[Mark] Bourlakas met with media outlets and friends of the Episcopal Church on Friday to discuss his goals as bishop. He previously served as dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Louisville, Ky.
“I think that we are going to have to get used to moving beyond that establishment place where we decide who’s included and try to ask where we might be included,” Bourlakas said. “I think it’s going to be millennials and the culture around us that’s going to decide whether we’re included or not.”
They sing from the United Church hymnbook, practise communion according to Anglican traditions, organize themselves according to Mennonite sensibilities and are served by a Presbyterian minister.
For half a century, the folks at Pinawa Christian Fellowship — PCF for short — have been happily multidenominational, and they have no plans to change their ecumenical ways.
“It works this way because we’ve done it for 50 years,” says retired scientist Roger Dutton, an Anglican member of PCF for 45 years.
Worship4Today – a course for worship leaders and musicians, successfully tried and tested in the Diocese of Sheffield over several years – is being rolled out nationally from this week.
Compiled by Helen Bent and Liz Tipple, Worship4Today: Part 1: Laying a Firm Foundation tackles the priorities identified in the Liturgical Commission’s Consultation of Evangelical Anglicans: a need for theological training for songwriters and worship leaders in local churches, and for musical training and effective formation in worship leading for ordinands. Trialed in 100 churches, it has already been the catalyst for new church services, a new congregation and two new children’s choirs, and provided an essential boost for many flagging choirs and music groups.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has described the naming and shaming of bankers in the wake of the financial crisis as “lynch mobbish”.
The Most Reverend Justin Welby admitted sympathy for former bankers when hearing evidence as a member of the Banking Standards Commission.
He admitted “thinking, ‘I’m not sure I would have been very different,’ rather than thinking how bad they were”.
[The] Reverend Dr Matt Tittle of the Auckland Unitarian Church in Ponsonby will officiate at the wedding of the couple that wins ZM’s Fabulous Gay Wedding competition.
The broadcaster had hoped to hold the event – on August 19, the day legislation allowing same sex marriage comes into force – at St Matthew-in-the-City parish in central Auckland.
But St Matthew’s vicar, [the] Reverend Glynn Cardy, said he was unable to oblige because Anglican officials will not solemnise gay weddings. The parish had offered to host a blessing after the legal ceremony was held elsewhere.
Pastor Rick Warren is scheduled to preach at Saddleback Church in Southern California next weekend, marking his return to the pulpit about three months after he lost his 27-year-old son.
Warren will preach at the Lake Forest campus at 4.30 pm PT on Saturday, with online streaming available on the church’s website.
According to a spokesperson, Pastor Warren will start a series of sermons titled, “How to Get Through What You’re Going Through.”
Climbing the income ladder occurs less often in the Southeast and industrial Midwest, the data shows, with the odds notably low in Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Raleigh, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus. By contrast, some of the highest rates occur in the Northeast, Great Plains and West, including in New York, Boston, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, Seattle and large swaths of California and Minnesota.
“Where you grow up matters,” said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the study’s authors. “There is tremendous variation across the U.S. in the extent to which kids can rise out of poverty.”
That variation does not stem simply from the fact that some areas have higher average incomes: upward mobility rates, Mr. Hendren added, often differ sharply in areas where average income is similar, like Atlanta and Seattle.
Breakfast with the Mickelsons isn’t like ours.
What we say during Sunday breakfast: “Pass the flapjacks, will ya?”
What Phil Mickelson says during Sunday breakfast: “I’m gonna go out and get a Claret Jug today.”
What his wife Amy is thinking as her husband says he’s going to win the Open Championship: He’s five back and it’s soooooo hard…..
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, its civilian and military workforce has grown by one-third, to about 33,000, according to the NSA. Its budget has roughly doubled, and the number of private companies it depends on has more than tripled, from 150 to close to 500, according to a 2010 Washington Post count.
