No matter how much we confess our failures, are forgiven for our failures, and exchange our failures for Christ’s righteousness, as long as we are in this world we are going to fail. Again and again and again. This keeps us humble, keeps us dependent, and keeps us looking to Christ. But, above all, it keeps us looking toward heaven, the place where failures will never be known again. Will we remember our failures there? Yes, but not with any pain, only as covered by Christ’s pardon, and only to turn up the volume of our praise:

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (Rev. 1:5–6)

We will also see our failures from a whole new perspective, not just our moral and spiritual failures but also our relational and vocational disappointments. We will see God’s wise providence in allowing that relationship breakup, that interview disaster, that lost job, that failed exam. When God reframes our failures by putting the golden frame of His wise sovereignty all around them, they are transformed from ugly abstract randomness to beautifully crafted designs.

Will we experience any failures there? No, never. We will not fail, and neither will anyone else. The tears of disappointment will be part of the deluge wiped out of our eyes (Rev. 21:4). Heaven will be one great and long success story: moral success, spiritual success, intellectual success, physical success, relational success, vocational success, ecclesiastical success.

So, yes, our present failures should drive us to Christ, but they should also make us long for heaven, to hasten the day when the pain of failure and the torture of disappointment will be gone forever.

Read it all.

Four senior officials of the Anglican Diocese of Bo in Sierra Leone have been sentenced to three years imprisonment after having been convicted of stealing over 2 Billion Leones (approximately $275,000) in donations gathered by Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) and the United Society (USPG) to support of victims of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The trial continues for the Bishop of Bo, the Rt. Rev. Emmanuel Tucker, who remains free on bail after posting a 500 million Leones bond.

An estimated 11,000 people died over 21 months beginning in 2014 from the virus in West Africa, leading to travel bans from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone from a number of Western nations, and a collapse in the local economy.

In February 2016 Bishop Tucker was lauded by the USPG’s Mike Brookes, who told a fringe meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod the bishop had helped combat the virus through health and sanitation education, and dispelling fears the virus was a curse.

Read it all.

I recently asked a trio of entrepreneurs what they wished they had known before they set out on the path to leadership.

Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, who now heads Thrive Global, which aims to end the “stress and burnout epidemic”, told me: “I wish I knew what I discovered the hard way in 2007 when I collapsed from exhaustion . . . That [it is a] delusion that in order to succeed we have to be always on.”

“I wish somebody would have told me how hard it is,” said Anna Skaya, chief executive of Basepaws, which is building a database of feline DNA.

“There are obstacles all the time. All the time,” added designer Diane von Furstenberg, who heads the eponymous fashion group. “Listen, I have a lot of energy . . . That doesn’t mean that I don’t wake up thinking like I’m a total loser, [even] now.”

It probably takes a successful entrepreneur-founder to admit such truths. Even in a world where there is increasing acknowledgment of the dangers of workplace stress, this kind of leadership lesson is only rarely taught in business schools, still less by leadership manuals of the “five ways to be awesome” variety.

Yet this understanding of the many hurdles facing any leader is embedded in the 3,000-year-old Judeo-Christian culture of teaching about how to lead, according to Steven Croft, the Anglican Bishop of Oxford….

Read it all.

Coventry Cathedral which is built next to the bombed ruins of the old site has scrapped its entrance fees due to “generous donations”.

Charges including £6 adult entrance fees were introduced in 2010 because donations were “simply not enough”.

The announcement was made at the diocese’s Centenary Festival earlier.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said the cathedral and the diocese were working together to “make sure the day-to-day costs are met”.

Read it all.

Good News applauds the Council’s decision to include a Traditionalist Plan in their report. “We are glad the bishops will submit an option that represents the mainstream majority of the church,” said the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of Good News. “This puts the Traditionalist Plan rightfully on an equal footing to be considered by the delegates to the special session along with the bishops’ preferred plan, the One Church Plan, which has been repeatedly rejected by the General Conference in the past. We believe the Traditionalist Plan holds the most hope for a fruitful future for The United Methodist Church.”

