Behre estimated that the Church in S.C. has about 6,000 members now, down from 29,000 before the split. Messiah and St. Anne’s are two of eight mission churches the Church in S.C. has recognized in the last year.

Diocese spokesman Jim Lewis said that it’s hard to compare the current Diocese with the pre-split Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

While Grace has joined as a parish mission, at least one other church that was not formerly associated with the traditional church has joined the Diocese, he said.

“The last year has been a sorting out period,” Lewis said.

The Rev. Iain Boyd, chief pastor at Trinity, said his church lost about 30 members immediately after the breakaway and since then some new members have joined while others have gone elsewhere.

“I’m encouraged to see there hasn’t been much acrimony,” he said.

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A new $10 million addition to the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center will enhance the ongoing clinical research that scientists here are able to conduct for veterans with mental health needs. The hospital in Charleston treats almost 60,000 patients every year.

Nearly a third require mental health services.

The majority of them are Vietnam-era veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, more commonly called PTSD.

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You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

Oh, you may think you see ECUSA far oftener than that, for if you follow lawsuits, ECUSA is perpetually in the news. Every time you see or hear of ECUSA in that sense, it is as the plaintiff in yet another lawsuit against one of its own churches, or dioceses.

But the ECUSA who files suit as a “plaintiff” is not the real ECUSA that the Rev. Dr. William White and others formed in 1789. It is simply the Presiding Bishop and her personal attorneys.

Apparently, they have allowed matters to get out of hand — to the point where this Anglican Curmudgeon must duly report that one arm of ECUSA has agreed to pay money to another arm of ECUSA so that the two arms can dismiss the lawsuits they filed against each other.

Enough about “arms”: let us name names. One branch of ECUSA involved in this imbroglio is what ECUSA was forced by the South Carolina courts to call “the Episcopal Church in South Carolina”, or ECSC for short.

ECSC has quite a speckled history. Thanks to the machinations of the Presiding Bishop and her enablers, it came into formal existence only at the end of January in 2013 — but its roots go back much farther than that, as I detailed in this earlier post, in this one, and in this one.

Read it all and follow all the links.

Uber this week flunked its first test drive around Charleston’s legal system.

Taft Navarro, the first known Uber driver to be cited in the region for violating local or state transportation rules, was found guilty Thursday in a Charleston County courtroom. He was required to pay the full fine of $437 for operating a ride-for-hire service at Charleston International Airport without the necessary permit.

Chief Magistrate David Coker’s ruling might set something of a precedent for how similar violations will be handled at the airport in the future, Navarro said.

Read it all from the front page of today’s local paper.

The head of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee is pushing new legislation that would bring sweeping reform to South Carolina’s domestic violence laws, creating a tiered system of offenses, increasing penalties and barring batterers from possessing guns.

Sen. Larry Martin, a Pickens Republican who chairs the committee, is the lead sponsor among six senators who introduced the pre-filed legislation on Wednesday to address a festering problem that has made South Carolina one of nation’s deadliest states for women.

“It’s time to turn the tide on our terrible statistics,” Martin said. He believes his bill would go a long way toward doing that, especially the gun-ban provision.

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Tim Scott’s oath of office Tuesday on the floor of the U.S. Senate took on a historic significance – the swearing in of the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction.

That was followed later by Scott’s revelation that he didn’t plan to make the Senate a lifelong career.

Scott, R-S.C., who was elected in November to finish out the final two years of former Sen. Jim DeMint’s term, told reporters from his home state during a conference call that he hopes to be re-elected to two, full six-year terms and then plans to leave Washington.

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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).

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A North Charleston police officer yelled for those at gunpoint inside a mobile home to flee outside to safety as one woman begged the gunman not to shoot a young mother protecting five of her children.

Another woman outside pleaded with police to do something before it was too late. A gunshot rang out, then another, children screamed, and it was over.

Zakiya Lawson, a 34-year-old mother of seven, and her ex-live-in boyfriend Peter Centel Williams, a 27-year-old felon, died inside the Thoroughbred Drive trailer.

Could that murder and suicide have been stopped before it came to that chilling end? Were warning signs present for someone to spot and head-off this ending? Those are the questions a newly formed group of police, prosecutors, counselors, victims advocates and social service workers want to know if they can answer. They have organized the first domestic violence fatality review team in South Carolina to help stem the murderous tide that has left the state one of the nation’s most deadly for women at the hands of men.

