Listen to it all (a little over 3 1/2 minutes).

[Deb] Adams, who has lived in Teton Valley for the past 30 years, said she’s been attending St. Francis since it started just over 20 years ago. For the past 10, she’s been studying in the hours off from her job as executive director of the Teton County Library in Jackson, Wyoming.

“This is something I’ve been drawn to for a really long time,” Adams said. “A lot of it comes from the modeling of my parents who were all about service.”

Service, Adams said, was the environment she grew up in. And now, besides delivering sermons and counseling with parishioners, she’ll be able to officiate in the church’s sacraments, which include celebrating communion and performing weddings.

Instead of taking an alternate route of studying at a theological seminary, Adams enrolled in online classes through Church Divinity School of the Pacific and took additional courses and workshops at the Episcopal Church in Idaho Falls.

Read it all and the parish website is there.

The Development and Appointments Group would like to thank Lord Green for this report and for his leadership of the group charged by us and the Archbishops to review the way in which the Church prepares clergy for senior posts and how they are encouraged to develop and grow in their discipleship and leadership in mission once they are appointed. I would also like to thank the members of various task groups who contributed as ideas were developed, and those who have taken part over the longer term – in shaping source material through being members of nomination panels, participating in diocesan consultations for bishops and deans and participating in research projects. This work has emerged from a long period of reflection on the complexity of senior clerical leadership – a ministry in which we are called to be priests, prophets and theologians as well as to be leaders of Christ’ great gift, the Church – a body which needs constant nurturing and stewarding to ensure that its organisational life flourishes and resources our call to mission.

The report challenges the nature and quality of the support currently provided in both areas – a challenge we must take seriously as we become increasingly aware of the extent of the issues facing the Church in its witness to and sharing of the Gospel.

Read it all and follow the link to the full report.

In the days that followed, many healthcare workers talked with Brown-Haithco about their vocations. These conversations often mirrored the tone she had set in her memo, neither ignoring the risks of treating Ebola patients nor succumbing to panic. A calling doesn’t exclude fear, she explained, but fear “does not prevent us from moving with compassion toward someone in need.”

Neither does fear encourage a dull news cycle. When the Ebola outbreak began, the American public heard from doctors, nurses, public health experts, and WHO officials. Once healthcare workers were diagnosed in Dallas, we heard about PPE procedures, CDC guidelines, and airport screenings. We heard about hospital employees in New York who faced discrimination for working near an infected patient, and about the exotic dancers who started a GoFundMe account to support their voluntarily quarantine. Most recently, we heard about the $27,000 the city of Dallas spent taking care of Bentley, the beloved dog of Dallas nurse and recovered Ebola patient, Nina Pham.

But during the initial frenzy of U.S. Ebola coverage, we didn’t hear much about hospital chaplains, the members of hospital teams tasked with providing spiritual and emotional support to patients, their families, and medical staff. According to university estimates, there were 42,410 stories mentioning Emory and Ebola published between July 31 and September 22; Brown-Haithco and her chaplain colleagues were interviewed four times, including a segment with Matt Lauer that never aired.

Read it all.

From Facebook:

Here is my friend and colleague the Rev. Dr. Martha Giltinan as I love to remember her — talking about Prayer Book spirituality.

Martha was really not interested in promoting herself. She did not keep copies of her sermons. I encouraged her to write a memoir — she had an amazing story about being converted from atheism as a young woman, two decades of ministry, and almost a decade teaching pastoral theology at a seminary, but she just wasn’t interested. She was always being asked to give talks or to serve on some committee or other. She had a book on women in ministry in her that only she could have written. But Martha seemed to consider her words as largely disposable. If you wanted Martha, you had to get her live.

Unfortunately, that’s no longer possible. I am happy that there is this, some sermons on the internet, and even a video of her reading a lengthy passage from the Book of Homilies, but not much.

For those who never knew Martha, and for those who did, here’s something to remember her by.

