About a half-dozen churches in Baltimore County lease to cell carriers, assessment officials said.

Church towers provide good opportunities to transmit wireless signals because of their height, said Larry Taylor, director of sales for AT&T in Maryland….

At the Episcopal Church of the Messiah on Harford Road in Northeast Baltimore, cell equipment is not hidden inside a steeple but mounted on top of the tower, between crosses.

In an era of declining church attendance, money from the leases with AT&T and Clearwire helps the church keep a presence in the Hamilton neighborhood, said the Rev. Timothy Grayson, the church’s rector. “That need and that benefit trumps any considerations about detracting from the aesthetic look of the church tower.”

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The Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts will allow its clergy to bless same-sex couples, beginning the first Sunday of Advent.

Bishop Gordon P. Scruton and Bishop Elect Douglas J. Fisher made the announcement in a recent letter to clergy and laity.

“Our church has prayed, debated, and sought guidance for this decision for a number of years,” wrote the two bishops. “Same gender couples, committed in love, may now be blessed to enter into a lifelong covenant of fidelity with one another and the living God.”

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The Diocese of Central Florida is committed to making disciples of all nations and loving one another as Christ loves us.

The Deputation from the Diocese of Central Florida has an extraordinary sense of sadness and disappointment that the Episcopal Church has chosen to adopt a provisional rite for same-sex blessings.

We recognize that to the vast majority of those members participating in the councils of General Convention, this represents progress. To us, it represents a step back from the clear teachings of Holy Scripture and a disregard for the unity and teaching of the Church.
Our Lord Jesus Christ emphasized marriage between a man and a woman as a divine ordinance for the ordering human relationships. For that reason, he sternly warned against human interference with marriages. Jesus said, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ”˜made them male and female,’ and said, ”˜For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt. 19:4-6)

The 77th General Convention’s decision represents denominationalism. In matters of ethics and morals, we have shown blatant disregard for the unity of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. However, we in the Diocese of Central Florida stand in solidarity with our communion partners within the Episcopal Church and within the Worldwide Anglican Communion who “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” (Jude 1:3) . We deeply lament the costly repercussions that these decisions will have within the Episcopal Church and for Anglican Christians around the world especially those under anti-Christian totalitarian regimes.

The actions of General Convention also represent a departure from the rubrics and worship of the Book of Common Prayer and the stated Canons of the Episcopal Church. These liturgies are not recognized in the Diocese of Central Florida as being consistent with either the laws of the State or the canons of this Church on Marriage. The Book of Common Prayer says, “Christian marriage is a solemn and public covenant between a man and a woman in the presence of God. In the Episcopal Church it is required that ”¦ the marriage conform to the laws of the State and the canons of this Church.” (p. 422)

While we are greatly saddened by the General Convention’s action, we are not discouraged. We know that we are called by God to “stand firm”. If any are discouraged, let us bear one another’s burdens and cast our cares on the Lord in prayer for one another. Our faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord gives the strength and hope needed to serve without compromise within the Episcopal Church and the world, “for our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh”. (Ephesians 6:12) Our faith is not in the human institutions of the Church, but in the unwavering faithfulness of Jesus Christ our Lord””his grace is sufficient.

We stand behind our Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Gregory Orrin Brewer, in his endorsement of the minority report known as the Indianapolis Statement.

The Rev. Charles Holt, Chair
The Rev. Phylis Bartle
The Rev. Danielle Morris
The Rev. James Sorvillo
The Rev. Eric Turner
Mr. Charles Armstrong
Mrs. Anneke Bertsch
Mr. Sid Glynn
Mr. William Grimm, esq.
Mrs. Sonya Shannon

[Resolution] A049…specifies that the liturgy will not be authorized for use until the first Sunday in Advent 2012, which is December 2nd of this year. Due to Bishop Wolf’s retirement and Bishop Elect Nicholas Knisely’s consecration November 17th, the implementation of this liturgy will be at his direction in consultation with others.

Bishop Elect Nicholas Knisely did not have vote at this year’s General Convention, but during his election process this past May he spoke publically in support of authorizing a blessing of same-sex relationships while at the same time honoring the diversity of opinion on this subject in Rhode Island Episcopal Parishes.

Bishop Elect Knisely reminds Rhode Island Episcopalians of Roger William’s legacy of religious tolerance. He said this week “How do we live into a world where people disagree? We are Episcopalians. We understand and fully expect that we won’t agree. That would be a “pure” church ”“ and we have historically rejected that understanding of how to live as God’s people in the world. We find our unity in common prayer.”