While the Council press release declared that a “majority of the Council of Bishops recommends the One Church Plan as the best way forward for The United Methodist Church,” it acknowledged “there is support for each of the three plans within the Council.” According to the release: “While the bishops recommended the One Church Plan they affirmed that the Connectional Conference Plan and the Traditionalist Plan held values that are important to the life and work of the church.”

The most disappointing news coming out of the meeting is that the full details of the plans and accompanying legislative proposals will be released “no later than July 8.”

Read it all.

The Rev’d Dr Emma Ineson, current Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, was appointed by the Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev’d James Newcome after consultation with a diocesan group.

She will be based in Kendal and will have particular responsibility for the county’s God for All strategy; that everyone in Cumbria – of all ages and backgrounds – has the opportunity to know more about God and God’s purpose in their lives that they may become followers of Jesus in a Christian community.

Emma said: “I am delighted to have been appointed as the Suffragan Bishop of Penrith. I have been so impressed by what I have seen of the creative and innovative approach to building community and reaching every person across the Diocese with the love of Christ, exemplified by the recent ‘Moving Mountains’ mission.

“Jesus prayed that his disciples would be ‘one’ and as the first ecumenical Diocese, Carlisle is truly living out what that means in practice. The ‘God for All’ strategy aims to see every person in Cumbria discovering more of God and becoming followers of Jesus in Christian communities.

Read it all.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Trinity principal @e_ineson as Bishop of Penrith in the Diocese of Carlisle. Emma’s service of consecration will be in York Minster in February 2019. You can read more here: https://t.co/QiFRsA783c. pic.twitter.com/VM7A9qneV3

— Trinity College (@trinity_bristol) May 9, 2018

Read it all; there is also a Christian Today article there and a Stuff article here. The Christian Today article includes this section:

In a statement the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans New Zealand said: ‘While we are thankful for the gracious spirit in which the debate was held, we disagree with the final outcome. We believe the General Synod has acted in a way which leaves behind biblical authority, the apostolic tradition, and the doctrine and practice our church has always held.’

It added that it was ready to welcome other conservatives who opposed the decision.

‘FCANZ believes that God loves all people, from all walks of life, calling each of us to repent and have faith in Jesus Christ. Sometimes speaking of this love involves saying difficult things that run counter to the culture of today. However we remain convinced that it is good for all humanity and the only place for the church to stand.’

But Very Rev Ian Render, who is dean of Waiapu Cathedral and also gay and married, said in the debate: ‘I’m standing to remind you of all the people we have lost along the way. The people who were candidates for ordination – but who were turned down because of their relationships, or their declared sexuality.

‘The people who have been left in limbo, for year, after year, after year….

From here:

Now, if they who hold such views have authority to meet, your wisdom approved in Christ must see that, inasmuch as we do not approve their views, any permission of assembly granted to them is nothing less than a declaration that their view is thought more true than ours. For if they are permitted to teach their view as godly men, and with all confidence to preach their doctrine, it is manifest that the doctrine of the Church has been condemned, as though the truth were on their side. For nature does not admit of two contrary doctrines on the same subject being both true. How[,] then, could your noble and lofty mind submit to suspend your usual courage in regard to the correction of so great an evil? But even though there is no precedent for such a course, let your inimitable perfection in virtue stand up at a crisis like the present, and teach our most pious emperor that no gain will come from his zeal for the Church on other points if he allows such an evil to gain strength from freedom of speech for the subversion of sound faith.

Yesterday I was buried with him;
today I am waking with him from the sleep of death."
St. #Gregory of #Nazianzus (389 A.D.) pic.twitter.com/UtrK5ehFUj

— Shane Tucker (@dreamingbig) May 1, 2017

Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

Today is the feast of Gregory of Nazianzus. Of Christ's full humanity, he said "that which He has not assumed He has not healed." pic.twitter.com/4hoRHzCPIE

— Thomas McKenzie (@thomasmckenzie) May 9, 2017

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.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

–Ephesians 1:3-10

The problem – the legacy of this Decade, in effect – can be simply expressed. The Church of England – or at least its hierarchy – is stuck in broadcast mode. Like the proverbial Englishman abroad, they cannot make themselves understood in a world that increasingly finds the Church incomprehensible, especially in spheres such as sexuality, gender, equality, safeguarding, the
exercise of power, the holding of authority and being open to accountability. But does the Church perceive this? No. It just talks louder, hoping, somehow, it will be heard. It won’t.

