NY Times: "Revolt" is coming

I've got a backlog few things I've been meaning to post, but here's one for now. From tomorrow's NY Times, an article: "Episcopalians are Reaching Point of Revolt." You can read the whole article online (registration required, free).

As many as eight conservative Episcopal churches in Virginia are expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to cut their ties with the Episcopal Church. Two are large, historic congregations that minister to the Washington elite and occupy real estate worth a combined $27 million, which could result in a legal battle over who keeps the property.

This is more of the same sensationalist media view: things are breaking apart, disaster is in our midst, the church is going nowhere. Of course, some of that is true, in some places. But it's also true that most people, in most churches, most of the time just want to be the church. Most of us want to focus on mission, on conversion, on service, on grace, on repentance, on evangelism, on healing, on...doing the work of the Body of Christ. Alas, that story will never be in the NY Times.

I don't mean to brush over very real problems, but we Christians should not let our view of our church be controlled by commercial media.

Photo sets for your viewing pleasure

OK, so it's pretty ancient history now, but I (finally) got around to uploading some photos from Diocesan Convention and Provincial Convocation. I'm a new flickr user, so I'm just learning there. Rather than delay until I get around to adding titles & captions, I thought I'd post this here now.

So, without further delay, please browse and enjoy a set of Convention photos and some Provincial Convocation photos. Oh, and as an added bonus, here is a big load of photos from last summer's General Convention. Enjoy.

Youth ministry

I just got home from attending the youth leaders dinner at the resource center. It was a small, but passionate group. There were a lot of great ideas passed around and many shared feelings and experiences. I encourage all of you to keep your eyes and ears open for future activities for youth - this is a great place to watch! Here is a website that is a great start. http://www.teens4teens.741.com/ This is a program run by Sarah D. Courtemanche out of St. Paul's Pawtucket (50 Park Place Pawtucket, RI 02860). It is an amazing program that I encourage all of you to take a look at. Over the next week or so I will be posting some dates of upcoming youth events for the new year.

ONE congregation

Every week I receive emails from Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (EGR) and recently Grace Church in Providence was featured in one of these emails, under the "What ONE Congregation can do". Myself along with everyone from EGR are so proud of Grace Church and all their efforts to educate people about the MDGs and fight to achieve them. Here are some of their upcoming events. I strongly encourage everyone to attend any and all of these events. As a diocese we have committed ourselves to the Millennium Development Goals, and supporting this ministry is a marvelous way of showing the commitment.

Global AIDS Quilt Display - Thursday November 16 - Friday December 1 (9am - 3pm)
Film: 'Pills, Profit & Protest' - Wednesday November 29 (7pm)
Film: 'A Closer Walk' - Thursday November 30 (7pm)
U2charist - Friday December 1 - World AIDS Day (7pm)

All events are open to the public free of charge

A goodwill offering is encouraged to benefit

The Millennium Fund of the Episcopal Church

and

The ONE Campaign to fight World Hunger, Poverty and Disease

Happy Thanksgiving

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope and pray that it is a truly blessed time for you and your families. I know generally we only post things to do with the church or other religious issues, but I have a quick announcement. I just want to say that if any of you watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, keep an eye out for the Macy's Great American Marching Band. I have been selected as one of eight students to represent Rhode Island in the Parade. I am going to be playing the Tenor Saxophone, and our group will lead off the parade. I will be tracking this experience on my blog which is www.joewithjohn.blogspot.com. Happy Thanksgiving!

Mysterious ways

Two weeks have past, Diocesan Convention is over, and the glow sticks have all faded. On Saturday October 28, following our Diocese Convention, the Blackstone Deanery Youth and Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation sponsored a U2charist which was held at Christ Church in Lincoln. It was a wonderful event. The crowd was small, but intimate. We had a great altar party including: Rev'd Peter Mayer - presided, Rev'd Susan Wrathall - deacon, Rev'd John Van Siclen - welcome address, I served as the crucifer, and Rev'd Mike Kinman - preached. Everyone who attended had a great time. This is an event that will be occuring more frequently in the diocese. Firstly, in a little under a month Grace Church Providence will be holding one. It will be on Dec 1 (World AIDS Day). There have also been requested to hold more U2charists at Christ Church and at St. Luke's East Greenwich. I encourage everyone to attended the Dec 1st U2charist, to learn more about the Millennium Development Goals, the ONE Episcopalian Campaign, and Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation.

