As a portion of my work involves finding strategies to build up the congregations in our own Diocese, my recent trip to Okatie begs the question, “What can we learn from the Church in the face of Adversity?”

I submit that there are several lessons that we can learn from such churches, and if we can find a way to incorporate those lessons into our own congregations, we stand to grow at an unprecedented rate. Some of the lessons we all know but have not found a way to embody. Some of these lessons are what I like to refer to as “blinding glimpses of the obvious,” and some of these lessons will be new to many of us.

We worship God, not buildings. The people of the Episcopal Church in Okatie came from an historic building in which their families had worshipped for generations. As painful as it was for them to leave that building, they quickly realized in a visceral and personal way that the Church truly is comprised of the people. As comforting and meaningful as their historic home had been to them, they learned that it was in the liturgy (performed anywhere) and in the act of being joined together in the Holy Sacrament, and in the bond of fellowship that is often sealed in crisis that the true Church exists.
The laity is the highest order of the Church. There is no question that strong and competent clergy leadership can effect great change in a congregation.

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope that you and your families had a blessed 4th of July weekend and that each of you is making Sabbath space and time always to give thanks to God for the many blessings we receive. I pray also that, in your reflections, you are also giving prayerful intention to God’s call to you as a disciple of Christ.

Across the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, we continue striving to build up God’s Church and to fulfill our calling to become mature disciples of Jesus Christ, as articulated in our Strategic Visioning Process. That process is now being engaged by 23 of our 61 congregations, 7 of which are aligning alternate strategic planning initiatives with our stated trajectory to “Make, equip and send mature disciples in order to serve Christ not only with our lips but in our lives.” This is a substantial increase in strategic visioning and planning across the diocese, a trend we expect to continue over the coming year.

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When his daughter, Lucy, goes to Charleston Catholic School next year, she will be the only student whose father comes not only for parent conferences and class parties, but also to celebrate Mass.

Ordained a Catholic priest July 7, Allen joins a small but growing group of former Episcopalians embarking on a new journey, one they hope marks a critical step down the long path to Christian unity.

They have embraced a new option in Catholicism that allows Anglicans to become fully Roman Catholic yet retain elements of their liturgical and theological traditions.

Read it all from the local paper.

Listen to it all and see what you think (around 17 minutes, an mp3).

A new approach to caring for young adults with developmental, cognitive and intellectual disabilities is quietly rooting and growing in a cozy mustard-colored house behind a West Ashley strip mall.

The dozen or so participants at Healing Farms Ministries recently graduated high school, and said good-bye to all of the structure and help that the school system provided them.

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The Very Rev. Dr. Samy Fawzy Shehata, dean of St. Mark’s Pro-Cathedral in Alexandria, Egypt, will speak about the Anglican Church in Egypt and its role during the current unrest, a critical time in the life of Egypt, during a Thursday luncheon at the Church of the Holy Comforter. The public is invited to the noon luncheon in the church’s parish hall.

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Every weekday, the Nehemiah Project partners with Turner Memorial A.M.E. Church to provide free lunches to as many as 250 children and adults in West Columbia. Local businesses donate the food, and volunteers prepare it in a tiny kitchen next to a multipurpose space with folding tables and chairs.

When a volunteer cook didn’t show up on a recent morning, the Rev. Kenneth Taylor, the church’s pastor, stepped in to pick up the slack. A big pot of macaroni and cheese warmed on the stove and black-eyed peas simmered in a slow-cooker while residents from the surrounding community trickled in for what Taylor said was often their only meal of the day.

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“She has not just made this just about her,” said Leslie Richmand, a Plainsboro, N.J., counselor and another of [Patty] Hall’s Shaggy Facebook friends. “Patty is talking to all these people like they are in her living room.”

Hall calls the page a dog diary that she realizes has become something more. Fans have sent her a number of gifts, namely dog toys and books. but Hall also has received a collar with a radio transmitter, a wine glass painted with a portrait of Shaggy and a Mother’s Day card.

“She started off as a dog in distress, and now she has become their friend,” Hall said.

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High School student North Wilkins is baptized by the Rev. Chris Warner

Prayer before the race begins
The three-day celebration kicked off on Saturday with the Barrier Island 5K Run/Hike with more than 150 runners and hikers traveling through the forest. It ended with a ½ mile stretch on the beach. Chad Bateson, 15, a rising sophomore at Socastee High School in Myrtle Beach came in first with a time of 19:53. “This was my first time doing a 5K,” said Chad. “It was a really interesting, cool trail.”

