The sound of a ringing iPhone makes Omar Delgado sweat and freeze in place. His heart pounds. He closes his eyes to fight back the ghastly images that no one should ever have to see.

He hears the marimba-like tone and he is back at Pulse nightclub on June 12 as a police officer pinned down in an hourslong standoff surrounded by dead bodies, their phones ringing again and again with calls that would never be answered.

“I literally felt like I was standing there at the club, my feet hurting, my arm hurting from holding my weapon,” Officer Delgado recalled, thinking of the times just after the slaughter when the phone rang and the panic came back.

Read it all.

(Archbishop’s Council chart on attendance, Church Times)

Statistics in Mission was not all bad news, however. The “worshipping community” in the C of E ”” any person attending church at least once a month ”” was around 1.1 million last year, it stated, including 91,000 joining worshippers. This figure was higher than the number of leaving worshippers: 63,000.

Of the adults who joined a church last year, 34 per cent were worshipping for the first time, compared to 16 per cent who had returned to church, and 15 per cent who had moved from another church nearby. Most of the children who joined (59 per cent) were also worshipping for the first time.

The main reason for adults leaving a church was death or illness (44 per cent), or moving away (30 per cent). This was compared to 13 per cent of leavers who had stopped worshipping altogether. However, the majority of children who left their church (35 per cent) did not continue worshipping elsewhere.

Read it all.

O God, we thank thee for the glorious company of the apostles, and especially on this day for Simon and Jude; and we pray thee that, as they were faithful and zealous in their mission, so we may with ardent devotion make known the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

28th October ~ Saint Simon the Zealot and Saint Jude Thaddeus
Apostles, Missionaries, Martyrs #PrayForUs pic.twitter.com/7taaTxSPaZ

— TrueHolyFace (@TrueHolyFace) October 28, 2016

Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us, that in thy light we may see light: the light of thy grace today, and the light of thy glory hereafter; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Lancelot Andrewes

One of the multitude said to him, “Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?” And he said to them, “Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ”˜What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ”˜I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ”˜Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, nor about your body, what you shall put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O men of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things shall be yours as well.

–Luke 12:13-31

It’s the film Her come true. Lonely men are developing feelings for ”” and talking dirty to ”” their virtual assistants.

Confronted with smart female-voiced chatbots such as Apple’s Siri, many men are resorting to breathless demands and four-letter words ”” mimicking the inappropriate behaviour of previous generations of businessmen to their real-life secretaries.

Ilya Eckstein, chief executive of Robin Labs, whose virtual assistant, Robin, was designed to give traffic advice and directions to drivers and truckers, told The Times that a good proportion of his customers’ interactions with the technology were “clearly sexually explicit”.

He said: “This happens because people are lonely and bored. It’s mostly teenagers and truckers who don’t have girlfriends. They really need an outlet ”” to be meeting people and having sex, but I’m not judging.

Read it all (subscription required) and there is also a Telegraph article there.

A boxing club, a beehive and a drop-in centre for destitute asylum seekers are among projects that have benefitted thanks to income generated by solar panels on a church roof. Rev John Hughes of St John’s, Old Trafford, in Manchester, explains how a community energy project based at his church has served the whole community.

Listen to it all from stories worth sharing (about 12 1/3 minutes).

In the document itself there is a participation summary:

ï‚· On average, 961,000 people (85% adults, 15% children under 16) attended Church of England services and acts of worship each week in October
2015. A further 165,000 people attended services for schools in Church of England churches each week.
ï‚· Usual Sunday attendance at Church of England churches in 2015 was 752,000 people (86% adults, 14% children under 16).
ï‚· The worshipping community of Church of England churches in 2015 was 1.1 million people, of whom 20% were aged under 18, 50% were aged 18-69,
and 30% were aged 70 or over.
ï‚· 1.3 million people attended Church of England churches at Easter 2015 (of whom 71% received communion).
ï‚· 2.5 million people attended Church of England churches at Christmas 2015 (of whom 35% received communion). During Advent, 2.3 million people
attended special services for the congregation and local community, and 2.7 million people attended special services for civic organisations and
schools.
ï‚· There were 124,000 Church of England baptisms and services of thanksgiving for the gift of a child during 2015.
ï‚· There were 47,000 Church of England marriages and services of prayer and dedication after civil marriages during 2015.
ï‚· There were 84,000 funerals in Church of England churches, and a further 65,000 funerals at crematoria/cemeteries during 2015.