In all this, the Church only seeks to make itself more appealing, and attractive to those who might join. Yet it rarely asks the same public why they don’t join. It is like a business doing even more hard selling, with increasing desperation, but unwilling to ask the consumers why they aren’t buying. What is strange about this situation is that the drivers of the agenda are deeply concerned about mission and evangelism. So, they act out of the best of intentions.

But the problem is that the underlying theology of mission and of the Holy Spirit – missiology and pneumatology – is deeply deficient. Expressive evangelistic campaigns tend to achieve very little. Even the Evangelical Alliance admitted in 1994 that the main achievement of the Decade was to establish ‘new levels of co-operation between the Churches’. Hardly a great result but, as other writers in the field of missiology had known for years, what was compelling and credible was an authentic and humble Church. One that listened deeply and lived its faith, faithfully and unassumingly, ratherthan brashly promoting its brand.

Read it all.

Christians all around the world create the body of the Church. Each has a different role and can build and challenge each other to further expand God’s kingdom. In a recent panel discussion hosted by Sojourners, speakers considered what American Christianity can learn from the global Church.

Panelists included Pastor Hana Kim, lead pastor of Myungsung Presbyterian Church in Seoul, South Korea, a megachurch with over 100,000 attendees, Jim Wallis, liberal activist and president of Sojourners, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, author of Future Faith: Ten Challenges Reshaping Christianity in the 21st Century, Casely Essamuah, Secretary of the Global Christian Forum, and Adelle Banks, a national correspondent at Religion News Service.

Most interestingly, Kim shared that “we don’t really think that we can teach the western church about anything. If you can learn from us that would be great, but I’m not here to teach anything. We’re just doing our job.”

“Lots of times we do wrong,” Kim shared. “One of the things that we do well is to bring people to church.” Kim explained the success to this phenomena is that “for people at MyungSung, going to church is not just a Sunday thing. But it’s a daily life.”

Read it all.

You can listen directly here and download the mp3 there.

Kendall Harmon’s recent Sunday Sermon–Good News for a Confused and Concerned Church (1 John 5:1-6) https://t.co/YSSsPuiVqn #anglican #theology #bible #sermons pic.twitter.com/gTSiuho6zc

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 8, 2018

[The US Supreme Court 1965] Griswold [decision] was based on a negative right to privacy. But since then it has broadened to include new positive rights—such as the requirement of businesses to pay for abortifacients in their health-insurance plans and to use artistic talents to serve the “weddings” of same-sex couples.

Some sexual-rights advocates, such as bioethicist Jacob Appel, are now claiming a right even more expansive than the right to privacy: that “sexual pleasure is a fundamental right.” Based on this view, they argue for the inclusion of numerous new negative sexual rights, such as that women and girls have a right to sell their bodies for money.

Yet if sexual pleasure is fundamental, what happens to those who are unable to acquire it because of a lack of money or mate? We don’t deny people food or water because they can’t afford it, so why would deny them the “fundamental right” of sex?

The logic of sexual rights will compel, as Hanson noted, that sex may need to be redistributed using the power of the state. Hanson may be the “creepiest economist in America,” but he’s also able to follow the presuppositions of the sexual-rights advocates to their logical conclusion.

Read it all.

The Right Rev. Sean Rowe, bishop of the Erie-based Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, will end his duties as provisional bishop in Bethlehem when its newly elected bishop is consecrated Sept. 15. Rowe became bishop in Erie in 2007 and took on the temporary Bethlehem job in 2014 after the bishop there retired. In 2019, he could resume the job of provisional bishop, this time in Western New York following the retirement of Bishop William Franklin.

Standing Committees, which are groups of clergy and laypeople who advise a bishop, met Monday in Erie and suburban Buffalo to approve the arrangement in which the dioceses would share Rowe for five years. They also would share ministry and support staffs and collaborate on ministry initiatives. In 2024, the dioceses would decide whether to continue and deepen the arrangement, according to a statement.

