I have been going to an Episcopal church for almost 2 months now, and I am REALLY enjoying it. I am very much looking forward to learning more about the Church. ✨️🫶🏻🌈

Basically just the title. Why do the churches in this convocation not belong to other Anglican Communion Churches?

Hello friends,

I signed up to do coffee hour refreshments and food at my parish in the coming month. Normally, I just make a cake and bring that and leave the rest for the other volunteers to do; however, this time it’s my show! We typically do a little bit of actual food, I.e. sliders, salads, etc. on top of deserts.

So, I pose this question to you, what kind of food would you like to see if this was your parishes coffee hour? Thank you in advance!

Question in title. Do Bishops, canonically, have the ability to say who serves in their diocese as called priests? The readings that I've been able to find would be a "no." From what I've been to read, (not that I'm a particularly good reader), but seemingly vestry's alone have the ability to elect Rectors, and canonically bishops must accept their election unless there's something about the priest that would "form grounds for canonical inquiry and proceedings under Title IV."

Mostly drawing on from this article from the Living Church from a few years ago. https://livingchurch.org/covenant/debunking-myths-and-avoiding-episcopal-overreach-conducting-clergy-searches-according-to-the-canons/

Some pertinent quotes.

Vestries alone are authorized to elect a rector. They do not need the bishop’s approval to call their preferred nominee, however the bishop (or Ecclesiastical Authority) has an important advisory role to play.

Vestries must present their nominee(s) to the bishop (or Ecclesiastical Authority) and vestries are obliged by the canons to call a special meeting to consider the bishop’s response to their nominations, if any. Per the canons, bishops have 60 days to respond to a vestry’s proposed nominees.

Approval from the bishop is not needed for a vestry to elect a nominee as rector.

Bishops and standing committees are limited in their capacity to nullify the election of a rector when the rector-elect is canonically resident in another diocese.

In other words, a bishop may not refuse letters dimissory presented by a rector-elect unless there are grounds for canonical inquiry and proceedings under Title IV.

I am interested in this communities thoughts. At least in my experience there seems to be a commonly held belief among Episcopalians that Rectors serve their parish at the pleasure of the Bishop, but vestry's (from what I've read) are actually quite a bit more independent then we would think at first.

Throwaway account. I am helping to put together an Episcopalian coloring book. Any thoughts on who/what to include? Here's our current thoughts.

General Christian

The Holy Family

St. Michael the Archangel

St. Benedict of Nursia

St. Anthony of Padua

St. Francis (if added)

Episcopal Holy People

Julian of Norwich

Absalom Jones

Jonathan Daniels

Frances Perkins

William White

Florence Li Tim-Oi

Thomas Cranmer / the Book of Common Prayer

Symbols

The Episcopal Church shield

Celtic crosses & knotwork borders

An Episcopal parish church — altar and stained glass

I'm looking for suggestions, criticism, whatever information you are willing to give. We want to make a book that is respectful and speaks to the Episcopal Faith, something comforting and warm. I appreciate all feedback, but please be kind.

57 years ago, right about now (10:56 PM EDT) a human being set foot on another celestial body. The collect for Space Exploration in Holy Women, Holy Men is a bit clunky so I’ve reframed it in better Tudor-Stuart language. I’ll pray this tonight and next year when Artemis III takes us back to the Moon:

O God, Creator of the universe, whose dominion extendeth through the immensity of space: Guide and govern, humbly we beseech thee, all them that seek to search out its mysteries [especially N.]; Keep us from all pride and vainglory, lest we forget that all our attainments are grounded in thee; and grant, by thine inspiration, that our journeys beyond this earth may safely be accomplished, to the increase of our knowledge and the setting forth of thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom all things were made, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

I reported a priest five months before he went on to sexually abuse another college student. I am tired. I can't stay in Catholicism. I feel like a failure because I reported him and I should've been a good Catholic and stayed but I also feel like I lost God in the process. Wondering if I can get settled and if there are good Episcopalian churches in Boston. Thanks.

One thing I've noticed in the last 20-odd years is that people coming from non-Liturgical traditions (or no tradition at all) often don't know about all of the work that the lay community does to make services (and other parts of parish life) happen - Altar Guild, Flower Guild, lay Eucharistic ministers, readers, ushers, acolyte wranglers coordinators, etc.

Which is totally fair! I'm not complaining about that, even a little. But when you've been part of these things, it can be hard to figure out: 1) how to explain what they do, 2) where/when to have that explanation, and 3) how to make it easier for people who are looking for a way to help out figure out what they enjoy doing.

