We are new Lutherans in a MSLutheran congregation. Although this church has communion every week, they alternate it between the first (traditional) and second (“alternative”) services. I gather this is pretty standard practice among Lutherans.
Anyway, last week I suggested to the Pastor that we have communion at the first service for Pentecost (it would have been at the second service). The Pastor looked at me sideways and said “Wear red and have communion both?!” I had suggested to the congregation that we wear red on Pentecost–and now I’m asking for more!
I was DELIGHTED this morning to see so MANY folks in red AND to see the communion vessels set up on the altar! It was a joyful service complete with part of the reading in German!
I figure NEXT year we should have a birthday cake at the coffee hour. And someone suggested having the Holy Spirit fly around and we all speak in tongues! These staid Lutherans are truly getting in the Spirit of the the Birthday of the Church!
On another note, St. Matthew’s Anglican Church is just across the River from us–we’re in Vancouver and they are in Portland. Who knows but by next year we may be with them!
I was at Christ Saint Paul’s Yonges Island, S.C. this morning where we had the wonderful experience of having the former Bishop of Pittsburgh, Alden Hathaway, visiting to do confirmation.
He taught Sunday School for the adults and I was delighted to hear a reference therein to Jonathan Edward’s Treatise on the Religious Affections and specifically to the Spirit’s work of humiliation.
In his sermon he went carefully through all of the manual acts and aspects of the confirmation rite and their significance.
The class members (some confirmands, some were received, some were reaffirming their faith) consisted of some 15 different adults; it was an encouraging morning.
Five years ago, today, a woman started attending worship with her mother. I had had a certain amount of involvement in their lives through two different crises several months before they came. The woman has faithfully come, attended Alpha, sat, knelt and stood, taken notes during sermons, and asked questions of many people around her for the past five years. Today she was baptized and (of course) received Holy Communion for the first time.
After the service, I asked how she was doing. She paused and said, “I feel great. Even though I never received Communion before I would always participate in praying the post-Communion prayer–and feel a little guilty because I hadn’t received, but I was still thanking God. Today I felt no guilt whatsoever!” And, beaming, she walked out into the sunshine.
Kendall–Spooky about Jonathan Edwards! We had three baptisms of confessing persons. I shared about my study of Jonathan Edwards with Prof. Gerald McDermott of Roanoke (Va.) College–a recognized expert on Edwards. The New England Congregationalists baptized infants as well as confessing believers and Edwards taught that regeneration must be thought of as beginning mysteriously (perhaps in earliest infancy before baptism) and continuing through our lifetimes. The idea helped me a great deal in using the baptismal liturgy of the BCP with its strong regeneration language.
At Trinity Anglican Church (Fellowship) in Erie, PA, we sang “The Comforter Has Come,” “Holy Ghost, with Light Divine,” and “Pentecostal Power” (All from [i] The Christian Life Hymnal [/i]). The sermon was based largely on the Acts 2 passage. With background on the tradition of the giving of the Law on Pentecost, the message talked about being filled with the Spirit, and how Spirit/breath/wind of God imagery reflects the “power from on high” for service. But we do not want to forget that we are to be filled with the “Holy” Spirit, and how this has sanctifying significance in the life of the believer.
After service, we talked about directions this new church can take to reach out to the community.
William Shontz
[url=http://theleca.org ]The Lake Erie Confessing Anglican[/url]
At St. Paul’s in Prosper, Texas; we had two baptisms. A twelve year old who knows the Gospel and stood as an adult and an 8 year old. The 8 year old has been coming to our church on the invitation of a parishioner, and he was begging to be baptized, begging. Got the parents’ approval, his grandma and our parishioner stood as godparents, and he was brought into the Body.
At Saint Mary Magdalene’s we received three adult converts (2 were former non denomination Protestants and one a former Catholic) into the Church through Holy Baptism and Chrismation. Later they received their first Holy Communion at the Pentecost liturgy. Afterward we had a wonderful celebratory meal. This evening we celebrated the Kneeling Vespers indicating the end of the pascal period and entry into normal time for the Church. (From Easter until Pentecost kneeling is prohibited along with full prostrations.)
This week is Trinity Week and there is no fasting on either Wednesday or Friday. 😀
We confirmed five young people, celebrated the Feast with a wonderful liturgy presided over by Bp. Keith Ackerman, and consecrated a memorial garden. The Bishop’s sermon on Pentecost Sunday as “coming home” for the Apostles and contemporary Christians evoked much praise and certainly spoke to those who were being confirmed. Afterward we gathered in the church hall for a tasty brunch and a big cake. And we had 81 people in church for Pentecost Sunday – when the average in the past has been closer to 55.
In my 17 years of ministry, this was one of the best Pentecost celebrations I’ve experienced.
Whitsunday, 1549 saw the dawning of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. With this anniversary in mind the Church of Our Saviour at Oatlands (Virginia) celebrated Holy Communion using the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. The hymns used all predated 1549 and there was a clerk chanting the assigned Offertory and “post Communion†sentences from Holy Scripture
In the pulpit was Fr. Andrew Sumani from Zomba Theological College in Malawi. Fr. Andrew spoke on the Spiritual Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Fr. Andrew leaves today to rejoin his family in Malawi after two years of graduate work at Nashotah House. We are grateful that through him our little parish is able to help the vibrant young men preparing for the arduous life of ministry in Malawi.
