Messages of faith and progress echoed from the edge of Gadsden’s Wharf on Thursday as community leaders paid tribute to the legacy of social justice left by the late Esau Jenkins, one of Charleston’s most influential civil rights figures.

The city of Charleston helped host the event to send off Jenkins’ family on a trip to Washington, D.C., for Saturday’s grand opening of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Dozens of members of the Jenkins family spanning three generations will travel together on a charter bus, symbolic of the countless bus trips that Jenkins organized for African-American communities across the Sea Islands and beyond during the Civil Rights Movement.

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Praying for our Presidential Election
Every Monday thru 11/7
5:30-6:30pm in the Church

Here is another opportunity to “Be the Church” and be intentional about prayer. Every Monday until the Presidential election, come gather in the church for concentrated intentional prayer for the upcoming election. Can’t make it by 5:30? That’s okay; just join as you can during this hour as we pray for our Heavenly Father to pour out His Spirit for wisdom and guidance in the coming election.

Read it all.

Sermon from 1 Timothy 2:1-7 & Luke 16:1-13. QUESTIONS for Small Groups: (1) In 1 Timothy 2:1, Paul mentions various types of prayer (supplication, intercession, thanksgiving)…when you pray, what type of prayer do you typically default to? (2) What are some practical ways that you can grow in your prayer life? (3) Jesus is the Mediator for ALL people. Is there anyone you have considered beyond the reach of God’s love? How can you pray for that person and reach out to them? (4) If a stranger asked you, “Is the Christian faith inclusive or exclusive, how would you answer?

You can listen directly there or download it here.

It’s been [27] years since Hugo tore into the Lowcountry, its eye passing just north of Charleston Harbor and leaving an indelible scar on the lives of the people who lived it.

If a storm that powerful made landfall today just south of Hugo’s path, at Kiawah Island, the buzz saw of its worst, north-side winds would shear nearly all of the Charleston metro area and the storm surge would submerge the barrier islands.

According to an experimental Hazus computer model run by a College of Charleston team, a landfall just south of the city from a Hugo-scale hurricane could tear up nearly half the homes in the region and destroy tens of thousands of them. Tens of thousands of people would be homeless, at least temporarily, and thousands forced to shelters. Businesses and jobs could come to a standstill, and the loss to the economy alone could be far more than $2 billion.

Read it all.

(Photo: Joy Hunter)

Prolific author and teacher Dr. Ken Boa spoke to a crowd at St. John’s, Johns Island, September 7, 2016 on “Rewriting Your Broken Story: Gaining an Eternal Perspective on your Christian Walk,” which is also the title of his most recent book.

“All of us have broken stories,” said Boa. “How is yours broken?”

He began retelling a story of Martin Laird’s which tells of a dog who when set free simply ran in circles, because it had lived most of its life in a cage. “We buy into a false narrative,” said Boa.

Read it all and note the link to his talk and to pictures.

“Where can we by the power of God make a difference for emerging Anglicanism?” asked Bishop Mark Lawrence, in a day-long gathering of clergy from the Diocese of South Carolina at Saint James, James Island, September 14. “There’s some gravity to our decision. We need to think forward, evangelically, missionally in a way that will make a difference if someone looks back 50 years from now.”

Over 100 clergy were present for the meeting, which focused primarily on discernment issues surrounding the Diocese’s process towards affiliation with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

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One week ago (on September 5) the second session of the month-long Anglican Leadership Institute began. This session’s participants are pictured above with the Very Rev. Dr. Peter Moore, Director of the Anglican Leadership Institute (top right).

The institute is a leadership training initiative that brings future leaders in the Anglican Communion to South Carolina for periods of study, teaching, reflection and nurture.

Read it all.

What compels a person to travel halfway across the world to care for refugees in the Kurdistan area of Iraq, or to take stuffed animals, candy and beads to kids in the last free village closest to ISIS-occupied territory? To be sure, Nancy has a global mindset and travel is not new to her. Her daughter, Ally, moved to China after graduating from college to teach English. Fortunately, sons Matt and Jacob and their families live in the U.S. But what’s interesting is that Nancy’s story could be your story, or the story of anyone who opens themselves to a God-driven chain of events and obeys God’s Word .I [Patti Wheat] interviewed Nancy after she returned from her recent trip with Jerry and Stacy Kramer, founders of Love for the Least (L4L).

Read it all (page 5).

[Terry] Barr, an English professor, and Michael Nelson, a history professor, came up with the concept for the one-credit class designed to compare and contrast devotion and perspective. The course description ”” “Woo Pig Sooie!? Roll Tide!? Go Cocks!? What is it about college football that turns otherwise sane people into raving lunatics?” ”” makes it one of the most unusual offerings at this private liberal arts college of 1,026 students nestled on 240 acres.

Or any other school.

When freshman Moriah Austin of Columbia tells her family and friends about the class, it’s usually the same reaction.