The plan still needs to be approved by the annual convention, a meeting of clergy and laypeople, of each diocese. The two conventions will meet jointly in Niagara Falls and vote Oct. 26.

Read it all.

In the ponderous Blue Book of materials for the Episcopal General Convention in July, the Task Force on the Study of Marriage proposes a Resolution (A085) to revise, for trial use of course, the Prayer Book itself by:

• defining marriage as a “covenant between a man and a woman two people’
• amending the Proper Prefaces on Marriage to read: “Because in the love of wife and husband two people in faithful love…
• amending the Catechism to say: “Holy Matrimony is Christian marriage, in which two people the woman and man enter into a life-long union” and adding an additional section defining the procreative purpose in terms of “the gift and heritage of children…”

They make clear, in addition, that passing these “trial use” changes may count as a “first reading” for a permanent revision of the Prayer Book by 2021.

Not content with rewriting the marriage rite, the Task Force proposes a Resolution (Ao86) to authorize a rite of “Blessing of a Lifelong Relationship,” warning gravely that these rites “shall not be used for mere convenience.” So now a couple can forgo marriage altogether and be blessed. Presumably this new service is catering for the ever-popular cohabiting community.

So under the rubric of “trial use” the Episcopal Church is proposing a wholesale redefinition of Christian marriage.

Read it all.

Despite a number of very clear motions at the 2017 General Synod, debate still rages. davidould.net has learned from a number of sources that at their recent annual meeting in March the bishops of Australia made a private agreement on how to proceed on the matter but have embargoed any publication of the details. davidould.net understands this was the only way that the more liberal members of the house could be persuaded to sign up to the fairly conservative agreement.

Thus the appointment of Treloar raises a particular dilemma for the national church:

Given the overwhelmingly conservative nature of the 2017 General Synod motions and the recent bishops’ agreement (albeit the exact details remain unknown), how can Treloar be consecrated as a bishop who promises to uphold, promote and defend church teaching when he is not only on the public record as being categorically opposed to it on a (perhaps the) key issue of contention but has even indicated that he may have already broken church law and teaching on the issue on multiple occasions?

How can Treloar himself make those promises in good conscience?

Read it all.

Lord God, who in thy compassion didst grant to the Lady Julian many revelations of thy nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek thee above all things, for in giving us thyself thou givest us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Julian of Norwich is commemorated on 8 May, the likely date on which she began to receive her visions in 1373.

'All that is done, it is well done, for our Lord God doth all… He is in the mid point of all things, and all He doth.' https://t.co/ycTLjaacFS pic.twitter.com/ChirMfpUk6

— Fintry Trust (@FintryTrust) May 8, 2018

O Saviour, who in the completeness of Thy manhood art still Babe of Bethlehem and Child of Nazareth, restore in me the simplicity I have tampered with, the transparency I have obscured, the childlikeness I have lost, that the shattered fragments of my innocence may be assembled anew in the beauty of Thy sanctity; who with the Father and the Holy Ghost art God forever and ever.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders which he has wrought.
He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children;
that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments….

–Psalm 78:2-7

Canada’s largest province has issued its first non-binary birth certificate, marking the culmination of a successful human rights claim against Ontario.

Joshua Ferguson had waited nearly a year after petitioning the provincial government for a new birth certificate in order change the document from male to non-binary, as Ferguson identifies as neither male nor female. Instead, the film-maker uses the pronoun “they”.

“It’s a victory for me. It’s a victory for the trans community,” Ferguson told reporters on Monday.

Born in Ontario but now residing in Vancouver, Ferguson had travelled to Toronto to apply for the new birth certificate, which they said would better reflect their identity. Ferguson’s successful application follows a push by the transgender activist Gemma Hickey, whose non-binary birth certificate in Newfoundland and Labrador last year marked a first for Canada.

Read it all.

You can find the full 41 page pdf here–read it carefully and read it all. Please do continue to note that you can follow all the documents as they become available there.

A growing group of Southern Baptist women called for Paige Patterson to be removed as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) on Sunday, due to what they claimed was his “unbiblical view of authority, womanhood, and sexuality.”