The Senior High School Session of summer camp ended on Saturday so those attending the anniversary festivities were invited to the closing ceremony where students spoke about their weeklong experience. Afterwards the group moved to the beach where they shared in the baptism of a fellow camper.
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On Monday the first event of the day was the unearthing of a time capsule, which had been buried 25 years earlier. A crowd gathered under the picnic pavilion to recover the red tube. Some of those present had been there when the capsule was buried.

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As many of you know I am at Nashotah House in Wisconsin at the Anglican Church in North America’s Provincial Council (which just concluded yesterday with a Festival Eucharist””an inspiring and joyful worship). This morning they will begin their House of Bishops Meeting. I am present as an observer. Joining me at the Provincial Council was The Very Rev. Peet Dickinson, Dean of the Cathedral, and Mrs. Suzanne Schwank, a member of our diocesan Standing Committee. They returned this morning to South Carolina and I will stay on for the House of Bishops Meeting and return on a late flight Friday in order to be at St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center for its 75th anniversary this weekend.

As I told the Diocesan Council last month and said at various deanery gatherings, not to mention many parish forums, it has been my intention to attend various gatherings within what I’ve referred to as the Anglican Diaspora in North America to learn the various players and seek greater unity as may be appropriate. So when I met with Archbishop Robert Duncan at the recent New Wineskins Conference, he invited me to attend this Council as an observer and bring a delegation. This struck me as a good way to follow-up on my expressed intentions.

It has been an enlightening and, frankly, encouraging few days.

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A Glorious Revolution is the web log of Iain Boyd, Senior Pastor of Trinity Church in Myrtle Beach. The purpose of this blog is to assert a Gospel Centered view not only of the Christian life but also of Anglicanism. The Anglican Church was started when brave men and women were convicted of the truth of the Gospel and called for reform in their churches. Historically, our churches foundational commitment to the Gospel has ebbed and flowed, but it is our opinion that Anglicanism stands or falls on the pure Gospel of Jesus. The current divides in Anglicanism seem to be over the cultural tides of conservativism and liberalism. The Gospel is a third way that transcends these categories. Jesus is more radical than the liberals and more moral than the conservatives. So, we seek to call the Anglican church back to a Gospel centered life that transforms the world starting in Myrtle Beach. In this blog you’ll see frequent posts from reformers both within Anglicanism and without, modern and ancient, commentary on news in the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as my own musings on film, culture, politics, religion, music and much more. I am happy to report that my good friend, Sami Al Taher will continue to post material here that has stirred his heart to a more radical commitment to Jesus and His Gospel. We will also continue to post material pertinent to Trinity Church under the categories tab “Trinity Tidings.”

See what you make of it.

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In the walk of manhood, we have tremendous responsibility and possibility for blame. As a child, I never understood the decisions that the men in my life made. But now as a man, I fully understand the kind of positions that they were placed in and the difficult choices they had to make. When we face these difficult choices, we make the wrong ones sometimes, and understandably so.

As men, we have been taught that we are supposed to fix everything. Hence when we make these wrong decisions we are not very good at asking for help. We should. It’s OK to ask for help, especially when it comes to our children. We don’t have to figure everything out on our own; we should always be willing to ask for help. There’s no shame in that.

As fathers, it is particularly important to understand that asking for help to do our job is OK. Making mistakes doing our job is OK. Neglecting our job as a father is not OK.

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St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center, at the southern end of Seabrook Island, marks its 75th anniversary with a three-day celebration beginning June 22.

Most of the scheduled events are free and open to the public.

Read it all and please take the time to look at the special website for this event.

A Southern Baptist from Spartanburg with no political experience walked the halls of Capitol Hill on Wednesday with his wife, lobbying Congress to support immigration reform as a moral issue.

Jim Goodroe, director of missions for the Spartanburg County Baptist Network, has ministered to the immigrant community of Spartanburg for the last 12 years. His wife, Nancy, teaches young children who don’t speak English as a first language.

The Goodroes are well-versed on visas and green cards and the struggles involved in migrating to a foreign country. But the political arena is a new world to them.

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The price of the Charleston Crab House’s $26.99 “World Famous Crab House Crab Pot” could go up next year, but not because of the price of crabs or a potential seafood shortage. It’s about health care.

John Keener, who owns both Charleston Crab House locations, on James Island and on Meeting Street, is one of many Charleston restaurateurs trying to make sense of the federal Affordable Care Act and how his business will be affected.

Two things are certain: Keener will need to offer his employees health insurance starting in 2014, and he will likely pass the associated costs of that coverage onto his customers.

