopal Cathedral in Sioux Falls will celebrate new beginnings with two incoming leaders today when the Rev. Ward Simpson, new dean of the cathedral, and the Rev. John Tarrant, bishop-elect of the Diocese of South Dakota, lead worship together.

Tarrant, elected May 9 by the state’s Episcopalians, will lead Holy Eucharist, and Simpson will preach on his first Sunday as leader of the congregation.

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“From age 15 to about age 30, I was involved in charismatic churches,” Zimmerman says. “So I did that for a while, but then that kind of played out for me, and I wanted to see how to keep going deeper, and I remembered the Episcopal church and its rhythm of prayer.”

That aspect connected to the same side of his personality that had found an academic interest in ancient history.

“In ancient history, we studied … all this ritual about life, and I was involved in churches that had no ritual. They actively avoided rituals. And then I stopped and realized that we had dating rituals, we have mourning rituals, we have eating rituals, we have all these rituals, why in the world wouldn’t we have religious rituals, because they help keep you grounded and centered,” Zimmerman says. “I remembered the Episcopal church was full of ritual, so I came back to the Episcopal church.”

The church he came back to was Lawrence’s Trinity Episcopal, which was the only one in town at the time. It took nearly a decade for Zimmerman to go from returning to the Episcopal denomination to wanting to be a part of it as a priest.

“It was always kind of on my mind, even as a teenager. I never could see how that would happen. I always say, ”˜God wouldn’t subject the church to me in my 20s.’ I just don’t know if I would have been a very good asset,” he says, laughing. “I took the Jonah route ”” I fled the call and took the scenic route to ordination rather than straight through. Which I’m glad about ”” I wouldn’t have wanted to have tried (this) in my late 20s. It wouldn’t have worked for me.”

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Asked whether it absolves the critters of past or future sins, Rev. Brad Beale smiled.

“Maybe, in the eyes of the owner,” he said, explaining it may bring “the hope they won’t be quite so naughty the following year.”

He began the service by noting he might have to improvise depending on how the furrier occupants of the pews behaved.

But he and worshippers said it’s a fun time.

“It’s about environment for us, too — to remind us that we’re connected to the Creation, very connected,” said Beale.

“It’s a nice alternate service,” said Anne Clark.

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Doug is currently Associate rector os Saint Paul’s, Summerville in the Diocese of South Carolina.

The Rev. John Graham at Grace Church, an Episcopal parish in Georgetown, has held an adult forum every Sunday morning since the weekend after Labor Day to help people hurt by the recession.

“When people are dealing with unemployment, they don’t feel like they’re productive members in the society,” Graham said. “They doubt the sense of their meaning, and some even hide from their neighbors because they feel so much shame. They tend to think they’re not useful.”

He said the class has about 25 to 30 people, a significant number considering the size of the church, which has about 100 people at Sunday service.

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The Rev. Jerry Kramer, a hyper-energetic Episcopal priest who transformed a small neighborhood church into a powerhouse that helped drive the post-Katrina recovery of the entire Broadmoor neighborhood, stunned his parishioners last week with news that, sick and exhausted, he has resigned.

In an accompanying e-mail message, Kramer said that if he recovers after several months on a temporary medical disability, he hopes next year to return to missionary work in Tanzania with his wife and two children.

“But I have to get well to do that, ” he said last week. “I need some rest. I absolutely need some rest.

“I haven’t been able to put in a full day (of work) in over a year.”

In the four years since Katrina, Kramer developed a reputation as a innovative priest who, from the moment he paddled up to his flooded church on South Claiborne Avenue, merged its recovery with the recovery of the surrounding neighborhood.

One of God’s special people. May the Lord bless him and his family. Read it all–KSH

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There was pomp and pageantry, enough clergy to move a mountain (or at least, to guarantee nice weather), a heavenly choir, and one of the finest bands in the land.

Somewhere amidst all this, Janet Broderick was given the ceremonial keys to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, as its 17th rector. The Morristown celebration included actor Matthew Broderick, Janet’s brother; former Newark Bishop Jon Shelby Spong and present Bishop Mark Beckwith, and the Blaire Reinhard Band.

