One of the last of a clutch of deans to be nominated directly by the Crown Appointments’ Office in Downing Street (before Gordon Brown’s reforms rendered such positions subject to a dogmatic “human resources” process), Jukes’s preferment to Ripon was widely hailed as an inspired choice. For he had established a reputation as a troubleshooter during a ministry in Cannock and Selby, and the situation he inherited at Ripon was in need of urgent attention.

His predecessor, the Very Rev John Methuen, had resigned in 2005 rather than face 21 charges of “conduct unbecoming in the office of a clerk in holy orders”. The Cathedral community was divided and the finances and fabric were in a parlous state, running up annual deficits in the region of £300,000.

For some years, the Chapter had remained solvent only by selling properties and when Jukes, prior to taking up the post, asked to inspect the deanery, he was told that it was uninhabitable with the exception of a well-appointed wine cellar. He and his family therefore took up temporary accommodation in what was little more than a cottage with no office and little or no administrative support….

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So, why do we have In the Living Room? Why should artists get their own joint in the body of the church? I asked myself these questions, too. Was this some sort of team-building, Kumbayah camp exercise?

For some, it was a time to heal and be built up. To contemplate the God-endued honor in what some people in their past labeled “frivolous”. To be with others whose day job is one thing while their mind- and heart-life is occupied elsewhere. To be challenged by the fact that God can be in the process of our work, when the work itself doesn’t have a hard outline.

We discussed the notion of liminality, the “here, but not yet” place that Christians can live in. (e.g. Our marriages are a “here, but not yet” version of our status as Bride of Christ.) For people in the creative arts, we walk into this shifting place in our work lives, too, and it can be unnerving. There is no such thing as “finished” in art. But we’re all working toward some imagined plateau before the next climb. The target is wavering and the fruit of our labor is not always in measure with the amount we have sown.

For me, this was the benefit of In the Living Room: to communicate and have communicated to me the blessedness of our “at work” state.

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The number of over-sixties divorcing their partners has hit a 40-year high as men seek a new life of adventure after years of marriage, according to figures published yesterday.

“Silver splitter” divorces are continuing to rise at a time when the overall number of marriage failures is in decline. Unlike other age groups where women are more likely to file for divorce, among the over-sixties men are as likely as women to want to end a marriage.

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It was a Saturday morning and the Rev. Jaman Iseminger had just dropped by to help some volunteers as they cleaned up the cemetery next door to the Bethel Community Church in Southport, south of Indianapolis.

Then a homeless woman entered the church and confronted him. She pulled a gun and killed the 29-year-old pastor, leaving behind a wife and a 2-year-old daughter.

“There are all kinds of tragic details … but here’s what’s really haunting about that case,” said Jimmy Meeks, a Hurst, Texas, patrolman who is also a licensed Southern Baptist preacher. “When they looked on his desk they discovered that his sermon that Sunday was going to be about the rising number of pastors around the world who were dying for their faith. There’s no way he could have known that he was next in line.”

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Every human being enjoys a basic right to be respected, not because of any title, position, prestige, or accomplishment but first of all because we are created in the image and likeness of God. From an ethical and moral perspective we embrace the exhortation of St. Paul “to anticipate one another in showing honor” (Rom 12:10). Today’s competitive culture challenges us to strive for victory and advantage, but for St. Paul the challenge is to build each other up and honor one another’s innate dignity.

Labor Day is an opportunity to take stock of the ways workers are honored and respected. Earlier this year, Pope Francis pointed out, “Work is fundamental to the dignity of a person. . . . It gives one the ability to maintain oneself, one’s family, to contribute to the growth of one’s own nation.” Unfortunately, millions of workers today are denied this honor and respect as a result of unemployment, underemployment, unjust wages, wage theft, abuse, and exploitation.

Even with new indicators of some modest progress in recovery, the economy still has not improved the standard of living for many people, especially for the poor and the working poor, many of whom are unemployed or underemployed.

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Archbishop Justin has spoken of the “joyful” work of building Christian-Muslim relationships in his first annual message to Muslims on Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.

He encouraged the “hard” but also “joyful” work of building “deep and long-lasting relationships” between the two faith communities, which he said he had experienced during his time working in Nigeria.
– See more at: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5117/archbishop-on-eid-al-fitr-let-us-build-deep-and-lasting-ties-with-each-other#sthash.NfFu4T7M.dpuf

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Public relations agencies now incorporate blogs into their overall marketing plans for clients; networks of bloggers help identify the most appropriate ones to recruit for those marketing efforts; and then bloggers, aware of the value they bring to the deal, consider how they want to be rewarded.

Five years ago, paying a blogger wasn’t something that came up often, said Caroline Friedman, senior associate at Burson-Marsteller. Now, she said, many more are responding to promotional inquiries with explanations of the rates that they charge for their time and access to their reader base.

“It’s a very noticeable shift every few months,” said Ms. Friedman, who works on various programs involving bloggers, including an ongoing project with Hormel Foods.