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The diocese announced in April that if approved, St. Stephen’s in Montrose and another church in Austin would be the first in the area to offer the blessings, as early as December of this year.

St. Stephen’s Facebook page announced the news of the blessings’ approval with exclamation-laden posts. Parishioner Carvel Glen attended the convention and will share his experience with the congregation in between services on Sunday.

The liturgy is designed to affirm covenant relationships between gay and lesbian couples, and many advocates of GLBT rights within the church see it as a precursor to same-sex marriages.

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Even more troubling is the Episcopal Church’s official embrace of transgenderism. Here is essentially a Gnostic faith that mental and emotional self-realization trumps physical reality. Each self-actualized individual can in fact perpetually reinvent himself or herself into endlessly possible new sexual identities. Male today, female tomorrow, then some yet to be determined new gender next week. The Christian hope and understanding that the human body is called to be a sacred temple of the Holy Spirit that will ultimately resurrect, as Christ resurrected, for all eternity is largely lost or ignored under the transgender ideology.

What is the ultimate ceiling or floor of this strange new course upon which the Episcopal Church is launched? Only God knows.

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(Please note–directly related to the preceding blog entry–KSH).

Read the original here and check the amended version there. The explanation follows:

The Report of the House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church presents a church in where key statistical areas from 2000”“2010 show significant decline (Average Sunday Attendance -23%, Easter Attendance -21%, Baptized Members -16%, Communicants in Good Standing -16%). There are significant places of hope and vision where significant efforts are being made to turn this around. These include the Office of Congregational Vitality and the Office of Emergent Church and Church Planting. This resolution seeks to give these ministries solid budgetary support to allow this work to continue and by doing so to bring vitality and growth back to the Episcopal Church.

Now [for Episcopalians] the apt word seems “life support”.
The average Episcopal Church attendance dropped a staggering 23% in the ten year period between 2000 and 2010 (via Whispers) In 2010, just under 700,000 attended TEC Churches in the whole world.
In the Seattle area, (Diocese of Olympia) where St. Mark’s Cathedral still looms and KING FM has broadcast their lovely Sunday evening Compline for many years, average attendance in the whole diocese was 9,500. 9,500? I’ve worked in Catholic parishes with larger weekly attendance than that.
The Episcopalian Diocese of Quincy, IL attendance has dropped 71% and averages 363 people in attendance at 9 parishes. I’ve taught Called & Gifted workshops that were larger. No wonder they are openly talking about reuniting with the Diocese of Chicago (attendance: 12,925).

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…average Sunday attendance in Episcopal churches has plunged 23% in the past decade to 657,831. In the Michigan diocese — which includes southeast Michigan, Lansing and Jackson — attendance has dropped 31% from 2000 to 2010. During the same time period, the number of baptized Episcopal members in the diocese dropped 30% to 20,825; nationally, it dropped 16% to 1,951,907.

Some say the drop is because the Episcopal Church has drifted too much to the left on social and political issues. But [Bonnie] Anderson notes that other mainline Protestant denominations have also seen declines in membership; regardless, the church won’t shift its views because people are leaving, she said.

“We’re prayerful, we’re careful, and we pay attention to what we believe the Holy Spirit is calling us to do. And if we lose members because of that, it’s still the right thing to do.”

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The site was the home of an Episcopal congregation that shut down last summer. Cathy Black, canon for administration for the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, said the congregation had been struggling “for a while now.”

“The financial support was lacking, and it never seemed to get off the ground” in its almost 50 years of existence.

The site includes a church building, a multipurpose building that was the original worship space, and a smaller building that could be used for offices.

“We are thrilled it has found a new life in the church business,” Black said.

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[THE] REV. MICHAEL] TANNER: What I see coming to us and joining us is a group of people who have been knocked down all their lives and who are just remarkably joyous and remarkably full of faith. They get it that God loves them and that their suffering is just part of life, and God loves them through it, and they love each other through it.

[DEBORAH] POTTER: One out of every ten people will experience a severe and persistent mental illness at some point in life, experts say. For decades society shut those people away in institutions. But now they’re more visible on the streets and in group homes, and faith communities have been challenged to respond.

Holy Comforter responded 15 years ago when a group home opened nearby and the priest at the time invited the residents to church. Today, almost two-thirds of the congregation is made up of people with mental illness””including bipolar disorder, clinical depression, and schizophrenia””who worship together”¦

Read or watch it all.