“It feels wonderful,” Janet Broderick said afterward. “I felt all the love. It’s incredible. I wanted to do one of these for everybody there.”

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In the 1980s, a small group of Episcopalians came together in a Temecula basement to worship. Over the years, the congregation grew in size and began meeting in strip malls around town.

Finally, after nearly three decades of relocation, they have a place to call home.

On the first Sunday in September, St. Thomas of Canterbury Episcopal Church and School held services in its new facility, a 17,000-square-foot mission-style church in southern Temecula.

With its pristine white paint, red brick roof and three-story bell tower, meeting in the church was a coming home of sorts for the congregation of about 200 families, Senior Warden Kay Bemis said.

“To be in an actual church instead of a storefront is amazing,” she said. “Some of our parishioners that started 30 years ago are still here, so it was really exciting for them.”

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John Pierce Archer, a devout Christian, feels right at home living in a former church in Mt. Jewett.

“This feels cozy and comfy,” Archer said as he showed off his home in the former St. Margaret Episcopal Church at 13 Gallup Ave. “It’s my fortress of solitude.”
Archer, a world-renown art curator whose primary home is in Palm Beach, Fla., purchased the Mt. Jewett church Dec. 30, 2006.

“I’ve been looking for churches to buy for years before I found this one listed on Ebay,” Archer said. An Episcopalian, Archer said finding the church in Mt. Jewett was an “epiphany.”

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When the Rev. Ruth Strang gives her last sermon next Sunday, she’ll do so knowing she finally answered God’s calling.

Strang, who started as a pastor with St. John’s Episcopal Church in Howell in 1994, will step down officially Oct. 1 after 15 years of what she called a “fantastic spiritual journey.”

More than any single memory or feeling at the church, Strang said she’d remember the journey ”” of her and her congregation ”” the most.

“I think it’s been a journey in which there were so many moments we’ve developed as a caring family,” Strang said. “God called me to do this, and I took a long time to answer. Now, it’s time for me to do something else.”

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This parish is NOT going into schism, and we have consistently rejected that course of action, and repeatedly explained why. Further””along with most of the Anglican Communion””this parish has vociferously and publicly rejected the escalating and continuing apostasies of the Episcopal Church. We will not accept them and we will continue to protest them, though it is evident that the leadership of the Episcopal Church is swelled up with monstrous arrogance and determined to keep the pedal to the metal as the institutional juggernaut (not the same thing as the Church) hurtles along the downward slope toward unrecognizablity. A report on the state of the Church prepared for the General Convention provides a number of telling points: 1) The Episcopal Church is rapidly losing members; 2) The Episcopal Church has to cut back its budget severely because of diminished income; 3) the biggest reason for this is conflict in The Episcopal Church over its revisionist policies and practices; 4) full speed ahead!

The writer mentioned “freedom to dissent” and “tolerance of dissent” as a strength of Anglicanism. “Tolerance of dissent” can mean a number of things. When it means living charitably with anomaly as things settle out, it is a vital Christian virtue well described in theory and practice in the New Testament. If it means letting people hold beliefs and maintain practices inconsistent with the faith of the Body, then it is abdication of leadership, which is powerfully condemned in both Old and New Testaments. Genuine leadership must show both clarity and mercy. This is notably different from espousing “inclusivity”.

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Two members of the Communion Partners rectors advisory committee say the group is striving to be an irenic voice as the Episcopal Church discusses the Anglican Communion’s proposed covenant.

“We aim to be constructive in relationships between orthodox clergy and their bishops whose theology may not be the same,” said the Rev. Leigh Spruill, rector of St. George’s Church, Nashville.

Communion Partners has begun filling the void left by congregations and dioceses affiliated with the Anglican Communion Network, but it is cautious about becoming another political force within the Episcopal Church.

“We’re trying to find a better way than the political structures that have arisen in response to volatile issues,” said the Rt. Rev. Anthony Burton, former bishop of Saskatchewan and rector of Church of the Incarnation, Dallas.