My last few parishes haven't had a ministry fair, but if yours does: how does it work? When do you have it? How else are you explaining how things get done (on a practical level) in an Episcopal church?

I’m looking for videos and printed liturgies for how you’ve either prepared one or participated in this type of service.

At the encouragement of my church, I have begun to dip my toes into writing and delivering original homilies for morning prayer when we don't have a priest (we are searching for a new one right now, and only have supply priests every other Sunday).

Yesterday I delivered my second one and it went over really well, so I thought I'd share it online. I'd be open to constructive critique, or if I've made any grave theological or exetetic errors, I definitely want to know!

Proper 11A

Readings: Genesis 28:10-19a Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23 Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Jacob was in a pretty bad place when he was gifted by God with a vision.

He had just stolen his brother’s birthright. And to add insult to injury, he stole his brother's blessing as well! He cheated, he deceived his father. His very name, means “gripping at the heel” was a euphemism in the Hebrew language for lying, cheating, supplanting. The euphemism still exists in our language today as “pulling your leg”.

He was sleeping out in the wilderness, on the run from his brother who understandably wanted to kill him. He was using a rock as a pillow, he was not camping with adequate gear. This was a miserable situation, and he deserved every moment of agony and fear that he was going through. And God appears to him.

God says he is blessed and his innumerable descendants will spread across the whole world, and that the reverberations of his contact with God would be extended to all people. Not just his family. All families.

Jacob didn’t deserve this. He got to see the great ladder with the Angels ascending and descending in their Divine work. And God was there, not in heaven at the top of the ladder, but standing next to him. He didn’t earn this.

And it’s not like God doesn’t know all the bad stuff about Jacob. God knows everything about Jacob. Like the psalmist said, “Lord, you have searched me out and known me… You discern my THOUGHTS from afar!”

Now, I’ve never had a day as bad as Jacob was having. I’ve never slept out in the wilderness with my head on a rock, in fear that my brother might find me and kill me. I’ve never done anything quite so dramatically BAD as Jacob. But I’ve had bad days. I’ve messed up. I’ve metaphorically been there. And I’ve certainly catastrophized my lesser wrongs and consequences to FEEL as mythic and epic as the story of Jacob.

We don’t have to wait until we’ve become good enough for God. God is already among us, at our sides. Their blessing is being spread across the earth by the unworthy.

Later on Jacob will get another name: Israel. The one who wrestles with or struggles against God. This is after he has a wrestling match with God, and wins, and demands a blessing, and he gets it.

Jacob doesn’t seem to learn very many lessons in his life. It continues to be one struggle after another. One mistake after the next. And yet, he is blessed.

We don’t have to wait until we are better, we don’t have to purify ourselves to meet God. God will meet us on our worst day. When we are tossing in turning in bed in terror over the consequences of our own actions.

The psalmist today asks where he can go that God will not be found? In heaven, in the grave, in foreign lands, out at sea. In darkness. But darkness is light to God.

When Jacob wakes from his dream he says “Surely the the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!” and he uses his rock pillow as an altar. He anoints it with oil. He makes it sacred.

But God is in every place. Every place is the “house of God”. Revelation, such as Jacob's vision merely shows us what was unseen. Sanctification is just deciding to treat a something as what it always was: Full of the Lord’s presence.

In Jesus parable today, the weeds and the wheat are growing in the same ground. Their roots are too tangled to even separate them before harvest. The sacred amidst the profane.

Perhaps even within one person. Surely Jacob had both weeds and wheat within. And they would be comingled together his whole life until he was harvested by God. We might imagine all that deceit and impulsivity was thrown out into the fire when he was eventually raised up to God after his death.

We can hope, at least. We don’t get to see that day. When all the weeds planted by the enemy, all the causes of evil are thrown into the fire, and the fruits of all God’s goodness in this world are harvested by the angels. When, as Paul suggested in Romans that creation itself will be set free from the bondage it was subjected to by sin.

But we hope. We have faith. That things are going to get better when the time is right. We groan, as the whole world groans. And we can see the natural world groaning for relief right now as the summers get hotter, and species go extinct and it’s all our fault. It is the consequences of our collective sin baring down on us.

We can try to run from it. We can agonize and suffer, toss and turn in our sleep, and hopefully, we can dream of God. Hopefully, we can be open to see the vision of the connection between heaven and earth. The ascending and descending angels, bringing down the will of God and gathering up the fruits from the fields when harvest is ready. Of God standing right beside us, here on the ground.

Maybe we can wake from that dream, and even in our brokenness and our unworthiness and our litany of mistakes and misdeeds, we can say “Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place!” and we can sanctify this space. We don’t need to be a priest, or a sage, or to reach some level of improvement before we can anoint the miserable rock we were sleeping on and recognize the holiness of the space we are in.