One of the most amazing women I have ever known, a lover of Jesus, and someone who knew the meaning of friendship.

“Using the Prayer Book at Home” – Rev. Martha Giltinan from St. Peter's Anglican Church on Vimeo.

If you didn’t know about her, you need to learn. She was without a doubt in my mind one of the heroines of the faith among Anglicans in North America in our generation. Take a moment to read some of the comments and tributes.

Update: there is more there.

Within the past year, a series of experiences brought the Rev. Jerome Anderson to his knees.

Not in a posture of defeat, but humble submission to God’s plan.

As a leader in the Christian community, Anderson is accustomed to counseling people during life’s darkest moments, helping them to not just find light at the end of the tunnel, but teaching them how to apply scripture to their situation.

A timeline of the past 18 months of the minister’s life is parallel to the Biblical account of the sufferings of Job in the Old Testament that depicts love, long-suffering and restoration.

Read it all.

A new troubling trend marks the U.S. church: the decline in Catholic funerals. It will affect Catholic life in the future if a basic tradition dies out. It also affects pastoral life now if people deprive themselves of closure after the death of a loved one.

Those for whom funeral rites are not celebrated today have often been lifelong Catholics who presume their children will arrange a traditional funeral for them when they die. Some parents may want to alert offspring that they want a funeral Mass.

In 1970, according to statistics from the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), there were 426,309 Catholic funerals in the United States. More than 40 years later, in 2011, there were 412,145, a decrease despite an increased U.S. Catholic population over that time.

Read it all.

A radical overhaul of the Church of England’s leadership is under way.

A key report, still unpublished, sets out a programme of “talent management” in the Church. The report has been signed off by the two Archbishops, and a £2-million budget has been allocated. It was discussed by all the bishops in September, and the House of Bishops on Monday. A spokesman said on Wednesday that the Bishops “welcomed the implementation plan prepared in the light of those discussions. Details will be published next month.”

The Church Times has seen the report, Talent Management for Future Leaders and Leadership Development for Bishops and Deans: A new approach, prepared by a steering group chaired by Prebendary the Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, the former HSBC chairman. It speaks of a “culture change for the leadership of the Church”, and outlines a two-stage process.

Read it all.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Here’s a change in corporate human resources – more companies are hiring chaplains. These are the same kinds of people with religious training you find in the military or on college campuses. Chaplains work in companies to help people talk through office frustrations. Here’s Lauren Silverman of our member station KERA in Dallas.

LAUREN SILVERMAN, BYLINE: Every week, Chaplain John Eaton knocks on the doors of employees at Purdy McGuire, an engineering firm in Dallas.

(KNOCKING)

CHAPLAIN JOHN EATON: Hey Scott. How’s it going, man?

SILVERMAN: How’s it going is more than a greeting, it’s part of Eaton’s job. He talks with employees about anything – sports, church, problems at home. Scott Brown is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon faith. He likes the check-ins.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Pastors should stop signing state-issued marriage licenses. They should stop immediately. Individuals and organizations whose agenda is murky at best are hijacking the marriage debate. We have stopped asking the right questions and started reacting to the debate swirling around us.

On the one hand are people who want to radically redefine marriage in the eyes of the state. They are advocating for open and equal access to the benefits given by the state to married individuals. They want tax benefits, inheritance rights and parental privileges that are automatically given to people who marry.

To this group, pastors and churches need to have a simple and clear answer: “Blessings on you. I don’t need to get a benefit from the government that you cannot get. My contracts should not be better than your contracts. Your kids should be as protected as my kids.”

The only way I can with good conscience say this is if I am no longer part of the civil process. No functionary of any religion ought to be able to finalize a marriage contract individuals are making with the state. It is an abhorrent intermingling of church and state. Until the state sees this clearly and changes its rules, we should abandon the system voluntarily.

Read it all.

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

I had been ordained for a month and was meeting with two people appointed to evaluate my fitness for ministry….The question that I’ve never forgotten was, “Do you preach for a decision?”

