Bishop Michael Burrows chairs the Church of Ireland’s Commission on Ministry, which will be organising a Vocations Sunday across the Church this autumn (15th September). In this interview with Peter Cheney, he discusses how people sense a call into ordained ministry and the main themes of his committee’s current work as the 2019 General Synod approaches.

Listen to it all (just under 11 minutes).

Promoting vocations: Bishop Michael Burrows chairs the Church of Ireland’s Commission on Ministry, which will be organising a Vocations Sunday across the Church this autumn (15th September). In this interview with Peter Cheney, he discusses how… https://t.co/C1W0slIyjs #coigs pic.twitter.com/DwO97JWXQP

— Church of Ireland (@churchofireland) May 10, 2019

It was important for the group to gather as much evidence as it could around the use of the confessional and the specificity of ‘the seal’. By the very nature of the subject this was not an easy task. Confessors could not break the confidentiality of matters shared with them. Those using the opportunity of making confession are not necessarily willing to share their story. However, the group did obtain significant input from those who exercise the ministry of hearing confessions, some from those who have experienced the abuse and misuse of the confessional and reflections from those who value the discipline of sacramental confession.

The evidence is clear that there have been priests, acting as confessors, who have misused and abused their position to exercise dominant power over those making confession, and in some cases seriously abusing those who had placed their trust in them. This is deeply disturbing and clearly wrong.

The evidence is also clear that there are many who have been abused and maltreated who have found the confessional and the confidentiality of it a significant place and space of safety in which to share their story, and have false guilt dealt with. This is therefore clearly of deep value.

In wrestling with the way forward the group had to recognise both realities and weigh up the contrasting evidence. The significant weight of evidence lay in the use of the confessional as a place of safety for those who have been abused rather than a place from which a priest abused their position to commit abuse.

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Of all his many writings his “Be” commentary series is his most well known and well loved, including books like Be Loyal (Matthew), Be Diligent (Mark), Be Compassionate (Luke 1–13), Be Courageous (Luke 14–24), Be Alive (John 1–12), and Be Transformed (John 13–21). Wiersbe sawhis love of expounding the Scriptures as a gift that God had given him for the sake of others:

Writing to me is a ministry. I’m not an athlete, I’m not a mechanic. I can’t do so many of the things that successful men can do. But I can read and study and think and teach. This is a beautiful, wonderful gift from God. All I’m doing is using what He’s given to me to teach people, and to give glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.

His wisdom and teaching has left an indelible mark on countless pastors and Christian leaders.

Jerry Vines, Baptist minister and two-time past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, remarked on Twitter that “so many things I did were birthed by Warren Wiersbe.” Remembering his “great mentor and friend,” Vines said Wiersbe “is the man who taught me how to expound the Word of God.”

Daniel Darling, vice president for communications at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, also spoke of Wiersbe’s influence: “Wiersbe had a formative influence on me as a writer and pastor. A long full life of service to the church.”

Read it all.

Warren Wiersbe, pastor of Moody Church from 1971-1978, went home to be with the Lord last night.
“A hundred years from now, it will make little difference what people think or say about us, but what God does with us will make a great deal of difference.” pic.twitter.com/iDGXUNN4ss

— D.L. Moody (@DLMoodydaily) May 3, 2019

Bishop Lawrence focused on prayer in his sermon at yesterday’s Clergy Renewal of Vows service and urged the clergy of the Diocese to trust the Lord with their deepest fears. “Prayer demands time, space, solitude,” he said.

Two former Bishops of Lincoln “turned a blind eye” to alleged abuse cases and did not report them to police until decades later, a BBC Panorama investigation…[revealed yesterday].

A list of 53 Lincoln Diocese clergy and staff was also eventually referred to the police in 2015, eight years after a review into past safeguarding disclosures was announced.

The Church of England Past Cases Review which examined thousands of records in 2008 and 2009, including some child abuse cases, found that some names could have been referred years earlier.

The police investigation that followed resulted in the conviction of three people….

Read it all.

https://t.co/lf3c1ZB03Z Looks like Lincoln is another Chichester. I’m sure plenty more will emerge from this & other dioceses. @churchofengland has been hiding much & hoping things would lay undisturbed. They are in crisis and still not owning it properly.

— Gilo (@seaofcomplicity) April 29, 2019

Watch it all (30 minutes).