Trends in participation

ï‚· Over recent decades, attendance at Church of England church services has gradually fallen. These trends continued in 2015. Most key measures of
attendance have fallen by between 10% and 15% over the past 10 years.
ï‚· Although the overall pattern is one of gradual decline, this masks the differences in experience in individual parishes over the past 10 years. In 53% of
parishes there has been no statistically significant change in attendance. In 10% of parishes attendance has increased. In 37% of parishes attendance
has decreased.

Read it all (52 page pdf).

10. Because it’s not just what you believe that matters, but why you believe it and how.

We are convinced that engaging in careful theological thought is an essential task of the Christian life. We can no more abandon theology than we can abandon God, since theology is involved in some fashion whenever we think or speak about God. Consequently, every person is a theologian. The only question is whether we will be thoughtful, responsible theologians or irresponsible ones. The journey of Christian discipleship is a matter of learning why we believe, and thinking hard and carefully about this belief, not so that we can bludgeon others with our knowledge but so that we can bear faithful witness to God in the totality of our life.

Theology is less about the what and much more about the how. We are called as Christians not to sign up to a certain doctrinal statement but to follow a certain way of life. To be a thoughtful believer is to be commissioned for a life of disciplined reflection in conversation with the prophets, apostles, and the theologians who have reflected on God in the past and whose legacy we have inherited. The goal is not simply to repeat the words that they used to proclaim the gospel in their time and place, but to think under their tutelage about what words we must use today.

Theology is inherently an act of prayer, insofar as we offer up our words and thoughts in service to God in the expectant hope””by the grace of the Holy Spirit””that they will build up the body of Christ. And this prayerful task of theology is never done. Like God’s mercies, it is new every morning.

Read it all.

(Diocesan photo from diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa)

The Bishop of Egypt, Dr Mouneer Anis, has called on Anglicans to pray and advocate with their local Egyptian consulates and embassies after a court ruling effectively subsumed the diocese into a separate denominational body. Dr Anis, who is also the Archbishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, told ACNS that the Evangelical Church Association (ECA) has been laying claim to the Anglican Episcopal Diocese of Egypt for several years. Now, after a 14-year legal battle, a court has ruled that the Anglican Church in Egypt belongs to the ECA and can only be represented by the ECA President.

“This preposterous claim did not just stop there,” Dr Anis said. “They further claimed that they can take possession of all of the Episcopal/Anglican Church properties as their own. They are now forcing us to take their approval before we notarise any document in the government. Moreover, we need to receive the approval of the ECA before we ask immigration to grant or renew visas to our workers. This is causing us a great deal of trouble.”

The diocese is appealing against the court’s decision and a new hearing will be held on Tuesday (1 November).

Read it all.

Ashers Baking is owned by the McArthur family. It offered to bake cakes iced with a graphic of the customer’s own design. Gareth Lee is gay; and to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, in May 2014 he ordered a cake from Ashers bearing the slogan “Support Gay Marriage” and a picture of the Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie. Ashers initially accepted his order but Mrs Karen McArthur subsequently telephoned him to say that his order could not be fulfilled because Ashers was a Christian business and that, with hindsight, she should not have taken the order in the first place. She apologised and refunded his money.

Before Belfast County Court, in Lee v Ashers Baking Co Ltd & Anor [2015] NICty 2 Mr Lee had claimed that he had been discriminated against contrary to the provisions of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 and/or the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998. District Judge Brownlie found for Mr Lee, concluding that Ashers Baking was liable under the 2006 Regulations for the unlawful acts of its two directors, Mr and Mrs McArthur, and that they, in turn, were liable under Regulation 24 for aiding Ashers Baking to act unlawfully. As a result of their actions, the company had discriminated unlawfully against Mr Lee. They appealed and the matter came before the Court of Appeal in Belfast by way of case stated.