The question has haunted me. We preachers proclaim good news and speak about all the amazing ways that good news penetrates, comforts, challenges and transforms lives. But my questioner had a point: proclaiming good news ought to in some way lead to a response, a decision of some kind. Otherwise proclaiming the good news of unconditional divine love can be an exercise in what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” Preaching ought to lead to people caring more, giving more and living more. It is the assurance of God’s presence, to be sure, and it is testimony to God’s healing love. But it is also an invitation to do something.

–John M. Buchanan, Christian Century, October 4, 2011, issue, page 3

What do we make of the latest statistics about cathedral attendances?

I’ve been a cathedral dean for half my ministry, and was a canon residentiary before that. So I once knew a fair amount about Coventry Cathedral and Sheffield Cathedral. 12 years at Durham completes a trio of three very different cathedrals (and if you count my years as an honorary vicar choral at Salisbury, that makes four).

In the last decade or so, the rhetoric has been that cathedrals are ‘a success story of the Church of England’. (Some immodestly replace the indefinite article with the definite.) I’ve often wondered what this means, and whether success/failure language ought to belong to the way we perceive church life. In the heritage sector, there is now much more talk about the importance of ‘intangible values’, not just the things we can observe and measure. I’m not the only one to worry that church growth/fresh expressions language is seduced by the easy appeal of measurables (‘bums on seats’). I doubt if these are what ultimately matter when it comes to understanding the dynamics of a faith community.

Read it all.

This month marks the tricentennial of the birth of the most famous man in America before the Revolution. George Whitefield, born on Dec. 16, 1714, was a Church of England minister who led the Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals that swept through Britain and America in the mid-1700s. Whitefield drew enormous audiences wherever he went on both sides of the Atlantic, and his publications alone doubled the output of the American colonial presses between 1739 and 1742. If there is a modern figure comparable to Whitefield, it is Billy Graham. Buteven Mr. Graham has followed a path first cut by Whitefield.

What made Whitefield and his gospel message so famous? First, he mastered the period’s new media. Cultivating a vast network of newspaper publicity, printers and letter-writing correspondents, Whitefield used all means available to get the word out.

Most important, he joined with Benjamin Franklin, who became Whitefield’s main printer in America, even though Franklin was no evangelical. Their business relationship transformed into a close friendship, although Whitefield routinely pressed Franklin, unsuccessfully, about his need for Jesus.

Read it all.

A majority of presbyteries in the Church of Scotland have agreed to a historic legal change, enabling individual congregations to opt out of traditional teaching on marriage and appoint a gay minister who is in a civil partnership.

While official returns will not be released until the new year, it was revealed last night that at least 27 of the 45 voting presbyteries had already accepted the principal of a “mixed economy” within the church, the compromise agreed at this year’s general assembly.

The policy laid out in an “overture” ”” or proposal ”” was drawn up as a way of maintaining the doctrinal position of the Church, to the satisfaction of some of its evangelical members, while allowing more liberal congregations to break with tradition and appoint gay clergy.

Read it all (requires subscription).

Is there anything more wonderful than sitting in your favorite place immersed in a great book? The rhythm of my reading begins in the morning as I anchor the first part of my day in Scripture. I then use the evening for Christian literature. That book-ends my day but keeps my morning focused on Scripture, the most wonderful love letter ever written.

No matter what I’m reading, I find that God reveals more of Himself to me when there is plenty of white space. So, on a recent Saturday afternoon, I took out my portable hammock and set it up at White Point Gardens at the Battery and was transfixed for hours. Let me share with you the books I am currently reading. The Rev. Mark Batterson (Pastor of National Community Church in Washington DC) wrote a book last year called: All In….You are One Decision Away from a Totally Different Life. I am just beginning this book and look forward to reporting on it. A more practical day to day book written by Michael White and Tom Corcoran is called: Tools For Rebuilding, a thoughtful book on best practices for the local church. I’m also re-reading two books by John Eldredge called: Wild at Heart, Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul…and Beautiful Outlaw, Experiencing thePlayful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus. John Eldredge has become a national leader on ministry to men, through his many books as well as his ministry based in Colorado. In fact, in earlyNovember, a small team of St. Michaelites and I will venture to Colorado to be part of one of his boot camps for men! Happy reading everyone!