Shameful from @churchofengland on #abuse… @BBCPanorama – ‘Scandal In The Church Of England’ – going to be a must-watch tonight… #CSA https://t.co/iHfKdrwndY

— John Harvey 💜 (@Mr_John_Harvey_) April 29, 2019

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there. Listen carefully for a famous Henry Allen “Harry” Ironside (1876-1951) story about forgiveness of sins from the life of czar Nicholas I of Russia.

“I bow before your cross,
O Christ my God;
I glorify your grave,
O Deathless One;
Feasting for your Rising
I cry to you:
‘My Lord is Risen!'”

– St Romanos the Melodist, On the Resurrection II pic.twitter.com/VQDudJqdKM

— Robert Mitchell (@RobertMitchel_l) April 28, 2019

Read it all.

The Latest Edition of the Diocese of #SouthCarolina Enewsletter https://t.co/7nkadTzPup #parishministry #lowcountrylife #anglican #churchgrowth #theology pic.twitter.com/5rpg9FSyDT

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 25, 2019

You can listen directly here or download it there.

Jeffrey Miller’s 2019 #Easter #Sermon: Nothing will ever be the Same Again https://t.co/5kFA4J3Hl4 #easter2019 #theology #scripture #eschatology #southcarolina #parishministry #lowcountrylife pic.twitter.com/Gnsl9vuWwk

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 24, 2019

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

When a man/woman/church/diocese finds the right vocation under God, it is as if a caged eagle soars — Bishop Mark Lawrence #Assembly2017 pic.twitter.com/yLkLMLj51G

— Kimberley Pfeiler (@CanonKimberley) June 27, 2017

Read it all.

Please join us tomorrow for our final Lenten Teaching Series with The Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence. 11:00 – Holy Eucharist (Chapel)11:45 – Lunch served (Fellowship Hall)12:10 – Teaching time (Fellowship Hall)12:50 – Blessing and Dismissal https://t.co/dXxdBPa2ON pic.twitter.com/2u80ePrDkX

— St. John’s Church (Anglican) (@STJOHNSFLORENCE) April 10, 2019

“People can create online personalities that are simply not real. … A lot of what they say in social media has little to do with who they really are and all the fleshy, real stuff that’s in their lives,” said the Rev. John Jay Alvaro of First Baptist Church in Pasadena, California.

Thus, Alvaro and the church’s other clergy are committed to this strategy: Always move “one step closer” to human contact. “What we want is coffee cups and face-to-face meetings across a table. … You have to get past all the texts and emails and Facebook,” he said.

In fact, Alvaro is convinced that online life has become so toxic that it’s time for pastors to detox. Thus, he recently wrote an essay for Baptist News Global with this blunt headline: “Pastors and other church leaders: Give up social media. Not for Lent, but forever.” His thesis is that the “dumpster fire” of social media life is making it harder for pastors to love real people.

To quote one of Alvaro’s Duke Divinity School mentors — theologian Stanley Hauerwas — today’s plugged-in pastor has become “a quivering mass of availability.”

Read it all.

Whether a lesson be mastered in obedience to conscience, or from a dread of punishment, from filial affection, or determination to beat a rival, is a question of little moment, I grant, in reference to the stock of knowledge acquired, but of incalculable consequence when asked in reference to the bearing upon moral character. The zeal to make scholars, should, in the minds of Christians at least, be tempered by the knowledge that it may repress a zeal for better things. The head should not be furnished at the expense of the heart. Surely, at most, it is exchanging fine gold for silver, when the culture of gracious affections and holy principle is neglected for any attainments of intellect, however brilliant or varied. What Christian parent, would wish his son to be a linguist or a mathematician, of the richest acquirements or the deepest science, if he must become so by a process, in which the improvement of his religious capabilities would be surrendered, or his mind accustomed to motives not recognised in the pure and self-denying discipline of the Gospel. Not that such discipline is unfriendly to intellectual superiority; on the contrary, the incentives to attain it, will be enduring, and consequently efficient, in proportion to their purity. The highest allurements to the cultivation of our rational nature, are peculiar to Christianity. Hence, literature and science have won their highest honors in the productions of minds most deeply imbued with its spirit. The effect, however, of exclusively Christian discipline in a seminary of learning, when fairly stated, is not so much to produce one or two prodigies, as to increase the average quantum of industry; to raise the standard of proficiency among the many of moderate abilities, rather than to multiply the opportunities of distinction for the gifted few.