“They’re jealous,” she said. “They want to be in here with me.”

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Jackie Semper Orcutt, a Myrtle Beach resident who also was present at the campaign launch, said her son, 21-year-old son SeanMichael died June 11, three minutes after experimenting with a cocktail of drugs that turned out to contain fentanyl, cocaine and heroin.

“He made a devastating choice in a weak moment and it took his life,” Orcutt said. “That’s why I’m here. Just one time can be deadly.”

Parents need to be aware of the prescription opioids’ deadly effects, she said.

“It’s raw, it’s ugly and it’s real,” Orcutt said. “I am the face of this new epidemic and it’s spreading faster than we can have these gatherings.”

Read it all.

One night, in Central Africa, I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all that we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny, premature baby and a crying, two-year-old daughter.

We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive. We had no incubator. We had no electricity to run an incubator, and no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts.

A student-midwife went for the box we had for such babies and for the cotton wool that the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly, in distress, to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates. “”¦and it is our last hot water bottle!” she exclaimed. As in the West, it is no good crying over spilled milk; so, in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over a burst water bottle. They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways. All right,” I said, “Put the baby as near the fire as you safely can; sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts. Your job is to keep the baby warm.”
The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with many of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chilled. I also told them about the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died. During the prayer time, one ten-year-old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt consciousness of our African children. “Please, God,” she prayed, “send us a water bottle. It’ll be no good tomorrow, God, the baby’ll be dead; so, please send it this afternoon.” While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added by way of corollary, ” ”¦And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she’ll know You really love her?” As often with children’s prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say, “Amen?” I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything: The Bible says so, but there are limits, aren’t there? The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever received a parcel from home. Anyway, if anyone did send a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator!

Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses’ training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time that I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the veranda, was a large twenty-two pound parcel! I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone; so, I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys. Eyes sparkled as I gave them out. Then, there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children began to look a little bored. Next, came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas ”“ ”“ that would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend. As I put my hand in again, I felt the”¦could it really be? I grasped it, and pulled it out. Yes, “A brand-new rubber, hot water bottle!” I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could. Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, “If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!” Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone: She had never doubted! Looking up at me, she asked, “Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she’ll know that Jesus really loves her?”

That parcel had been on the way for five whole months, packed up by my former Sunday School class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God’s prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. One of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child ”” five months earlier in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it “That afternoon!” “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” Isaiah 65:24

–From her book Living Faith and shared by yours truly in the morning sermon (Helen Roseveare is still living in her nineties in Northern Ireland–you can read more about her there).

From here:

If we are clay and He (God) is the potter, what might become us if we truly allow ourselves to be in His hands. Might God squeeze us a little? Could we be turned in every direction on the wheel of life until finally, a piece of art arises so magnificent, that it brings glory to the POTTER? Of course there are different varieties of clay in this world. Some so stiff they remain the clay they are, never becoming the something more. Never becoming the vision of the Artist of all artists. The Potter wants to mold you into a masterpiece. He’s not finished with you yet. He’s only just beginning.

Lord, have mercy on us, the stiff clay that we are. We commend ourselves to You once again to be your people. Mold us, shape us into Your image. May we truly be your disciples as we count the cost to follow You. Amen.

The Monday morning scene at Juanita Stanley’s apiary in Summerville, S.C., was ghastly and stunningly quiet: Everywhere one looked were clumps of honeybees, dead after a dousing on Sunday with the potent pesticide with which the local authorities had intended to kill mosquitoes.

“There was no need for a bee suit Monday morning to go down there, because there was no activity. It was silent,” Ms. Stanley said on Thursday. “Honestly, I just fell to the ground. I was crying, and I couldn’t quit crying, and I was throwing up.”

For Ms. Stanley and her business, the death toll easily exceeds two million bees, and Dorchester County officials are still tabulating how many more might have been killed when a day of aerial spraying, scheduled to combat mosquitoes that could be carrying viruses like Zika, went awry. The apparently inadvertent extermination, the county administrator said, happened after a county employee failed to notify Ms. Stanley’s business, which the administrator said should have been alerted about the spraying strategy. Some hobbyists were also caught by surprise.

Read it all.

No school Friday for students in Charleston County School District because of #Hermine https://t.co/FqAMOGLiUE #chswx #chsnews

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) September 1, 2016

Read it all.

Both Henrietta and Matthew chose to become full-time students, thanks to full scholarships awarded them by Trinity. The seminary, they learned, wants no student to leave with school-related debt. However, despite this welcome financial help, they found they did have to borrow to cover living expenses. This made them instantly very budget conscious.