–From the Rev. Al Zadig and found there (page 6).

“I’m most excited about working to make the [Episcopal] Church something that is important in people’s lives,” Chittenden said. “It’s a complex time in the history of the Church””society’s attitude toward the Church is changing, which presents a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge.”

[Nils] Chittenden””who came to Duke following eight years of work at the University of Durham, England””said it took some time to understand the philosophy and functioning of an American university. However, he quickly grew to love his work and the people he met at Duke, forming strong relationships across the University.

Part of Chittenden’s job involved providing spiritual counseling to anyone who sought it.

“My goal was not to be a chaplain only for Episcopalian students, but a chaplain who could provide an Episcopalian perspective for any students seeking that,” Chittenden said.

Read it all.

A woman has been appointed as a canon chancellor at Exeter Cathedral for the first time in its 900-year history.

Canon Anna Norman-Walker, a former nurse, told BBC News the Church of England was “on the move” over its position on female clergy.

In November, following intense debate, the church formally adopted legislation to allow female bishops by 2015.

Jonathan Draper, Dean of Exeter Cathedral, said the new canon brought “great gifts and energy”.

Read it all.

When Clive Fairclough is asked whether he had any connection with the Slavic world before he arrived in Moscow earlier this year as the most senior Anglican cleric in Russia, he pauses for several seconds.

“The opposite way around, actually, because I spent 20 years of my life in NATO,” he answers eventually.

It is an unlikely transformation ”” from British army officer in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization devising military strategies to checkmate the Soviet Union, to Anglican chaplain in Moscow. But Fairclough, who is taking courses about the Orthodox Church and planning to learn Russian, drew out a common thread.

“In my entire career I have been a peacemaker,” he said in a recent interview in the parsonage next to St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in downtown Moscow.

Read it all.

Rev Engin Yildirim, from the Church of the Resurrection (a Turkish language parish in Istanbul) has sent details of a privileged meeting when he and other Christian clergy greeted Pope Francis on Saturday 30 November 2014 during his official visit to the country.

Read it all and make sure not to miss the picture. For those interested in the background of the parish you may read more here and the parish website is there.

The pastor of a Sacramento megachurch had already raised the money he sought for a program to provide food and shelter to the homeless. But Rick Cole, who began the fundraiser with a stunt where he would live on the streets, couldn’t leave after only a few days. So, he spent the next two weeks living life as the homeless do ”” and the experience opened his eyes.

“I’ve walked past people that stay in some of the places of homelessness. And really almost not even noticed them, not considered their plight and what’s going on in their life. Now I was living among them,” Cole told NBC News.

Unrecognized by his new neighbors, the 57-year-old pastor spent his days looking for food and worrying about where he’d sleep at night. He didn’t preach he didn’t proselytize. He just listened. “I think I began to experience how people ignore others. I became the one ignored. People walked by me like I didn’t exist.”

Read it all or watch the video.

In Romania, the civil and religious ceremonies of marriage are not the same, due primarily to the fact that evangelical ministers do not have the authority to act as ministers of the state. (And I don’t think my Baptist friends there would accept the authority if it were offered to them.)

Our December 6 journey to the Courthouse with friends, family, and witnesses was a hoop to jump through. We’ve never considered the 6th to be our anniversary because the civil ceremony was simply a precursor to the real moment of marriage, which took place in Corina’s church.

I’m not saying that now is the time for a divorce between civil and Christian marriage. I haven’t signed the pledge. (I’m with Tolkien, not Lewis on this issue.) But I do think we can learn something from brothers and sisters in other parts of the world who have never had nor sought the ministerial privileges of authorizing civil marriage.