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Tricolored Heron, Bull Island South Carolina (Selimah Harmon) pic.twitter.com/LZk2JUw6Pi

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 30, 2014

The Christmas story is a story of love, hope, redemption and relationship.

So, what happened? How did it turn into stuff, stress and debt?

Somehow, we’ve traded the best story in the world for the story of what’s on sale.

Enter Advent Conspiracy!

In 2006, several pastors got together to make Christmas a revolutionary event by encouraging their faith communities to Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More and Love All. This year, Christ-St. Paul’s joins forces with many churches who are doing just that: Engaging in authentic worship and giving.

Read it all and follow the links.

…in South Carolina, there’s a centuries-old tradition of spending an entire week immersed in family, food, fellowship and faith. At five autumnal “camp meetings” in rural Dorchester County, Christians gather in primitive cabins, universally called “tents,” encircling a central tabernacle.

Asked to describe camp meeting, longtime attendees (and because tents are inherited, there are no other kind of attendees) reliably demur. “You have to experience it,” says Smith’s boss, Barry Stephens, a Mount Pleasant Realtor who remembers riding his stick horse around Indian Field Methodist Campground. Now, there are so many children at play in the grassy expanse created by 99 huddled-together tents that Stephens’ young son wears a T-shirt emblazoned with his tent’s number so he’ll be returned safely if he strays too far.

Leisure has become central to camp meetings.

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One80 Place, formerly Crisis Ministries, is spending its first Thanksgiving in a new home – and is giving hope to the hundreds who will pass through its new doors this season without food or shelter or much reason to feel thankful or merry at all.

Many arrive here after crashing hard onto the rock bottom of substance addictions. Others struggle with chronic mental illnesses. Few, if any, know the prosperity of local growth and development.

And most have suffered traumas such as sexual abuse and physical assaults. A surprising number have landed here, with only temporary shelter separating them from the streets, due to domestic abuse.

Read it all from the local paper.

The long-billed curlew is as quirky looking as it is large. Its bill stands out like a jousting lance. The two-feet-tall bird is the largest shorebird on the continent – where it’s left on the continent.

That might not be in the Lowcountry much longer.

The only places it’s really seen here anymore are a few, very remote islands in Cape Romain. You’re lucky to see two at any one time. They are “probably going to disappear from our state,” said Felicia Sanders, S.C. Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist.

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A local school’s fund drive for a church has caught the attention of the American Humanist Association, a secular group concerned about the separation of church and state. The group is threatening legal action.

The student council of Oakbrook Elementary School in Ladson is raising money and encouraging donations to Old Fort Baptist Church’s food pantry. The efforts were publicized on the school’s website and in fliers as supporting “Old Fort Baptist Missions.”

The Humanist Association, whose slogan is “good without God,” said they sent a letter on Thursday by email to Dorchester District 2 Superintendent Joe Pye and Principal Monica O’Dea claiming that it was unconstitutional for a school to raise money for a church.

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One80 Place’s program isn’t unique: There are dozens of similar kitchen-based initiatives across the country, ranging from modest Culinary 101-type classes to full-fledged restaurants serving the public. But it’s especially appropriate for Charleston, where severe understaffing threatens to upend the local food-and-beverage economy.

The lurking downer is that the efficacy of such programs remains remarkably unclear. Scholars have scrutinized the causes of homelessness and the demographics of the U.S. homeless population, but whether job training leads to long-term employment remains largely unexplored. Even Catalyst Kitchens, a national network of organizations that “transform lives through foodservice job training and social enterprise,” couldn’t muster any evidence showing kitchen-centered training results in better outcomes than other interventions.

“We’re all sort of finding our way,” says Angela DuPree, One80 Place’s director of operations.

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In two seismic rulings upholding gay rights in South Carolina, a federal appeals court on Tuesday denied the state attorney general’s request to halt same-sex marriages just minutes before a district judge ruled South Carolina also must recognize gay marriages from other states.

However, the rulings left attorneys in both cases scrambling to figure out when exactly that means same-sex couples can get married – when courts open on Wednesday or at noon on Thursday?

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You can listen directly there and and download the mp3 theere.

A record 85 entries participated in the annual Veterans Day parade in downtown Columbia Tuesday – one of the largest in the Southeast.