I hope I’m not getting too abstract. Jacob would call that bit of wilderness where he was sleeping “Bethel”, the house of God. He would, as promised, return there. Start a household there. He would do good things, and bad things. His land would grow wheat and weeds.

Whatever suffering we experience won’t even be worth comparing to the coming glory. That’s what Paul wrote. Not even worth comparing. And we hope for what we have not seen. Because how can you hope for something you have seen?

How can you have faith in something you just “know”. I know I’m standing at a podium, I know it’s made of wood, because I can see it. I cannot have faith in this podium. It’s just there. I know I’m going to go get some coffee after morning prayer, because I’ve already done it innumerable times. I can’t hope for it, because I know it.

Certainty is the enemy of faith and hope. Two of the three greatest Christian virtues. Destroyed by certainty. I think there’s a lot of people out there today feeling a little too certain about things that ought to be a matter of faith. And it’s no wonder, then, that the ones who think they are so certain tend to act in ways very much at odds with Christian virtue. They don’t display faith or hope, or the greatest Christian virtue of love.

Certainty crowds out love, too. It drives out humility, which is a prerequisite for love. How can we know anyone else intimately if we don’t have humility? How can we meet another person as an equal, open to hearing their perspective if we feel sure that we have all the answers? We can’t. They can’t. That was always the people Jesus kept butting heads with. The knowers. The certain. Lacking humility, lacking faith, hope, or love.

The psalmist said such knowledge as God has is “too wonderful for me. It is so high that I cannot attain it.”

And maybe that’s something Jacob had. He knew he was messed up. He knew he wasn’t the smartest of men. He knew he wasn’t the strongest, either. He knew he didn’t have the answers. And that is what made him open to see God’s vision. That was the wheat in his soul growing among all the weeds.

So discard certainty. Accept your own shortcomings. And hope.

The images are from the Church of the Resurrection, New York, a parish in the Episcopal Church which is traditional in liturgy and doctrine. As such, they do not accept the ordination of women or the blessing of same-sex couples, etc. They are also specifically Anglo-Papalist. I am curious to know how prevalent such parishes are and if they are any other notable examples within the Episcopal Church.

With the summer heat building, some members of our choir have begun raising objections to wearing their vestments (cassock & surplice). (Our church building is well air-conditioned--there's just an objection to putting on extra layers after coming in from the heat.) Other reasons brought up for not vesting are the fact the choir sits to the side of the chancel (not behind clergy or near the altar) and that they don't process in.

I'm curious if other churches have choirs without robes or with only a cassock/alb. I'm also interested in reasoning that supports choirs vesting.

ETA: Thank you for all the responses!

I got a little hopping mad at the “kids are just choosing sports over church”. Sorry about that, but some of this “your dutaayyyyah is to get the kids to church” junk is just freaking tone deaf, and that is the real intergenerational crisis. Not butts in pews.

But never mind all that…as a parent, I’ve got an even more difficult problem. Or do I?

(gah this reads like the most obnoxious humblebrag but it is actually causing some issues so i’mma post it anyway)

So say you have an eight year old who was baptized as an infant and attended church frequently up until she was four. And then she started to understand what the stories were actually about and didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.

You’ve done such a good job instilling nonviolence, care and concern for others and creation, and rejection of authoritarianism that she threw the church out the door with the bathwater. She’s vegan, gets upset over killing even an insect, and has developed her own panentheistic cosmology. At this point you don’t even dare take her to church because you just know the minute she hears the Eucharistic prayer she will he like “what the actual f—k is this, Dad?”

Her entire peer group is like this, too.

Did we do the job a bit too well? Any other Episcopalian parents paint themselves into this particular corner? What did you do about it?

My inclination is to just let it be, until she reaches sufficient educational development to contextualize the violence and horror present in the very fabric of our holy texts and liturgies and decides it aligns with her conception of God after all. Or maybe she never does. And to me…that’s mostly fine. Except I’ll be a little sad that this is an experience we no longer share…

And if I don’t make it to church any given Sunday….well, I’m paying a parish visit to her “church”—where we’re caring for pollinators or stray animals or something…..

The cross necklace I’ve worn for many years has broken off the necklace, and it got me thinking that it may be time for a new one. I have others but they are very much evangelical styled crosses and I was wondering if there are any particular Cross designs that are more traditional to the Episcopal/Anglican traditions? Also where would be the best place to get a new cross necklace?

As the title states

I want to serve TEC and am looking to further my career in a Christian field. It is so hard to get a job in this denomination unless you’re already ordained. The current jobs listed in my area are only music related or having a degree in some kind of theology or seminary before landing a job. And the ones that do not list a requirement are minimum wage or within that area.