Read it all.

By the end of the 20th century, however, the special role of adolescence in US culture began to fall apart. Global competition was making skills acquired in high school obsolete as higher levels of schooled certification became necessary in the workplace. The longtime educational advantage of the US and the competence of its students was challenged as other nations prospered and offered their children schooling that was often superior when measured by international scores. New immigrants, who began to arrive in the US in large numbers in the 1970s, were less well-integrated into high schools as schools re-segregated, leaving Latino immigrants, for example, in underperforming schools.

High schools, long a glory of US education and a product of democratic culture, had lost their central social role. Graduation, once the final step for most Americans on the road to work and steady relationships leading to marriage, no longer marked a significant end point on the way to maturity. It provided neither an effective transition to adulthood nor a valuable commodity for aspiring youth, and was an impediment to those who dropped out. Going to college became a necessary part of middle-class identity, and this complicated the completion of adolescence for everyone. Now that college was held up as essential to economic success, the failure to go to college portended an inadequate adulthood.

The extension of necessary schooling into the 20s (and sometimes even into the 30s) strongly attenuated the relationship between a stage of physical maturation (puberty) and the social experiences to which it had been attached in the concept of adolescence.

Read it all.

A bid to reduce the size of the House of Lords has been backed by the Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Rev David Urquhart.

Giving his support to Lord Elton’s Private Member’s Bill to reduce the size of the House of Lords, the bishop reiterated the ”˜consistent’ support from the Lords Spiritual in support of the reform.

He welcomed the fact that reform proposals had come from inside the House of Lords and noted that ”˜taking decisive responsibility for making delicate if radical constitutional improvements’ is a ”˜good way forward’ for the House.

Read it all.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has admitted he deserves to be criticised over his support for a bishop convicted of sexual assault, as it emerged separately that his son, a priest, has been arrested for historic child sex abuse.

The retired Anglican Archbishop has been warned he can expect to face “explicit criticism” over claims the criminal activities of Peter Ball, the then Bishop of Gloucester, were covered up by the Church of England.

Lord Carey, who was a friend of Ball’s, has now been given his own lawyer, paid for by the Church of England, to represent him personally at the national child sex abuse inquiry.

Read it all from the Telegraph.

The former Archbishop of Canter­bury Lord Carey has been granted core-participant status at the In­­dependent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) after Professor Alexis Jay, who chairs it, ruled that he “may be subject to explicit crit­­­­ic­­ism by the Inquiry in due course”.

Core participants are entitled to legal representation at the Inquiry and to receive advance disclosure of evidence. They may also cross-examine witnesses when the public hearings begin, something that is expected to happen next year.

In his application for core parti­cipant status, lawyers for Lord Carey explained that, as a retired office-holder, he was led to be believe that he would be represented at the In­­quiry by lawyers for the Arch­bishops’ Council, which also has core-participant status. “Once the Archbishops’ Council indicated to Lord Carey that there might be some conflict between their interests and those of Lord Carey, he made contact with alternative legal repres­entatives,” Professor Jay said.

Read it all.

She didn’t like scary things.

The 22-year-old was walking her dog Tuesday night at her North Charleston apartment complex when she saw the figure. It was clad in dark clothing, wearing a hood and standing about 50 feet away.

It turned. That’s when she saw the “evil clown” mask and the knife.

Read it all.

Glory be to God in the highest, the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, the preserver of all things, the Father of mercies, who so loved mankind as to send his only begotten Son into the world, to redeem us from sin and misery, and to obtain for us everlasting life. Accept, O gracious God, our praise and thanksgiving for thine infinite mercies towards us; and teach us to love thee more and to serve thee better; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High; and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

–Psalm 50:14-15

My jaw dropped.”

This was the instant reaction of a mother suffering from a terminal disease when she was told by her medical insurance company that they could not pay for her chemotherapy but would be willing to shoulder the cost of drugs that would put her to death. The drugs’ price: $1.20.

Four years ago, 33-year-old California resident Stephanie Packer was diagnosed with scleroderma, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes scar tissue to form in her lungs, the New York Post reported.