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A formal complaint of serious misconduct has been lodged with the Church of England against the Bishop of Chester, it has emerged.

Known as a Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM), it was brought against Dr Peter Forster by Sir Roger Singleton, interim safeguarding director at the Church.

A spokesman told the Standard that permission is currently being sought to bring the CDM ‘out of time’.

This is because under C of E rules there is a 12-month time limit between the date of the alleged misconduct and the lodging of the complaint.

Read it all.

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

I am one of those ministers who has endured a handful of seasons of anxiety and depression. Most of the time, thankfully, the affliction has been more low-grade than intense. On one occasion, though, it pretty much flattened me physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. I call this particular season my ‘living nightmare.’

That season, as well as others, occurred while serving in ministry.

How bad was the living nightmare? I could not fall asleep for two weeks straight. Even sleeping pills could not calm the adrenaline and knock me out, which only made things worse. At night I was terrified of the quiet, knowing I was in for another all-night battle with insomnia that I was likely to lose. The sunrise also terrified me, an unwelcome reminder that another day of impossible struggle was ahead of me. I lost nearly thirty-five pounds in two months. I could not concentrate in conversations with people. I found no comfort in God’s promises from Scripture. I was unable to pray anything but “Help” and “Please end this.”

Why would I tell you this part of my story? Because I believe—no, I am certain—that anxiety and depression hits ministers disproportionately. And a minister who suffers with this affliction, especially in isolation, is a person at risk. When I was in seminary, two pastors committed suicide because they could not imagine going on another day having to face their anxiety and depression. Both suffered with the affliction in silence. One wrote in his suicide note that if a minister tells anyone about his depression, he will lose his ministry, because nobody wants to be pastored by a damaged person….

Read it all.

She was completely trapped, locked ina life of immorality and shame with no apparent way out.No way forward. No way back. Living an almost invisible existence until he, under God’s providence, crossed several boundaries—both geographical and cultural; established a personal contact with her in spite of her desire to be invisible; courted her curiosity; touched her deepest pain and need and brought her into the grace of his reckless and redeeming love….

Read it all.

A Letter from #SouthCarolina Bishop Mark Lawrence to all Parishes to be distributed this past Sunday https://t.co/AcYDB8E8UJ #law #religion #ethics #stewardship pic.twitter.com/XE8Qjd3z9S

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 18, 2018

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

Read it all.

228th Convention Sings “Church’s One Foundation” from Diocese of South Carolina on Vimeo.

“Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the vail; whither the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus.”””HEB. vi. 19, and part of v. 20.

Life is full of changes and chances. It sounds commonplace to say so, and yet more and more one learns to realize that the commonplaces of life are the things we most frequently dwell on, and the things we most often need comfort about. Poverty and riches, sickness and health, prosperity and adversity, joy and sorrow, succeed one another in our lives in a way that men call chance, and Christians know to be the will of God. All external circumstances change and alter; friends fail us or are taken away; death breaks up family circles; we move away from the scenes of youth and dwell in other places; cities and towns lose their familiar appearance; nay, in this our day things that should be most stable shake and totter, and government and order seem about to fail, and the very Church itself partakes of the universal disquiet; and only the eye of faith can discern the sure and immovable foundations against which the gates of hell shall never prevail.

But, even if there were no external changes, the changes within us are still harder to bear. We are not what we were. Time more surely alters our inner selves than even it does what is without us. We do not love what we loved, we do not seek what we sought, we do not fear what we feared, we do not hate what we hated. We are not true to ourselves. However brave a front we may present to the world, we are compelled to acknowledge to ourselves our own inconsistencies. There is often a broad chasm even between the intellectual convictions of one period of life and of another; and our very religious convictions, except they are built on the unchanging rule of the catholic faith, contradict each other; and the weary heart, uncertainly reaching forth in the darkness, longs with an ever deeper longing for that immutable One “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

Blessed, then, is it to hear of an anchor of the soul. The imagery is simple enough. The ship, beaten by waves, tossed by tempests, driven by winds, takes refuge in the harbor. The anchor is cast from the stern. The ship rides securely; the danger is over.

Read it all.

The October 2017 decision by Wisconsin district judge Judge Barbara Crabb had been a victory for the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), which “jeopardized the benefit for clergy in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin … and many predicted similar consequences nationwide,” wrote CT’s sister publication, Church Law & Tax(CLT) in an analysis.