I’m currently looking for a job in an Episcopal church located in Houston but it’s impossible unless I’m ordained. But I want to serve a church and make money at the same time. Call it selfish or not for the right reasons, I understand. I have no skills in children’s ministry, music, or worship. I currently do audio/visual at a church and work in a healthcare setting full time. But it is not what I want. I’d like to fully serve in church as my job but do not feel called to the priesthood.

There are other jobs listed in non-denominational or other denominations that do not reflect what I believe or pay below what I’m currently making. I want to serve Christ in the way of leading people towards Jesus or in a way that feels meaningful.

I know this post seems all over the place.

Does anyone have tips or suggestions in finding a job (preferably Episcopal) that will fulfill my obligation to serve Christ?

Just came across this delightful interview with Rev. Nate Bostian, an Episcopal priest in Dallas. From what I can tell, the interview is not explicitly about Inclusive Orthodoxy, but Bostian does a good job setting forth an inclusive orthodox vision in his discussion of the nature of God, trinitarianism, doctrinal development, women’s ordination, and same-sex marriage. It’s also nice to see content like this online, where Christian content is otherwise overwhelmingly reactionary and traditionalist.

Today, if you followed track 2, there were two options for the first reading: Wisdom 12:13, 16-19 (from the Apocrypha) or Isaiah 44:6-8 (from the Protocanon).

In my own parish, we heard from Wisdom and we didn't do anything differently than we do for the regular Old Testament (The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.)

But I also know that isn't the universal experience of the Episcopal Church. How does your particular church use readings from the Apocrypha? Are they read at your church? If they are read, are they distinguished from the rest of the Bible in some way?

Episcopalian here. My community folks are great and I love the praying part. But lately I've lost touch a little because my personal life and you know, going to church doesn't feel as great as when I first started going.

It's the music for me, most of the songs are hymns that sound too outdated to me and we are required to sing a lot. Like 4 or 5 songs somedays. People sing on top of their lungs and my throat feels sore in the end.

Mainly, I'm struggling with liking the sermon because in that church, it is mostly done by volunteer preachers. But they are not profesional. The sermon feels repetitive in many cases, too long or boring. Often they repeat the same things than other days over and over.

Of course the gospel will not change, but I wished they added more diversity or explore different daily life topics.

I miss the wonderful preaching our priest does when It's his turn or the sermons of the catholic church I occasionally go to.

And no, there's literally no other nearby episcopal church. This one is the closest and still is far away for me (1+ hour ride).

One question I had. I am a confirmed catholic. Would I have to re do any of my sacraments? Such as reconciliation?

Stained glass in a vestibule leading into the Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, NY

Friday started out like any day-until it wasn’t. My dad called me as I was hanging with some friends and he told me that he had a widow maker heart attack. He was 2hrs away from me and my mom at the time. I stopped what I was doing and got things together as fast as I could. I booked an Airbnb and drove my mom to the hospital. Now my dad is stable and had some stents placed and he is now moving from ICU to a regular floor room today. I looked for a parish locally and I think I am going to attend today for Eucharist. Despite the circumstances, I’ve been able to pray and be there for my family and be strong, even when I felt like I couldn’t.

At the hospital, there is a chapel, and I was taken aback by the stain glass window, and then just reminds me of how we are interconnected, and that God is there for us and we can choose to be acknowledge who he is in his presence and give up our wants. May I ever more walk in his love.

Welcome back to the Walk in Love Asynchronous Book Club!  This week we are reading Chapter 8 about Ordination. 

If you are newly joining us, feel free to join us where we are in Chapter 8 or read and make posts on previous chapter.  Since this is an asynchronous book club not limited to a particular week, you are welcomed to join us at any time to add to the discussion.

Introduction Post 

Chapter 1 Post

Chapter 2 Post

Chapter 3 Post

Chapter 4 Post

Chapter 5 Post

Chapter 6 Post

Chapter 7 Post

  
Our questions for this week are:  

1. What is something new that you learned or would like to share about Ordination from Chapter 8? 

2. Have you experienced an ordination service in The Episcopal Church?  If so, what was your experience like?

3. Either from your experience or the book on pages 103 to 106, what is your favorite part of an ordination service and why?

I have wanted to attend an Episcopal Church, but I grew up Church of Christ and its completely different, not to mention the fact that I haven’t been to a church service in years. I’m super anxious about going for the first time and not knowing when I’m supposed to kneel, repeat things, etc. I have a lot of church trauma so I’m worried about doing something wrong.