Read it all from Christian Today.

In order that every appearance of pantheism, naturalism or nihilism be avoided, it is not permitted to scatter the ashes of the faithful departed in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry or other objects. These courses of action cannot be legitimized by an appeal to the sanitary, social, or economic motives that may have occasioned the choice of cremation.

When the deceased notoriously has requested cremation and the scattering of their ashes for reasons contrary to the Christian faith, a Christian funeral must be denied to that person according to the norms of the law.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Peter Skellern, 69, had first dreamt of ordination as a nine-year-old but a successful career as a musician meant he never quite had time to investigate his childhood calling further.

That all changed two and a half years ago when finally Peter, who lives in Lanteglos-by-Fowey, was put forward for ordination training. But his path was far from smooth. It was during this time that Peter was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.

It was then that Bishop Tim suggested Peter continue on his ordination journey. Peter said: “It is very unusual for someone to be ordained as a deacon and a priest at the same time. I was amazed Bishop Tim suggested it. It was just staggering for me. On the day I just felt wonderful.”

Read it all.

What can you do if you agree with this paper? The main argument has been:

that all sexual practice outside heterosexual marriage was reckoned as sinful in the eyes of Jesus and his apostles;
that homosexual practice was a part of this and that same-sex marriage, far from providing a legitimate context for this practice, would have been seen as a parody of God’s intention for marriage;
that such issues of sexual immorality were not a second-order issue for the apostles, but were consistently denounced by them, and certainly would never have been embraced by them in their quest for Christian unity;
that the role of a bishop was developed in the early Church precisely to safe-guard these apostolic norms pertaining to both doctrine and ethics and that bishops are therefore to be seen as ”˜apostolic guardians’….

Read it all.

A sister with the Servants of Mary, Socorro has spent many of her nights and dark, early mornings in the homes of the dying. Each night, a volunteer picks her up around 7 p.m. and drives her to her destination: a tiny stucco house just a few miles from the South Los Angeles convent.

The congregation was founded in Spain in 1851. As nurses, they worked during cholera epidemics and wars, and later in Mexico during revolutions. Now, more than 2,000 sisters work in 128 convents throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.

The sisters prefer to minister in patients’ homes, but also work in hospices, orphanages and hospitals. And when needed, they take care of their own.

Read it all.

The communique reads apart, ” The Synod also observes the epileptic supply of electricity in our country as a whole. Synod then urges government and stakeholders of the sector to make sure that light is restored without delay.

“Synod also observed the lopsided approach of government to security leaves much to be desired. Appointment into government service is one sided and religious biased. Fulani’s destruction of people is unchecked. Synod frowns at all these developments and directs that government should balance the various appointment in accordance with the geopolitical zone and equally among all religions.

Read it all.

The AFL has been urged to rethink its decision to schedule a match on Good Friday in 2017.
Anglican Bishop Philip Huggins, a passionate Geelong supporter, said the AFL had succumbed to market forces that treated holy days as just another opportunity to make a profit.
“We’ve always been kicking against the wind but the AFL has been one entity that has exercised restraint,” Bishop Huggins said on Wednesday.

Read it all.

An Anglican bishop in Wales has designed the Royal Mint’s first official UK Christmas coin.

Bishop of St Asaph Gregory Cameron, besides being a keen artist and coin collector, is also one of the Anglican Communion’s leading experts on Eastern Christianity.

The Christmas coin depicts the three Magi, or wise men from the East, bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Cameron is already renowned worldwide in the esoteric field of numismatics, or the study and collection of coins.

Read it all.

Read it all and make sure not to miss that picture.

O Sovereign Lord, who didst bring thy servant Alfred to a troubled throne that he might establish peace in a ravaged land and revive learning and the arts among the people: Awake in us also, we beseech thee, a keen desire to increase our understanding while we are in this world, and an eager longing to reach that endless life where all will be made clear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Alfred the Great, who died on 26 October 899, and his thoughts on wisdom, translation and the love of learning: https://t.co/VyRDMii1VJ pic.twitter.com/zOWWsxci71

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) October 26, 2016