Read it all.

Does the call for Christians to separate matrimony from government marriage mean we’re retreating from the public square? Damon Linker thinks so. He calls it an “unprecedented retreat of theologically conservative churches from engagement in American public life.”

That’s exactly wrong.

If the Marriage Pledge is a retreat, it’s a retreat from this: the illusion that the Christian view of marriage can comfortably accommodate a definition of marriage that has strayed so far from revelation and reason that it now allows men to marry men and women to marry women. We all have to live with the reality of the sexual revolution, but Christians cannot make peace with it.

Read it all.

His views on the Middle East have often put him at odds with the Church. In his 20s, he abandoned a career as a doctor to become a vicar, eventually heading up the Church of England’s International Centre for Reconciliation (ICR) where his work took him to the Middle East.

He backed the 2003 invasion in Iraq and afterwards restored St George’s, the only Anglican church in the country. He has endured kidnappings, bombings and the recent onslaught of Islamic State, which forced him to leave in the face of grave threats to his life. Now, he is pushing for more war, saying the countries that invaded Iraq must go back in force to stop IS.

When he moves outside his church, White was protected by up to 35 Iraqi guards. But when he meets The Huffington Post UK, he is sitting without protection in a leather arm chair, at his home in Liphook, Hampshire. By White’s own estimation, he has spent 70 to 80 days of the year at most in the UK since he went to the Middle East.

A family friend of White’s told me he seems to know everyone wherever he is, to which White replies: “The only place I’ve ever been where I don’t know everybody is here.” The walls of this room are covered in crucifixes he collects, maps of Iraq and Baghdad and a letter from former US President George W. Bush thanking him for his work there.

Read it all.

As St. Louis-area clergy urge a nonviolent response to a grand jury’s decision about whether to charge a white police officer in the killing of an unarmed black teenager, they’re re-evaluating their role in the struggle over race relations.

Religious leaders have become complacent in the decades since the civil-rights movement ended legal segregation, said Carl Smith Sr., 59, pastor at New Beginning Missionary Baptist in Woodson Terrace, Missouri. The August shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson and the weeks of unrest that followed awakened people of the cloth, he said. A decision on charges that could come any day and the prospect of renewed violence have forced religious leaders to the forefront and, for some, into a period of introspection.

“We have stopped doing what we were supposed to do,” Smith said in an interview after an interfaith service Nov. 22 in St. Louis. “We have stayed confined to our four walls, instead of coming outside of these four walls.”

Read it all.

Bishop Robert completed the third of his official Cathedral installations on Saturday 22 November 2014 with a rousing service in the Pro-Cathedral of Holy Trinity, Brussels ”“ the church where before consecration he served as Parish Priest.

You can find pictures here and his sermon there.

She notes with sadness the general absence of religious coverage in the media ”“ “until there is a crisis, and then, all of a sudden, our voice is needed”. But rather than complain of prejudice, this practical, roll-up-your-sleeves -and-get-on-with-it Christian feels the onus is on churches to say something that is worth printing and broadcasting. And she doesn’t mean Thought for the Day. The mere mention makes her shudder.

Many of the first wave of women priests in the Church of England had been waiting for years, even decades, to be allowed the chance to follow their vocation. Alison Joyce, though, grew up in Sussex, in a house where religion was rarely mentioned.

“My parents were occasional churchgoers, but had no sense of Church membership. I can remember, when I was exploring faith in my mid-twenties, pinning my poor mother to the kitchen wall and saying: ”˜Explain the doctrine of the Trinity to me.’ There was fear in her eyes.”

Canon Joyce, you may have gathered, is not one for half-measures. It was during her postgraduate studies at Bristol that she found Anglicanism, but only after “a church crawl. I also went to the Orthodox, the Methodists, the Catholics and the Plymouth Brethren. As a non- churchgoer, I needed to know what was out there.”

Read it all.

Read them all.