The hiring, construction and contracting boom is symbolic of the hidden fact that in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the NSA became the single most important intelligence agency in finding al-Qaeda and other enemies overseas, according to current and former counterterrorism officials and experts. “We Track ’Em, You Whack ’Em” became a motto for one NSA unit, a former senior agency official said.
Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by thy grace we may be healed of all our infirmities and know thee in the power of his endless life; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever.
My God, my Father and Preserver, who of thy goodness hast watched over me during the past night, and brought me to this day, grant also that I may spend it wholly in the worship and service of thy most holy deity. Let me not think, or say, or do a single thing which tends not to thy service and submission to thy will, that thus all my actions may aim at thy glory and the salvation of my brethren, while they are taught by my example to serve thee. And as thou art giving light to this world for the purposes of external life by the rays of the sun, so enlighten my mind by the effulgence of thy Spirit, that he may guide me in the way of thy righteousness. To whatever purpose I apply my mind, may the end which I ever propose to myself be thy honour and service. May I expect all happiness from thy grace and goodness only. Let me not attempt any thing whatever that is not pleasing to thee.
Grant also, that while I labour for the maintenance of this life, and care for the things which pertain to food and raiment, I may raise my mind above them to the blessed and heavenly life which thou hast promised to thy children. Be pleased also, in manifesting thyself to me as the protector of my soul as well as my body, to strengthen and fortify me against all the assaults of the devil, and deliver me from all the dangers which continually beset us in this life. But seeing it is a small thing to have begun, unless I also persevere, I therefore entreat of thee, O Lord, not only to be my guide and director for this day, but to keep me under thy protection to the very end of life, that thus my whole course may be performed under thy superintendence. As I ought to make progress, do thou add daily more and more to the gifts of thy grace until I wholly adhere to thy Son Jesus Christ, whom we justly regard as the true Sun, shining constantly in our minds. In order to my obtaining of thee these great and manifold blessings, forget, and out of thy infinite mercy, forgive my offences, as thou hast promised that thou wilt do to those who call upon thee in sincerity.
(Ps. 143:8.)””Grant that I may hear thy voice in the morning since I have hoped in thee. Show me the way in which I should walk, since I have lifted up my soul unto thee. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord, I have fled unto thee. Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God. Let thy good Spirit conduct me to the land of uprightness.
–John Calvin (1509-1564)
And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown; when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word which is sown in them. And these in like manner are the ones sown upon rocky ground, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns; they are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things, enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown upon the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
–Mark 4:13-20
Forgive your father’s murderer? Unlikely, right? Probably impossible? Unless, like Rwandan peace activist and renowned musician Jean Paul Samputu, you want to save your own life from self-destruction, misery, and pain.
One of my favorite “Yes, Prime Minister” episodes is “The Bishop’s Gambit,” where Prime Minister Hacker has to select a new bishop for the diocese of Bury St. Edmunds, and wonders naively whether the ideal candidate should believe in God or not. From the script:
“The bench of bishops should have a proper balance between those who believe in God and those who don’t.”
“Bishops tend to live a long time, perhaps because the Almighty is not all that keen for them to join him….”
It seems that denominationalism has had its day. A 2009 Barna survey found that denominational commitments have gone squishy in mainline Protestant churches, and Evangelicals don’t fare much better than the rest. After a similar survey, Ron Sellers of what was then Ellison Research said that Protestants are as “loyal to their denominations as they are to their toothpaste.” Denominationalism may recover, but its diseases look terminal. This toothpaste isn’t ready to return to the tube.
Like most everything, this development has its pluses and minuses. Denominations were born of a catholic spirit. They enabled believers to maintain their distinctive beliefs without de-churching the rest of the Christian world. It would be tragic if the decline of denominations left the church less catholic. Plus, without thick denominational loyalties, Christians abandon their churches at the first shimmy of trouble. Once upon a time, Anglicans stuck it out because even an incompetent pastor and an ugly carpet were preferable to joining the Lutherans. Today Lutheranism is a live option. And the Barna survey found that low denominational loyalty often expressed a weak adherence to Christianity itself. Slightly less than half of the respondents were “absolutely” committed to Christianity, and most might be enticed to explore other religions.