The parade was wending its way around Sumter and Pendleton streets Tuesday morning, starting at 11 a.m. It was set to end near the State House shortly after lunchtime.

Dignitaries included Congressman Jim Clyburn; Major Gen. Bradley Becker, commander of Fort Jackson; and Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.

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As the nation commemorates Veterans Day, hundreds of thousands of those who served will mark the occasion by marching on canes, walkers or with replacement devices meant to supplement lost or weakened limbs. That’s true in Charleston where the Ralph H. Johnson VA hospital fills more than 60,000 prosthetic prescriptions a year.

While Charleston doesn’t specialize in the sort of high-tech replacement limbs that most recently have been in demand for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, the VA does see its share of veterans coming in with needs that have gone unfilled or are now just beginning to materialize as aging catches up.

Nesbitt’s story is similar to many who served in Vietnam. He joined the Army out of high school in 1966 after his life had become “shooting pool and goofing off,” he admits. After boot camp, he became a forward observer for the artillery and was shipped off to Vietnam. He saw a lot of action in the Iron Triangle area about 25 miles north of Saigon.

When he left Vietnam a year later, he brought home a number of wartime ailments with him, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, exposure to Agent Orange and bouts of internal bleeding he thinks grew out of the tension of combat.

That bleeding would eventually cost him his foot.

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Our mission is to nurture children in Charleston’s Eastside by providing a safe environment where they can learn and grow.

The Biblical Family Center provides hope and optimism to the Eastside Community of Charleston.

Through our summer camps and after school programs,we provide year round mentoring and support for families. The Biblical Family Center has created a safe space to address risky behaviors, build on protective factors, and improve relationships. We are addressing: school attachment, avoiding self-harm, positive body image, avoiding tobacco, drugs, and alcohol, communicating needs of families, making healthy choices regarding nutrition, self care, recreational activities, and abstinence.

Check it out.

[Stacy Pride’s dog] Paco died this fall, two years after her husband’s death. Pride wanted a special way to say goodbye to a special pet.

Although the family had buried earlier pets, this time she went to McAlister-Smith Funeral & Cremations to have Paco cremated. She picked out a simple copper urn to keep Paco with her family forever. Her daughters bought her a charm with Paco’s nose print because he loved to kiss with his nose.

With that, the family joined a growing number of pet owners scampering for the same kinds of services for pets that they long have relied on to mourn human loved ones.

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As a kid, Tim Scott badly wanted to fit in with the majority white kids at Stall High School, and the black kids, too. And he didn’t want any outward signs of his family’s poverty.

A pair of Converse high tops were the ticket.

But his mom said no.

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Pastors and congregations representing numerous Christian denominations from around the state gathered at the State House to declare their moral convictions at The Stand rally Saturday.

“We have gathered to declare there is a new day in South Carolina. There is a new day in this nation,” said Dr. Kevin Baird, pastor of Legacy Church in Charleston and director of the S.C. Pastors Alliance, which organized the rally. “We as pastors are here to say that we will not be silent. We will no

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Minutes after Gov. Nikki Haley’s blowout win Tuesday night, speculation began anew that the governor may not finish out her second four-year term if the eventual Republican presidential nominee comes calling.

Some say the idea of Haley getting a spot on the ticket is a long shot. One obvious strike against her is that she’s a Southerner in a region already owned by the GOP.

“She’s probably not a first-tier vice presidential candidate simply because she’s from a very safe red state, and the eventual GOP nominee may be looking for a VP choice from a swing state,” University of Virginia political scientist Geoffrey Skelly said Wednesday. But there are other variables that no one can predict, Skelly added.

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Several of my friends, all of whom work in the medical field, recently expressed alarm when the first Ebola patient flew to the United States for treatment. Since then we’ve learned about two Dallas nurses that have contracted Ebola, as well as a New York doctor working with Ebola patients on the African continent. According to a Harvard School of Public Health survey, 40 percent of Americans feel “at risk” of contracting the disease. As I flew home this week from overseas, armed with antibacterial wipes and hand sanitizer, I wondered about the potential of this growing epidemic and the possible hazards involved in our nomadic lifestyle. I, along with many others, have Ebola on the brain.

Enter All Saints Day. All Saints Day reminds us of our communion with those that have gone before, with our spiritual ancestors throughout the centuries from as far away as Africa and as close as our own parish

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