We are new Lutherans in a MSLutheran congregation. Although this church has communion every week, they alternate it between the first (traditional) and second (“alternative”) services. I gather this is pretty standard practice among Lutherans.
Anyway, last week I suggested to the Pastor that we have communion at the first service for Pentecost (it would have been at the second service). The Pastor looked at me sideways and said “Wear red and have communion both?!” I had suggested to the congregation that we wear red on Pentecost–and now I’m asking for more!
I was DELIGHTED this morning to see so MANY folks in red AND to see the communion vessels set up on the altar! It was a joyful service complete with part of the reading in German!
I figure NEXT year we should have a birthday cake at the coffee hour. And someone suggested having the Holy Spirit fly around and we all speak in tongues! These staid Lutherans are truly getting in the Spirit of the the Birthday of the Church!
On another note, St. Matthew’s Anglican Church is just across the River from us–we’re in Vancouver and they are in Portland. Who knows but by next year we may be with them!
I was at Christ Saint Paul’s Yonges Island, S.C. this morning where we had the wonderful experience of having the former Bishop of Pittsburgh, Alden Hathaway, visiting to do confirmation.
He taught Sunday School for the adults and I was delighted to hear a reference therein to Jonathan Edward’s Treatise on the Religious Affections and specifically to the Spirit’s work of humiliation.
In his sermon he went carefully through all of the manual acts and aspects of the confirmation rite and their significance.
The class members (some confirmands, some were received, some were reaffirming their faith) consisted of some 15 different adults; it was an encouraging morning.
Five years ago, today, a woman started attending worship with her mother. I had had a certain amount of involvement in their lives through two different crises several months before they came. The woman has faithfully come, attended Alpha, sat, knelt and stood, taken notes during sermons, and asked questions of many people around her for the past five years. Today she was baptized and (of course) received Holy Communion for the first time.
After the service, I asked how she was doing. She paused and said, “I feel great. Even though I never received Communion before I would always participate in praying the post-Communion prayer–and feel a little guilty because I hadn’t received, but I was still thanking God. Today I felt no guilt whatsoever!” And, beaming, she walked out into the sunshine.
Kendall–Spooky about Jonathan Edwards! We had three baptisms of confessing persons. I shared about my study of Jonathan Edwards with Prof. Gerald McDermott of Roanoke (Va.) College–a recognized expert on Edwards. The New England Congregationalists baptized infants as well as confessing believers and Edwards taught that regeneration must be thought of as beginning mysteriously (perhaps in earliest infancy before baptism) and continuing through our lifetimes. The idea helped me a great deal in using the baptismal liturgy of the BCP with its strong regeneration language.
Jim Workman
Easley, SC
At Trinity Anglican Church (Fellowship) in Erie, PA, we sang “The Comforter Has Come,” “Holy Ghost, with Light Divine,” and “Pentecostal Power” (All from [i] The Christian Life Hymnal [/i]). The sermon was based largely on the Acts 2 passage. With background on the tradition of the giving of the Law on Pentecost, the message talked about being filled with the Spirit, and how Spirit/breath/wind of God imagery reflects the “power from on high” for service. But we do not want to forget that we are to be filled with the “Holy” Spirit, and how this has sanctifying significance in the life of the believer.
After service, we talked about directions this new church can take to reach out to the community.
William Shontz
[url=http://theleca.org ]The Lake Erie Confessing Anglican[/url]
At St. Paul’s in Prosper, Texas; we had two baptisms. A twelve year old who knows the Gospel and stood as an adult and an 8 year old. The 8 year old has been coming to our church on the invitation of a parishioner, and he was begging to be baptized, begging. Got the parents’ approval, his grandma and our parishioner stood as godparents, and he was brought into the Body.
At Saint Mary Magdalene’s we received three adult converts (2 were former non denomination Protestants and one a former Catholic) into the Church through Holy Baptism and Chrismation. Later they received their first Holy Communion at the Pentecost liturgy. Afterward we had a wonderful celebratory meal. This evening we celebrated the Kneeling Vespers indicating the end of the pascal period and entry into normal time for the Church. (From Easter until Pentecost kneeling is prohibited along with full prostrations.)
This week is Trinity Week and there is no fasting on either Wednesday or Friday. 😀
We confirmed five young people, celebrated the Feast with a wonderful liturgy presided over by Bp. Keith Ackerman, and consecrated a memorial garden. The Bishop’s sermon on Pentecost Sunday as “coming home” for the Apostles and contemporary Christians evoked much praise and certainly spoke to those who were being confirmed. Afterward we gathered in the church hall for a tasty brunch and a big cake. And we had 81 people in church for Pentecost Sunday – when the average in the past has been closer to 55.
In my 17 years of ministry, this was one of the best Pentecost celebrations I’ve experienced.
Whitsunday, 1549 saw the dawning of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. With this anniversary in mind the Church of Our Saviour at Oatlands (Virginia) celebrated Holy Communion using the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. The hymns used all predated 1549 and there was a clerk chanting the assigned Offertory and “post Communion†sentences from Holy Scripture
In the pulpit was Fr. Andrew Sumani from Zomba Theological College in Malawi. Fr. Andrew spoke on the Spiritual Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Fr. Andrew leaves today to rejoin his family in Malawi after two years of graduate work at Nashotah House. We are grateful that through him our little parish is able to help the vibrant young men preparing for the arduous life of ministry in Malawi.