Read it all from the local paper.

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News of two expansive U.S. surveillance programs has sparked a national discussion on security versus privacy and civil liberties. The issue is splitting American citizens and even politicians who normally find themselves on the same side.

Two Republicans in South Carolina’s congressional delegation are already sharply divided.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the programs “very helpful for us when it comes to national security.”

U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford’s reaction was almost exactly the opposite. He said the data mining is “out of control” and has “no regard for constitutional rights.”

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Jim Lewis, Canon to Diocese Bishop Mark Lawrence, said the Diocese is very pleased with the decision since the “issues involved are essentially those of legal identity and are wholly determined by state law, so the most appropriate place to settle is clearly in state court, where we first took the matter.”

Thomas S. Tisdale, Jr., Chancellor of TECinSC said the group is disappointed with the result, but “we are confident in our legal position going forward.”

A separate federal lawsuit, filed by Bishop Charles G. von Rosenberg, who heads TECinSC, is still before Judge Houck. That suit asks the court to find that only Bishop von Rosenberg, as The Episcopal Church’s recognized bishop, should control the name and marks of the diocese.

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Sammy Rhodes didn’t court Twitter fame. Maybe he flirted with it a little, but he only did it to make other people smile.

As the following grew for his 140-characters-or-fewer jokes posted under the handle @prodigalsam, Rhodes discovered the dark side of fame. Other Twitter comedians began to attack Rhodes for allegedly stealing jokes. As is typical in internet spats, it quickly turned personal and ugly.

“The internet has taught me two things: 1. People are the best. 2. People are the worst,” Rhodes tweeted on May 29.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/06/08/2809008/huge-twitter-following-not-always.html#storylink=cpy

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Diocesan officials expressed their gratitude for the decision.

“We are very pleased that Judge Houck remanded the case to state court,” said Jim Lewis, Canon to Bishop Lawrence. “The issues involved are essentially those of legal identity and are wholly determined by state law, so the most appropriate place to settle is clearly in state court, where we first took the matter.”

With the case remanded, it returns to the court of South Carolina Circuit Judge Dianne S. Goodstein.

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“The game was there for us to win,” said USC coach Chad Holbrook. “Sometimes you won’t have opportunities against (North Carolina). Today we had them. When you don’t execute and you don’t capitalize on the opportunities you have in this setting against a team like that, you’re not going to win. It came back to get us.”

The errors will sting the most, because USC’s bats were far from inefficient Saturday. The Tar Heels tied the game at two in the first inning when left fielder Graham Saiko dropped a routine fly ball that would have ended the inning, but instead allowed a run to score. In the third, North Carolina cut USC’s lead to 4-3 when Cody Stubbs doubled with two outs, and Moran scored from first because right fielder Connor Bright missed the cut-off man.

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Today, three to 25 volunteers from local churches show up to serve nearly 350 hot dogs most weekday evenings.

As more volunteers came, [Nathan] Mansell took time to talk with the people gathered, to learn their stories, to know them as more than masses at the ketchup line.

All signs warned him to stay away from [Mikell] Felder.

“Nobody wanted to talk to him because he was so mean to everybody,” Mansell recalls. “But for some reason, I felt called or led to help him.”

Mansell struck up some small talk and showed his concern.

“I’ve been an angry person. I would fight with you in a heartbeat,” Felder admits. “But he showed me love and cared about me.”

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The retirement savings of more than 80 non-clergy employees of the Diocese of South Carolina and its parishes are being held hostage by their former pension plan at the Episcopal Church (TEC).

The lay employees have been trying to arrange for the rollover of their retirement savings since February, when they first contacted the Church Pension Group, which provides retirement, health and other benefits to employees of The Episcopal Church, its parishes, dioceses and other institutions. The employees became eligible to rollover their funds into another qualified plan when their employer, the Diocese or the parishes that voted to disassociate from the denomination, officially ceased to be employed by any TEC organization or parish.

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[this U-shaped pod]… is part of MUSC’s emergency department.
There are no locks on doors. The lone bathroom is the only suicide-proof room.
There is no shower for patients here; nobody is supposed to stay long enough to need one. Yet increasingly, they do.
Psychiatric “boarders,” as they’re called, often dominate this pod intended for short-term, acutely ill patients. At times fully half of MUSC’s ER, among the region’s busiest, has been filled with psychiatric boarders.
These are folks at imminent risk of harming themselves or others and need emergency inpatient psychiatric treatment.
Yet there are not enough beds for them all.

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