As he prepares for his first overseas trip as pope, starting Monday, Francis has earned praise for his jovial manner, his evident love of people, his simple lifestyle, his commitment to the downtrodden and his determination to put a personal stamp on the papacy.
He routinely packs St. Peter’s Square for his weekly appearance. Hundreds of thousands of devotees, perhaps millions, are expected to turn out to see Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, during his trip to Brazil, the world’s most populous Roman Catholic nation.
But many of his toughest decisions are to come as he seeks to set the Roman Catholic Church on a new path and to shake up the scandal-plagued, faction-ridden Vatican. Building a reservoir of public support and improving the church’s image outside the Vatican should serve him well in that mission.
She graduated from all-female Bryn Mawr College in 1995, where she came out as gay and also as a woman called to the priesthood. After college, she graduated from Harvard Divinity School, married her girlfriend, became an Episcopal priest, changed her name ”” and changed her gender.
Today the Rev. Cameron Partridge, a religion scholar at Harvard Divinity School and Episcopal chaplain at Boston University, is living outside Boston with his wife and two young children in what looks, to those who don’t know them, like a typical heterosexual marriage.
We talk to Partridge about his transgender and spiritual journeys, his discomfort with simplistic views of male and female, and feeling at home in Anglicanism. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
Everyday Americans are not banging on the doors of Congress asking it to legalize online gambling. The country is already awash with casinos and state lotteries. Yet much of the gambling industry, a few gambling-dependent states like Nevada, and a handful of lawmakers seem eager to find any excuse to reverse a federal ban set down in 2006.
The latest example was a Senate hearing Wednesday. It was titled “The Expansion of Internet Gambling: Assessing Consumer Protection Concerns.” The hearing was cloaked to look at the alleged need for Washington to regulate Internet gambling ”“ even before it is legalized nationwide.
Lawmakers expressed concern over the few states that are moving to allow online wagers for only their residents. Such intrastate gambling was allowed by the Obama administration based on its 2011 re-interpretation of the 1961 Wire Act….
Tensions ran high at a north Charlotte church Sunday morning as members protested Pastor Andrew Rollinson’s leadership, saying he was fired nearly three months ago but refuses to leave.
“Rollinson must go!” about a dozen people chanted outside Morningstar Baptist Church at 5623 Phillips St. “When? Today!”
Rollinson said he has no intention of leaving the church. He said the members who fired him did not follow church bylaws, and therefore the decision is invalid. He did not say how the members violated the bylaws.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/07/21/4179928/members-of-charlotte-church-protest.htmlRead it all.
…when he discovered credible evidence that the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the Book of Mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, Mr. Mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.
Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of Mormons and those who study the church.
“I felt like I had an earthquake under my feet,” said Mr. Mattsson, now an emeritus area authority. “Everything I’d been taught, everything I’d been proud to preach about and witness about just crumbled under my feet. It was such a terrible psychological and nearly physical disturbance.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition scored a decisive victory in an election on Sunday — so big that there are suspicions he will lose interest in difficult economic reforms and pursue his nationalist agenda instead.
The victory in the vote for parliament’s upper house gives Abe a stronger mandate for his prescription for reviving the stagnant economy. Ironically perhaps, it could also give lawmakers in his own party, some of whom have little appetite for painful but vital reforms, more clout to resist change.
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.
When Gregory Morrison was 3, he laid his hands on the two-story home next door to his grandparents’ and prayed that his family could live there.
Over the next 10 years, the house filled up with five Morrison children, several exchange students and beloved pets who wore down a path between the two houses.
Gregory’s family walked into their house Saturday without their son and brother, who died July 12 from a rare immune disorder at age 13….[but while they were gone family members and friends from Gateway Family Church fixed up their house as a gesture of support].