In today’s ruling, a panel of three judges again refuted the claims of FFRF attorneys, deciding that the allowance passes muster according to two related Supreme Court rulings, Town of Greece v. Galloway and Lemon v. Kurtzman.

“FFRF claims Section 107(2) renders unto God that which is Caesar’s,” wrote circuit judge Michael Brennan. “But this tax provision falls into the play between the joints of the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause: neither commanded by the former, nor proscribed by the latter.”

The FFRF told the Associated Press it is reviewing its options.

CT previously reported how the FFRF challenged the same tax break in 2012 with the same initial success, but ultimately lost on appeal in November 2014. Today’s ruling was essentially a rematch over whether the tax benefit unfairly benefits religious Americans.

“This ruling is a victory not just for my church but for the needy South Side Chicago community we serve,” said Chicago Embassy Church pastor Chris Butler in a Becket press release. He intervened in the case because his church “can’t afford to pay him a full salary, but it offers him a small housing allowance, so he can afford to live near his church and the community he serves,” noted Becket, which represented a group of pastors appealing the FFRF’s initial victory.

Read it all.

Morning Prayer at the Diocese of #SouthCarolina‘s 228th Convention (Olivia Sporinsky) #anglican #worship #mission #lowcountrylife pic.twitter.com/eoPoZMJU5d

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 17, 2019

To their credit, the Scottish Liberal Party have moved swiftly to suspend and investigate Lord Steel’s case. In this they put to shame the Church of England. At virtually the same time problems have again hit the Church of England with reports
from Chester Crown Court that the local Diocesan Bishop had received an admission from a priest abuser but accepted an assurance that he “would not do it again”. This has resulted in campaigning journalist Andrew Graystone writing to directly call for the Bishop’s resignation.

In both cases, plainly those exercising misjudgement are not bad people. I constantly remind readers that the context of the time must be factored in. However, the time for this to be an excuse allowing us to continue, simply apologising, undertaking a “learned lesson review’ and moving on, has surely passed. That scenario has been played out too many times in too many places. Victims need to see more robust responses either from the individuals concerned or from the relevant institutions.

Until such public figures pay a price, either through voluntarily resignation, through the withdrawal of honours conferred upon them, or through being shunned by the court of public opinion, we shall continue to have a culture of minimisation and cover-up. Hitherto the only ones who have paid a price for these matters coming into the public domain are the victims who have to revisit their history of pain, humiliation, anger and all the tragedies within their personal lives that go with this.

If the Establishment, secular or faith, is to retain any credibility, it is time for its members to grasp the personal responsibility that such cases require. Great reputation and personal advantage goes with pubic status: with great privilege goes great responsibility. Respect for both victims betrayed and the institutions served requires no more feet shuffling but bold moral acceptance of consequence through principled resignation.

Anything less would demonstrate precisely the kind of cynicism which our Archbishop advised us to give up for Lent when he addressed the General Synod last month. It will continue to poison our public discourse unless or until those privileged with public approval voluntarily surrender it when public confidence is no longer merited.

Read it all.

When asked whether the Church of England was a brand and whether companies could learn from it, Coles said no, though said there was temptation to “make sure we give the right kind of message” to address the haemorrhaging of numbers.

“Someone said we needed a mission statement,” he said. “But what we do is so different to our [wider] culture values. We have problems, and I kind of like that. I like that we’re seen as hopeless and bumble around; that we’re not afraid of failure.

“Mary Magdalen went to the graveyard expecting a body in the tomb but she found a life transformed. That’s really what we’re for and I don’t think that that is something we can easily articulate.”

In a similar vein he cautioned against a drive to bring more young people into the church. Instead, they should go out and live life to the full – the church will be there for them later, as it was for him.

“As a vicar I spend a lot of time with older people but recently I have spent a lot of time with young people and they are stimulating in a different way. Younger people don’t know their limits yet. It makes them exciting, risky and bold.”

Read it all.

News alert from Keep The Faith — Read this story and more at https://t.co/OE2Z209h8n #keepthefaith https://t.co/6Uvpcsr4n3

— Keep The Faith ® mag (@KeepTheFaithmag) March 14, 2019

The longest-serving bishop in the Church of England is facing calls to resign after it emerged he knew about a paedophile priest in his diocese and did nothing.