[This past]… Sunday, the consecration of the new Christ Episcopal Church celebrated the two-year journey that began with the Albertville tornado of April 25, 2010. Their church was hit hard by a tree and was torn down shortly after. Since that time, a new church has been in the making.

Members of Christ Church have been worshiping in the new church since Easter Sunday earlier this year. Church members spoke with WHNT News 19 about the consecration and how thankful they are to be in their new church home.

Watch it all (video).

Sitting in the choir section of Grace and St. Stephens Episcopal Church, Marianna McJimsey can’t help but get excited when she talks about the history of the place.

The former Colorado College professor and head of the church’s archival project can spout off facts for hours if given the prompt. She’s not the only one who finds the church significant.

The church was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places….

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St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church now has the ability to harness the sun.

In recent days, the church, located in Southeastern Athens-Clarke County, installed a 7.5-kilowatt solar array that will be used to generate energy that will help to significantly lower the church’s energy costs.

A main purpose of the solar array, though, is to make the church a better steward of the environment. And it also will allow more of the church’s resources to go toward helping those in need instead of toward power bills, said Andrew Lane ”” also known as “Captain Planet” ”” chairman of the Green Guild/Creation Keepers at St. Gregory the Great.

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The Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral received approval Friday to demolish two historic buildings in the 3700 block of Chestnut Street, clearing the way for construction of a 25-story apartment tower.

At a lengthy hearing of the city Historical Commission, the cathedral and its private development partner agreed to conditions imposed by the commission that seek to insure that a portion of development profits flow into repair and renovation of the historic cathedral’s bell tower.

“We are committed to preserving the church itself,” the Rev. Judith Sullivan, cathedral dean, told the commission. “We are all about preservation.”

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According to the U.S.Census Bureau’s figures, West Virginia has grown in population from 1,808,344 in 2000 to 1,852,994 in 2010. This represents a population growth of approximately 2.5% in this time frame. (Of passing interest, please note that the population of the United States as a whole went from 281,421,906 in 2000 to 308,745,538 in 2010, an overall American growth for the decade of 9.7%).

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of West Virginia went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 3,983 in 2000 to 3,015 in 2010. This represents a decline of 24.3% during this decade. Doing some historical digging, I noticed that the Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) in 1994 for West Virginia was 4,511.

To see a pictorial representation of some of the statistics for the diocese of West Virginia you may examine the graph here.

…the idea of having leisurely conversations about Jesus is just, well, too slow. The only adult formation things that have been in any way successful are sermon podcasts and daily e-mailed bits of wisdom, prayer or scripture.

A mentor once gave me some good advice: stop doing things that aren’t working. This makes all the sense in the world, but it’s hard to do. It is hard to give up the picture I have in my head about what a church is supposed to look like: people sitting around on couches in the parish hall, Bibles open.

But at least in my ministry context, that just isn’t working anymore. And personally, I’m done with the roller coaster of getting seduced by the latest thing that’s supposed to work, putting mountains of energy into making it really good and then getting cranky with people because they don’t come. So we stopped it all.

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The Rev. Tom Eklo of Richfield’s St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, after voicing his opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota, went even further recently, saying he’d like to get out of the marriage business altogether.

“I don’t think clergy should be doing marriages,” he said. “We’re basically puppets of the state in that regard.”

According to Eklo the state is responsible for marrying individuals””and because marriage is thus a civil, rather than religious contract””religious organizations, of any denomination, should not be tasked with performing marriages.

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Should the Episcopal Cathedral of Philadelphia be allowed to destroy two historically recognized buildings it owns, and build a 25-story apartment, office, and retail complex in their place, in order to finance cathedral repairs and expand its ministry?

That is the question coming Friday before the Philadelphia Historical Commission, which deadlocked on the issue May 11 when it first arose. The four representatives of the Nutter administration voted in favor of demolition of the properties on the 3700 block of Chestnut Street, while all four independent members opposed the plan.

In an unusual step, Alan Greenberger, deputy mayor for economic development, endorsed the demolition and development in a letter passed out to commissioners just before the hearing.

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Click here to see a pictorial representation of some of the statistics for the parish mentioned in the previous posting.

[Former rector Jay] Lawlor, 42, who was cleared in a jury trial of the assault charge, served at St. Luke’s for 21 months. The payout was equivalent to more than a three-year severance package.