Here are five versions, blog readers are challenged to share others they know or come up with their own additional suggestions–KSH.
How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?
Fourteen; one to change it and 13 to ask “what is change?”How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?
A whole Synod: one to change the bulb and the rest to debate it until the room spins.
How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?A whole congregation: One to call an electrician, the rest to talk about how much better candles used to be.How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb? Five: One to screw in the bulb and four to form a committee to preserve the old one.
How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb? The old one is quite good enough for us and there is no need to follow worldly trends and change it.
–The Diocese in Europe (of the Church of England)
The Bill of Rights ensures Christ Church Anglican members the freedom to worship.
Different documents dictate where the congregation can build its place of worship, though.
The Rev. Marc Robertson and his flock intend to build a new sanctuary on the corner of Drayton and 37th streets. Neighbors and other Thomas Square residents opposed to the church’s plans are arguing the mid-city rezoning ordinance prohibits the facility being built as proposed.
O Lord, who hast brought us through the darkness of night to the light of the morning, and who by thy Holy Spirit dost illumine the darkness of ignorance and sin: We beseech thee, of thy loving-kindness, to pour thy holy light into our souls; that we may ever be devoted to thee, by whose wisdom we were created, by whose mercy we were redeemed, and by whose providence we are governed; to the honour and glory of thy great name.
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen.
–Romans 11:33-36
In Racing Demon, David Hare’s 1990 play about the Church of England, Lionel, a troubled priest in search of answers, makes a heartfelt plea. “God. Where are you?” he asks as the curtain rises. “There are an awful lot of people in a very bad way. And they need something beside silence. Do you understand?”
Twenty years ago there was an impending drama in the church, linked to faith. Now there’s a full-blown crisis that reaches far beyond theology, and the church that tends to advertise a hotline to the almighty ”“ after all, God is an Englishman ”“ has a hard time making sense of His teaching in contemporary England. The General Synod of the Church of England met this month in York: once upon a time, it was all gas and gaiters, but now, when the delegates debate the issues of the moment ”“ women bishops and same-sex marriage ”“ they find themselves trapped in a hell of their own making.
Bay Ridge is geographically close to the hipster Brooklyn neighbourhoods of Park Slope and Williamsburg but could not be more culturally different. It is a world away from the financial district in Manhattan, the epicentre of the September 11 2001 attacks. But Brooklyn is also home to the largest group of people in the US who trace their lineage back to the Arab world, according to census data. And while the heightened sense of a threat from Islamic terrorism that existed post-attacks may have gone, it has given way to a persistent, low-level paranoia that pervades the everyday lives of the million-plus Muslim Arab Americans living here and throughout the country.
Islamophobia in the US is becoming entrenched, according to some Muslim leaders. “We’re living in one of the most hostile civic environments for the Muslim community,” says Faiza Ali, a community organiser at the Arab American Association in Bay Ridge. “And it’s gotten worse since 9/11.”
Hate-crime statistics collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed a sharp spike in violence against Muslims after the 2001 attacks, which levelled out until 2009, when it started ticking up again. There are always problems following events carried out by Muslims, such as the Boston Marathon bombings in March.
Read it all another link, if necessary is .).
Why should pastors bother with social media?
Meredith Gould: Very short answer: Since social media, in some form is here to stay, church leadership, including but not limited to pastors, need to learn why it’s so powerful for ministry. I wrote The Social Media Gospel to help them learn and understand “why to” embrace social media. Why, pray tell, would any person of faith and goodwill choose to ignore these powerful tools for ministry?
You make the point that the rapid change of social media is one thing that church folks find off-putting. How can churches that don’t like change embrace such change-addicted platforms?
Meredith:….We need to distinguish among types of change before we can talk about what church people are finding so off-putting. Are they really upset about rapidly-changing functionality or is their resistance to cultural and institutional change?