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Seventy-four priests who are affiliated with Communion Partners have pledged to fulfill non-episcopal requests made by bishops who met with the Archbishop of Canterbury on Sept. 1.

The priests, who lead parishes with a collective baptized membership of 60,000, list five commitments regarding their response to the Anglican Communion Covenant. The priests say they will:

Ӣ Continue to study the covenant and to pray and work for its adoption.

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ON a recent humid Sunday, 26 members of the Harmonium Choral Society shuffled into Grace Episcopal Church here and dropped their belongings among the pews. As they stood in a scattered group, they locked gazes, stretched their arms skyward and hissed at one another.

That was a warm-up for a three-hour session that would culminate in the recording of three minutes of original music, created on the spot, to be woven into the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey’s production of “Hamlet,” which is running in Madison through Oct. 11. Music previously recorded by the group would be used at other points in the play.

Bonnie J. Monte, the Shakespeare Theater’s artistic director, approached Harmonium’s director, Anne Matlack, about a collaboration after she heard the singers at a First Night event in Morristown last year.

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Jesus was fiercely determined that we might see the truth about our condition, not so we would despair, but so we would flee to him for refuge and cleansing. This is what the gospel is all about. The truth will set you free.

It simply breaks my spirit when I hear people who should know better insist that this teaching of original sin and the universally diseased human heart is an insult to human dignity, when in fact it is curiously liberating because it throws us entirely on the dependence of God’s grace. And God’s grace gives new life!

There’s an old legend that pre-dates the story of the princes and the frog. It has a simple but sound theological allegory: The ballad tells of how a handsome night found coiling around a tree in a dismal forest, a loathsome serpent-like-dragon breathing out poison; and how, undeterred by its hideousness and foulness, the knight cast his arms around it and kissed it on the mouth. The thing resisted him fiercely, but the knight persisted, and finally the beast changed into a fair lady, and he won his bride. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Being loved when you don’t deserve it is the most transforming thing in the world.

Who are the most humble people in the world? Are they not those who have looked within and recognized their own foulness, yet who have felt the love of God when they didn’t deserve it? Is it any wonder that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus’ blood is most cherished by those who have searched their hearts and found them in desperate need of cleansing?

Who are the most humble before other sinners? Who are the most patient and kind before other peoples’ flaws and weaknesses? Who are the most compassionate and ready to forgive other people? Are they not the ones who see the truth about their own condition and have come to know the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as long as our hearts have a beat, and as long as vermin breathe, we will struggle. But beloved simply keep to the old gospel. There are no new theories for us, no newly found places of refuge. Keep to the old gospel of Jesus and his love. It is the one thing needful, exactly suited to our necessities. May God draw reluctant hearts, and now give doubting souls courage to believe for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

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The Rev. Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrew’s since 2000, wrote to all members of the parish on September 4 to announce the program. The letter included the signatures of 36 other congregational leaders, including all current staff and nine senior wardens whose service dates back to 1989.

“Since 2003 I have felt compromised by continued association with a denomination that I consider to be apostate,” Fr. Wood told The Living Church.

He said he does not know of any significant group in St. Andrew’s that wants to remain affiliated with The Episcopal Church. When he interviewed to become rector, Fr. Wood said, both the search committee and the vestry asked if he was open to separation from The Episcopal Church.

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Clarification is Always Good–But Where Does That Leave Us?

Everyone’s attention was certainly grasped the other week when the vestry issued its “Declaration of Intent”, wrote a letter to every parishioner, and then issued a press release for The American Press. At least everyone is talking about St. Michael’s. First let’s be clear on what the vestry did NOT say.

St. Michael’s vestry is not leaving the diocese. Your vestry has initiated no plans to leave The Episcopal Church. We stand fully behind Bishop MacPherson who has simply said that in his opinion The Episcopal Church is like a train that will soon be fully off the tracks. This present week he has gathered 6 other orthodox Communion Partner bishops to visit with Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in efforts to have him intervene in the crisis that not simply affects our Episcopal Church, but has torn the whole Anglican Communion apart. What is that crisis? It stems from the American church’s belief that it is free to redraft 2000 years of accepted Christian teaching on a whole variety of subjects, unilaterally, and without regard for what the rest of Christendom thinks.