Lawlor’s 2010 compensation was $125,000, which included $85,000 in salary, plus housing and benefits.

That year, the church had a $630,650 operating budget and $1.9 milllion in investments at the end of the year, according to records shared last year with the Gazette.

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Bookmark it and then follow the links and read it all.

Listen to it all if you care to, and note there are links to a number of the handouts used.

A Letter From The Rector (James Cooper)

Dear Trinity Family,

I am writing today to inform you of a decision undertaken by the current Vestry. After extensive study, conversation, and deliberation, it has been decided that the Trinity Conference Center in West Cornwall, Connecticut, will cease operations effective in November.

The Trinity Conference Center was created so that non-profit and religious organizations could have access to a first-class site for conferences and retreats at reduced and accessible rates. For countless vestries, parishioners, grassroots organizations, and non-profit leaders, the center was a place where excellence in hospitality and beautiful surroundings inspired reflection, conversation, and the kind of being together that truly brought people together….

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Watch it all.

Note carefully the contention that The Episcopal Church’s General Convention is expected to approve these first same-sex union blessings in July, and that St. David’s hopes to perform the first such blessing in late December or just after the first of the year 2013–KSH.

Dear Fellow Trinity Parishioners,

On behalf of the Vestry and the Search Committee, I am pleased to announce today that Trinity Cathedral Parish has called The Reverend Timothy Jones to serve as our next Dean. This exciting news is the culmination of an extensive search under the guidance of the Search Committee, led by Vance Bettis and Bishop Waldo. Tim accepted the call to Trinity following unanimous decisions by the Search Committee and Vestry last week. He will assume his new position on July 16, 2012.

Since 2005, Tim has served as Senior Associate Rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee. St. George’s is comparable to Trinity in both membership and budget, with 3,200 members, 715 in Average Sunday Attendance, and an Operating Fund Budget of $3,400,000. Tim’s emphasis while serving at St. George’s has been on adult formation, newcomers, and mission and outreach….

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If you’re in the market for a property filled with colorful stained glass windows, decorative mahogany wood, plenty of reading materials and an entertainment center, Steven Metcalfe has got just the thing.

St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, which closed for services in August 2009, is up for sale.

“We would love for somebody to come in and operate a church here. We’re open to whoever can see the possibilities,” the Rev. Metcalfe said Tuesday at the South Main Street site.

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Since Lexington has an upcoming Diocesan election, I decided to look at some history and and lo and behold the statistics for that diocese were discussed in a post and spirited discussion on August 14, 2009 with the title “Kendall Harmon: Significant Subsurface Deterioration in the Episcopal Church”. For starters, that whole blog post and all the comments are well worth the time to reread.

Since that blog post was nearly three years ago, the statistics in view were those from 2007–

If you look at baptized membership, Lexington shrank from 8949 in 1997 to 8002 in 2007. That is a decline of 10.6%. Now, however, consider the more meaningful number, Average Sunday Attendance. In this category, Lexington fell from 3905 to 2973 in the period from 1997-2007. That is a decline of 24%.

If you now go to the research and statistics website of the Episcopal Church, you can look at an update of these numbers for 2010. These figures show 2010 baptized membership of the diocese of Lexington at 7504 and Average Sunday Attendance at 2,693. If you now consider the 13 year trend, note that the decline in baptized membership from 1997 to 2010 is 16.15% and that of Average Sunday Attendance is just over 31%.

Also note that according to the U.S.Census Bureau’s figures, Lexington, the see city of the diocese, has grown in population from 260,512 in 2000 to 295,803 in 2010. This represents a population growth of approximately 13.5% in this time frame (the growth for the whole state of Kentucky’s population was 7.4% during this period).

Now, consider all this and ask yourself this question–given these trends and numbers, what is the one question you really must ask of each finalist to be next bishop in Lexington? Why something about their vision and strategy for growth and for reversing the precipitous decline, surely. And yet was such a question asked in the published profiles? No. This is what I mean by deep denial–KSH.

After 36 years, it was the end for Holy Family Episcopal Church in Rohnert Park, which fell victim to finances weakened beyond repair by a declining church membership.

“Heartbroken would be a good way to put it,” Pastor Gail Cafferata said of the small and now-disbanding fellowship, which expects to scatter to churches in Santa Rosa, Kenwood and Petaluma.

“It’s just been a really tough thing for everyone involved,” said Leslie Manning, 49, who joined the church four years ago.

Read it all.