“So, what was it like to study together,” I asked them? They smiled. “We rarely study together.” Each has their unique study styles. Matthew devoured his books till late at night, but struggled with writing papers. Henrietta wrote with ease, but enjoyed her sleep and was not as absorbed in books as Matthew. So they studied separately unless they were together with a group of students at their kitchen table. Both, however, loved the lectures and found themselves drawn to particular professors who they saw as very genuine and helpful. Greek and Hebrew proved to be the big challenges, as they had been to me. This is why, they explained, they are heading back to Trinity for part of the summer to finish the language requirements for their degree program.

But after that they are off to Indonesia with a team of others from Trinity to do first-hand mission work in a Muslim country. A grant from the SAMS (the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders) made the trip possible. They shared that one of the greatest discoveries of their year away was gaining a global view of God’s Kingdom.

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Bernard Smith spent 22 days face-to-face with death. The stench surrounded him as bodies of men, both young and old, were carted into a mortuary for him to process in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

Smith, 77, of Myrtle Beach, survived the war that took the lives of more than 50,000 Americans, but he is still haunted by hundreds of those souls.

“In the middle of the night, I would scream sometimes,” he said about the nightmares that he still has to this day. “One night, the Grim Reaper appeared in my dream and looked right at me and turned and said, ”˜You’re next.’”

Read it all.

Some high-achieving college students are winners when it comes to the South Carolina Education Lottery, but one of the losers is the Palmetto State, which has had to subsidize those awards with more than $1 billion during the past 14 years.

Thousands of college students who started school last week will pay for their educations partly with the merit-based scholarships, which range from $2,800 to $10,000 per year for South Carolina students who meet certain academic criteria and attend a public or private college in state.

But much of the money to pay for those awards doesn’t come from lottery proceeds. Instead, it comes from taxpayers through the state’s operating budget.

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Low points are emotional creatures. Your physical conditions might not change, but they can seem to take on different characteristics. The same hospital room, same beeping machines, and same bee-hive of busy staff that had been my miracle workers just yesterday were now transformed into a hellish prison. My cancer tormented me. I felt trapped like Jonah in the belly of the whale ”” with no way out. I felt like I was going to die a slow death by digestive juices in the oozing darkness of the beast. I curled up into a fetal position and felt hopeless.

Then I saw him.

I opened my eyes and looked right into the face of Jesus. He was not looking down from Heaven or floating in the room. He was right there, lying in the narrow bed with me. There was no flaw in His features, no crown of thorns on His head. He was regally perfect. He looked directly into my eyes and beamed. His Presence radiated love that vaporized my fears and loneliness. He assured me of his plans for me. He was going to make sure I got out that hospital to fulfill them.

Read it all from LivingonJesusStreet.

One of Beaufort’s oldest churches will start the new church year with new leaders.

The Rev. Samuel Porcher Gaillard IV, known as Shay, will become the rector at the Parish Church of St. Helena (Anglican) this month. The Rev. Todd Simonis will arrive in September to serve alongside Gaillard as senior associate.

“Coming to a Gospel-centered historic church with such a lively witness is an incredible opportunity,” Gaillard said. “I am excited to see where God will lead St. Helena’s to expand our kingdom ministry.”

Read it all from the Island News.

Jim Cato wrote thousands of editorials in 28 years as editor of The Beaufort Gazette.

But it has taken a second “career” in retirement to feel he can truly change the world.

He is now the Rev. Jim Cato.

As of June, he is an ordained Anglican deacon.

He has gone from being the community lightning rod to talking almost in a whisper, telling me that this story and his new role in life are not about him but about God.

Read it all.

Listen to it all (note that a link of the sermons page may be found there).

For 46 years South Carolina native Grainger McKoy has turned wood into wings. His carvings of birds at rest, in flight, and in conflict with nature are well known to both hunters and birders. The detail is extraordinary, enough so that at first glance many pieces appear to be taxidermy. In typical modesty and humor, he says “All I do is remove wood. How I make a living is I know when to stop.”

Possibly his most prominent piece is a carving of a pintail wing, originally commissioned by the Hollings Cancer Center in Charleston. The upright sculpture captures the wing in its recovery stroke and is accordingly titled “Recovery.”

“Over the years, having looked at photographs and watched film of birds in flight, the recovery position seemed to be the one with the most beauty and the one that was the most intricate,” says McKoy. “Yet it’s the weakest wing position. Weakness is where the truth comes out, and all of us, somewhere in our lives, are in recovery.”

Read it all and don’t miss the amazing pictures.

What would the “ideal” pastor transition look like?

Seasons that are good and seasons that are bumpy.

There’s an old phrase, “If it ain’t broken, break it.” Sometimes you learn a lot by something that doesn’t work. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s the right thing to do but in some cases it might be. “Disappoint them early,” as I’ve jokingly said in sermons.

An ideal transition is one in which both the congregation and the new pastor are eager for what God has in mind for them, where both are open to God’s vision for the congregation and have a godly patience with one another and a godly impatience for the God-given growth the Holy Spirit has in store for the parish.

Read it all.