Whether we like it or not Episcopalians are only Episcopalians because our constitution demands that we remain in communion with The Archbishop of Canterbury and in communion with the wider Anglican family. That includes Anglicans in South America, Uganda, Nigeria, South East Asia ”“ all those places to which American Episcopalian missionaries took the gospel, along with Europeans, in the C19. These , our missionary children, are now asking Christians in America and in Britain why it is that we no longer believe the same Bible that we brought to them nearly 200 years ago.

At St. Michael’s we still believe in that same Bible, and in those same Christian teachings, and we try to preach and teach it week in and week out. That is why I want to commend to you our Fall study in the 39 articles of our Prayer Book. These doctrinal teachings are what gave birth to good Old Henry VIII’s Church of England in the 1500’s. These are the same articles of religion that expressed our Anglican Prayer Book teachings in a way that still keep open the doors of understanding between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, and which sought to avoid the narrower form of Protestantism sometimes found in those puritan traditions that gave birth to our Presbyterian and our Baptist brethren.

There is carefulness of thinking, and moderation, and sheer class about how our Prayer Book Articles of Reigion give understanding to our faith. And in this confused C21, where so many of our young people are growing up without the slightest understanding of why we as parents keep trying to get them to attend church we need to get to grips with our faith. If you can’t sign up for either of our Wednesday study sessions, or our Sunday Adult Education session, make sure you give us your email address or download the study notes we will be putting out on our church website. stmichaelslc.com . Thank you for reading this.

–The Rev. Dr. Peter Cook is rector, St. Michael and All Angels, Lake Charles, Louisiana

St. Andrew’s Church begins 40 Days of Discernmentâ„¢

September 9, 2009 ”“ Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: The clergy and lay leadership of St. Andrew’s Church have invited the congregation to explore 40 Days of Discernmentâ„¢, a process where the church seeks God’s will for their place within the Anglican Communion. The process encourages parishioners to seek Jesus Christ personally and in community through Bible study, prayer and fasting, and through open and honest discussion.

“Our vision in this process is simple: We will come together to study the Scriptures, pray with one another, listen to each other, and seek to hear and the trust the Lord together as the body of Christ,” said The Rev. Steve Wood, who has been rector of St. Andrew’s since 2001. “Our intention to work through 40 Days of Discernmentâ„¢ represents our church’s desire to engage our entire community in one of the most important decisions we will ever make. We want to hear from the Lord about our place in the Anglican Communion as we pursue the vision God has for us. We believe God has given us the mission of playing our part in the re-evangelization of the world by telling people of the great hope and love found in Jesus Christ.”

40 Days of Discernmentâ„¢ is centered around a 40 Days Guidebook, with content written by a variety of Christian leaders on critical topics of concern. The Guidebook is designed to facilitate weekly small group discussions during the process.

St. Andrew’s is a Bible-based, mission-minded congregation. Among the many formal and informal ties to mission organizations and others in the community and internationally, the church’s members are involved in East Cooper Community Outreach, Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy, Habitat for Humanity, Global Health Outreach, Palmetto Medical Initiative, and the Christian Medical Clinic, housed at St. Andrew’s Church. In addition, St. Andrew’s has international partners and missionaries in Honduras, Brazil, Haiti, Rwanda, Switzerland, India, Burundi, Uganda, and Liberia.

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While some preachers may frown upon the use of cell phones and laptops in church on Sundays, one Katy-area pastor is encouraging people to keep their wireless devises on so they connect through the Internet and social networking sites during a new service.

Starting Sept. 12, Church of the Holy Apostles, 1225 West Grand Parkway South, will kick off its first Saturday evening service called The Gathering Place. The 6 p.m. service will feature the same elements of traditional church including music, preaching, communion and prayer as well as an interactive component that will allow members and visitors to ask questions or make comments via the Internet.