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Former U.S. Senator Harry Byrd, Jr. was buried on Saturday in Winchester Virginia after a brief funeral at Christ Episcopal Church, with which the Byrd dynasty was long associated. Presiding at the funeral was his former colleague retired U.S. Senator John Danforth, an ordained Episcopal clergyman who also presided at President Reagan’s funeral….

At the funeral at Christ Episcopal, Danforth, who said Byrd invited him to conduct his funeral several years ago, hailed Byrd for his “cheerfulness and civility.” The old Episcopal elite is largely fading from the scene, as that denomination becomes marginal, and its historic ethos, once rooted in Virginia’s socially stratified agrarian Tidewater, is mostly forgotten in the modern world of suburbs and megachurches.

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Issues arising from the Episcopal schism in eastern South Carolina are going back before a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck holds a hearing in Charleston on Thursday on a motion filed by a churches remaining with the national church. It asks that only those churches be allowed to use the name and symbols of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

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So let’s talk reality. Today’s young adults go through their own glory days with crushing student loan debt and a severe recession that continues to affect those entering the job market for the first time. Those from every generation can affirm we are living in a time of unprecedented technological and social change, but millennials are doing so in the midst of the formative years when they build their adult lives. While some boomers unfortunately find themselves forced onto the employment exit ramp, millennials trying to launch their career may discover that no clear “on ramp” into the workforce exists at all for them, save for the merry-go-round of low-paying, part-time jobs (or worse, internships!).

I have watched my own 20-something children and some of my young adult friends struggle to find the kinds of mobile, sustainable careers we boomers have had. Some young workers don’t crave those kinds of jobs, choosing instead to make a living through nontraditional outlets that rely on creativity, connectivity, and entrepreneurship.

Either way, we can’t regard the employment issues of millennials as character issues. Many of my peers have tried. When they complain about the slacker, selfie-selfish ways of an entire generation of young adults, there is an implication that boomers have been blessed (if you measure blessing in terms of material possessions) because we did something right.

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Almighty God, whose servant Dominic grew in knowledge of thy truth and formed an order of preachers to proclaim the good news of Christ: Give to all thy people a hunger for your Word and an urgent longing to share the Gospel, that the whole world may come to know thee as thou art revealed in thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

O God, renew our spirits by thy Holy Spirit, and draw our hearts this morning unto thyself, that our work may not be a burden, but a delight; and give us such a mighty love to thee as may sweeten all our obedience. Let us not serve with the spirit of bondage as slaves, but with cheerfulness and gladness, as children, delighting ourselves in thee and rejoicing in thy wishes for the sake of Jesus Christ.

–The Pastor’s Prayerbook

And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks; and fear fell upon them all; and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Many also of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all; and they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew and prevailed mightily.

–Acts 19:11-20

Dr Davies will be installed as Sydney’s 12th Anglican Archbishop in St Andrew’s Cathedral on 23 August. Archbishop Aspinall will attend the service.

“I’ve known Glenn for many years,” Archbishop Aspinall said. “I am sure I join the leaders of Australia’s other Anglican dioceses in welcoming Glenn, in praying for his leadership and in offering any practical help we can as he assumes these new responsibilities.

“Glenn is a well known and regarded contributor to the life of the national Church, having served on both the General Synod Standing Committee and the national Doctrine Commission for many years. He has demonstrated a commitment to listen, discuss and reflect upon issues that are sometimes painful and difficult, and to do so in a conciliatory way while holding on to his personal convictions. I see that as a hopeful sign for the future.

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[Sam Sturgeon, president of Demographic Intelligence, said:] “Partly because religious communities provide a family-friendly context to the women who attend them, religious women are more likely to have children and to bear a comparatively high share of the nation’s children, compared to their less religious or secular peers.”

Is anyone surprised? And yet, even as this report reveals that religious factors are in play in reproductive decisions, the influence of religion is explained only in terms of the fact that “religious communities provide a family-friendly context to the women who attend them.”

Missing from this analysis is the factor of religious belief. There appears to be little recognition of the fact that what we believe about sex, marriage, and children has a great deal to do with the decisions that individuals and couples make.

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Fans of a beloved contemporary Christian hymn won’t get any satisfaction in a new church hymnal.

The committee putting together a new hymnal for the Presbyterian Church (USA) dropped the popular hymn “In Christ Alone” because the song’s authors refused to change a phrase about the wrath of God.

The original lyrics say that “on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.” The Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song wanted to substitute the words, “the love of God was magnified.”

The song’s authors, Stuart Townend and Nashville resident Keith Getty, objected. So the committee voted to drop the song.

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The Rt. Rev. Paul Lambert has been named chaplain of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. Bishop Lambert was introduced June 20 during the brotherhood’s National Council meeting in Irving, Texas. He succeeds Bishop Keith Whitmore of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.

“We’re honored Bishop Lambert will be our spiritual leader,” Brotherhood President said Robert Dennis, the brotherhood’s president. The Brotherhood of St. Andrew has more than 4,000 members in 390 Episcopal and Anglican churches in the United States and thousands more worldwide. “I’m looking forward to working with him to further the Brotherhood’s goal of bringing men and youth to Jesus Christ.”

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