The Bishop of Chester, Rt Rev Peter Forster, found out Rev Gordon Dickenson had become embroiled in a child abuse scandal decades earlier when the retired vicar wrote a letter about the affair in 2009.

Dickenson was convicted earlier this month of eight counts of sexual assault after pleading guilty to abusing a boy during the 1970s inside a church hall and even his vicarage.

But ten years ago, Dickenson had written to the Diocese of Chester which was conducting a review of past abuse cases admitting he been accused of the abuse during the 1970s and had promised the then Bishop of Chester he would “never do it again”.

Despite this admission, Bishop Forster failed to pass on the letter to the police or order an internal church inquiry.

Read it all.

The longest serving bishop in the Church of England, Peter Forster, is facing calls to resign after it emerged he knew a retired priest was embroiled in a child abuse scandal and did nothing. My story in today’s @Telegraph https://t.co/sCstcvOmWv

— Tim Wyatt (@tswyatt) March 14, 2019

[The] Reverend Robert Duncan served as the Bishop of Pittsburgh for two decades before being elected the first Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America 10 years ago. He served until 2014 when he attempted to retire. Instead, he says he soon learned the church was looking to update its venerable Book of Common Prayer, an important and tangible link between the American church and its English forebear.

“There came to be the assessment that the 1662 (book) was the standard for both doctrine and worship within Anglicanism,” he explained. “So the 2019 book is actually a fresh assessment of 1662; an attempt to be completely continuous on what it is that Anglicans have always believed and how they’ve always prayed.”

But no sooner had Duncan accomplished that formidable job, than the church had a new assignment for him. The newly elevated St. Peter’s Cathedral parish in Tallahassee, Florida found itself without a dean. The congregation’s longtime leader, Father Eric Dudley, had resigned this past summer amidst allegations of alcohol abuse and an improper relationship. Robert Duncan was sent into the breach.

“This is one of the half-dozen most significant congregations in the entire Anglican Church in North America,” he insisted. “In the midst of a difficult moment, the bishop of the Gulf Atlantic Diocese Neil Lebhar and the archbishop, my successor Foley Beach, both called me and said, ‘You need to go to St. Peter’s.’”

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You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

Change your name to Humpty Dumpty pic.twitter.com/XIEegfQKoj

— Olasinde Afolabi (@the_olamide_) February 25, 2019

…the way the “healthy sexuality” supposedly available outside the church seems to change with every generation offers a reason to be skeptical that all Catholic ills would vanish if Rome only ceased making “unnatural” demands like celibacy and chastity.

The sexual ethic on offer in our own era should make Catholics particularly skeptical. That ethic regards celibacy as unrealistic while offering porn and sex robots to ease frustrations created by its failure to pair men and women off. It pities Catholic priests as repressed and miserable (some are; in general they are not) even as its own cultural order seeds a vast social experiment in growing old alone. It disdains large families while it fails to reproduce itself. It treats any acknowledgment of male-female differences as reactionary while constructing an architecture of sexual identities whose complexities would daunt a medieval schoolman.

In the name of this not-obviously-enlightened alternative, Catholicism is constantly asked to “reform” away practices that are there because they connect directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life.

This seems like a bad bargain, no matter how much hypocrisy there may be in Rome.

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Opinion | Why Celibacy Matters – The New York Times ⁦@DouthatNYT⁩ Interesting take… https://t.co/yUduZiZ4Pk

— Father Edward Beck (@FrEdwardBeck) February 23, 2019

People are increasingly being corralled unwittingly into certain positions – corralled by social media, traditional media, being encouraged to take positions about things. Politicians are forced into not saying things or saying things because everyone wants to know where they stand on a particular issue. And all of us are being encouraged to do that.

I want Wakefield Cathedral to be a place where people can reflect on these issues without feeling they are being forced into a particular position; where they can have the space to think these things through. We want people to know that this beautiful building is for everyone.

Here at Wakefield Cathedral they can experience that sense of peace, quiet and tranquillity that is so often denied us but which is so important for reflection. I want it to be a place where people can understand something about themselves and about others, a place which enables them to test their sense of identity in a kind and supportive arena.

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Dean of Wakefield Simon Cowling-I want the Cathedral 2 B a place where people cn reflect on these issues w/o feeling they R being forced in2 a particulr positn; where they cn have the space 2 think these thngs thru https://t.co/vR9gOFvBmu #anglican #parishministry #religion #uk

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 21, 2019