“There’s a virtual community out there and we’re going to tap into how that might work for the church,” said Rev. Darrel Proffitt, the church’s lead pastor. “It’s more than just a virtual interactive service where you can ask questions through Twitter and Facebook, but will encourage people to develop a community throughout the week.”

Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have allowed people to stay in touch with friends and family, even celebrities and political officials, while keeping up with what they’re doing at the moment. By posting frequent updates to their sites, people stay connected and informed instantaneously.

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“We’re so glad to see the clubs go, but I’m guardedly optimistic,” said Susan Finley, co-founder of the Flatiron Alliance, which long battled Limelight and its troubled replacement, Club Avalon. “We’ve been lied to so many times.”

Residents are worried that the mall is “one big dodge to get a club going there,” said Board 5 Landmarks Chairman Howard Mendes, whose committee recommended rejecting the proposal.

He pointed to a large empty space in the floor plan that would be “perfect for dancing,” and to the continued ownership of real-estate developer Ben Ashkenazy, who rented the 163-year-old former Episcopal church at Sixth Avenue and 20th Street to Gatien.

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Tim Black, our seminarian, was the kind person who instinctively knew that I was unaware of what I was missing in Sunday School. So he asked me and invited and reminded me, here a Sunday, there a Sunday, and finally one morning wooed me back to the founders room to the sofa in the back. Before I knew it, I was completely engaged in the topic at hand. The class was interesting and funny and thought provoking, laughter and intensity. Everyone in the class had their hand up, and comments and questions bounced around the room like atoms under an atomic microscope.

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Twelve people stood in a circle in a tower high above Wall Street. Eyes flitted from side to side, watching, concentrating, as arms rose and fell to a cascading cacophony of bells, bells, bells. One shook her head in disgust over missing a beat.

“This is all,” said Dale Winter, the conductor, using the technical phrase to close out a sequence of rings. The clanging inside Trinity Church’s 280-foot bell tower fell silent.

Trinity this week is the focus of the American bell-ringing world. The North American Guild of Change Ringers is holding its annual meeting at the church, which in New York fashion is promoting a mini-festival of classes, ringing performances and private sessions, including a 24-hour marathon beginning at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday (which will take place behind sound-baffling shutters and only if the church can find enough ringers). Public sessions are scheduled for noon and 4 p.m. on Saturday, along with the normal ringing before and after services on Sunday morning.

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From 1984 to 1991 she held various positions with the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., dealing with water use and water quality. She assisted in drafting legislation and worked on the 1991 reauthorization of the Clean Water Act.

Kirkpatrick returned to Maine in 1991 to become director of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureaus of Land and Water Quality. In 1999 she was appointed DEP Commissioner during the administration of Gov. Angus King, a post she held until 2003.

In changing her career path to enter the ministry, Kirkpatrick has not forsaken her environmental ethos. Her master’s thesis at Harvard was on “incarnational ecology,” a growing field of theological scholarship. A revised version of her study is published in the current issue of the Anglican Theological Review, in which she addresses planetary crisis as a challenge to the church, moving from scripture and received tradition toward an ethics of common cause.

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[Richelle] Thompson said the church has grappled with the issue of homosexuals in the church in a very public way and for a while now, citing the 2003 decision to ordain Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire as the church’s first openly gay bishop. Thompson said at the time of Robinson’s ordination, the Southeast Ohio Dioceses lost two churches, leaving them with 82.

Then, in 2006 what many regarded as a moratorium on ordaining openly gay bishops was put in place after controversy about the Robinson ordination. That moratorium was overturned at the Episcopal Church’s National Convention in Anaheim, Calif. in July.

Thompson was also in attendance at this year’s national convention. At the convention, it was voted that anyone could be eligible to be elected as a bishop and that being gay or not is not an impediment to serving in that capacity. As Thompson explained the decision, “all of God’s people are treasured and valued and anyone who is called and has the correct qualifications regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation may be elected as bishop.”

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