“We cannot defend or support Dr. Patterson’s past remarks,” stated an open letter to SWBTS trustees, which grew from 100 to more than 1,000 signatories on Sunday night. “No one should.

“The fact that he has not fully repudiated his earlier counsel or apologized for his inappropriate words indicates that he continues to maintain positions that are at odds with Southern Baptists and, more importantly, the Bible’s elevated view of womanhood,” states the letter. “The [SBC] cannot allow the biblical view of leadership to be misused in such a way.”

The letter comes from scores of Southern Baptist women, including leaders such as: Karen Swallow Prior, a Liberty University professor and research fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Convention; Lauren Chandler, an author, worship singer, and wife of The Village Church pastor Matt Chandler; Jennifer Lyell, a vice president at SBC-affiliated B&H Publishing Group; Amanda Jones, a Houston church planter and daughter of Bible teacher Beth Moore; and Mary DeMuth, an author, speaker, and victims’ advocate.

Read it all and there is more related material here.

Quirks such as the £1 note are a reminder that life on the quaint British dependency of Guernsey is like it is on the mainland — but not in every way. The law governing how islanders die could soon make the difference starker.

In 10 days’ time, Guernsey will vote on whether to become the first place in the British Isles to legalise assisted dying, reigniting a national debate and raising fears of Swiss-style “death clinics” in the Channel.

The bill needs the support of 21 local politicians to pass: a simple majority of the 40 who sit in the island’s parliament. None belongs to any party or bloc, so the outcome is hard to predict.

Those who have drafted the law say it is strictly designed for terminally ill residents — but opponents believe the island, used by global elites as a tax haven, could become a magnet for death tourism.

Read it all.

The wonderful thing about this litigation is how it brings different faith communities together in their desire to protect their cherished tax benefit. Not yet available is the brief from the following amici – Christian Legal Society, Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, National Association of Evangelicals, Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, Council of Churches of New York City,  and Queens Federation of Churches.   Last time around there was a brief that included The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Commission (Southern Baptists, the second largest denomination in the United States probably have the most skin in this game) and   The International Society for Krishna Consciousness and The Islamic Center of Boca Raton.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Sherri Pomeroy’s hair hung around her face. She took a deep, shaking breath and began to speak.

“Lu White. Robert Marshall. Karen Marshall. Annabelle. Bob Corrigan. Shani Corrigan. Peggy Warden. Dennis Johnson. Sara Johnson. Keith Braden. Joann Ward, with Emily and Brooke. Haley Krueger. Therese and Richard Rodriguez. Karla and Bryan Holcombe. Tara McNulty. Danny Holcombe, and Noah. Crystal Holcombe, with Greg and Emily and Megan. And Carlin Brite ‘Billy Bob’ Holcombe.”

Then 26 soft bell chimes.

And then silence.

Read it all.

(SA Express News) Six months later, #SutherlandSprings residents count their blessings https://t.co/j2FA9dn3wI #death #parishministry #healing #violence #texas #religion #usa

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 7, 2018

Please keep the family and loved ones of the Rev. Canon John Ball in your prayers. Canon Ball died on Thursday, April 26, at the Bishop Gadsden Retirement Community. Canon Ball was ordained in 1958 by Bishop Thomas N.Carruthers, and served at Christ Church, Denmark; St. Alban’s, Blackville; and Holy Apostles, Barnwell. He also served in the Diocese of Atlanta from 1961-1976 and the Diocese of West Texas from 1976-1979. He was a member of the diocesan councils of both the South Carolina and Atlanta dioceses.

A graduate of the University of the South, he served as a Sewanee trustee in the 1960s. He also served as interim dean of the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul in the 1980s. He retired in 1988, but went on to be appointed Canon Pastor of the Diocese, serving pastorally at hospitals and nursing homes. He retired again in 2008 and resided at Bishop Gadsden. He and his wife, the late Helen “Nell” Ingle Ball, were the parents of four daughters.

Read it all.

The Rev. Canon John Ball RIP https://t.co/fkjOaeRZe1 #anglican #ministry #charlestonsc #southcarolina #lowcountrylife pic.twitter.com/dESj3lXWl4

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 7, 2018

For those interested, you may find the audio, outline and handout for the class there.