Is the church being taken away from some people?

You keep hearing, mostly from the right, some version of "our church is leaving us" or "our church is being taken away." I have always had a problem with this line of thinking, but I couldn't quite articulate it. Here are two essays that deal with some version of this, from different perspectives. Let me know what you think.

Anglicans Online has this:

We found ourselves pondering the (to us) strange concept that a church can be 'taken away'. And then 'our church' struck us as even stranger. The church is not ours, but God's. Its Anglican forms throughout the world are a multicoloured mosaic, shaped by local cultures and practises, holding to the framework of Catholic liturgy that has been the genius of the Ecclesia Anglicana for more than 500 years.

What church has been 'taken away'...? The Episcopal Church of the 1950s? That church which forbade women deputies to General Convention? Or an earlier Episcopal Church, where divorce was all but forbidden, except in cases of adultery? Where remarriage was impossible, even for the innocent party? Perhaps the church that was taken away was the atmosphere and ethos of the mid-19th-century Church of England, where marriage to a deceased wife's sister was forbidden and punishable by law? Or the mid-19th century American church that turned a blind eye to the practice of slavery?

That abbreviated litany of 'churches that have been taken away' could be extended nearly indefinitely. Every age has brought change to the church, beginning as innovation, often proclaimed as heresy, and eventually becoming tradition. And it is no less true that each change brings unsettlement and pain. Yet 'the Gospel in the Church' cannot be stagnant, for the Holy Spirit has been pledged to lead us into all truth.

And John-Julian Swanson writes another essay, posted at Father Jake Stops the World:

What has been eroding in the Church for the last two generations has been the denial of its central and primal mystical dimensions. We keep seeing Jesus as some historical personage, delimited by time and space. We keep seeing “church” as institutional. We keep seeing the Word as a collection of black scribbles on a page. We keep seeing the core of our ecclesial nature as either canonical or biblical or organizational. We keep refusing the ineffable, immeasurable, and unimaginable dimensions of our Christ, and the universal utter Presence of the Holy Spirit....

Whatever words you may use, you, oh eye, simply cannot cancel me who am a foot. You may curse me or despise me or refuse me a place at table, but you cannot evade the fact that whether you like it or not, we are and will always be one – inside the mystical Christ. And since we are one, you simply cannot live the Christ life without me, no matter how much you may wish it. The Blood of Christ flows out copiously and floods and drowns and washes all of us, forgiving all our sins, enfolding all of us in divine grace. And we are already one, just as the Christ and the Father are one. And may whatever bogus falsehood gives the lie to that cosmic truth shrivel and die.

The notion that we must all agree within the Anglican Communion is the real innovation. Christians have always been united in the Mystical Body of Christ, and Christians have always disagreed, sometimes violently. Let us pray for unity, and let us pray for the grace to believe that the Holy Spirit is still at work in our church, doing wonderful and surprising things.

Investiture was amazing. More coming soon.

I had trouble getting Internet access during and after the investiture today. Now that I'm back home, I have decent Internet again. When I get a chance tomorrow, I'll post some photos and some thoughts. Suffice it to say the service was astonishingly amazingly breathtakingly cool.

You can watch it on your computer. If you watch the service, you'll want the service leaflet, and there are also some photos here. ENS has an article about the service, and you can read Bishop Katharine's sermon.

Watch this space tomorrow for updates.

(The photo shows Frank Griswold, 25th Presiding Bishop, presenting the Primatial Staff to Katharine Jefferts Schori, 26th Presiding Bishop. Photo: WNC)

In the beginning: Bibles before the year 1000

I had a few minutes here in Washington before I head over to the Episcopal Majority gathering. Checking out the Smithsonian's website, I noticed a very promising exhibit at the Sackler Gallery. They've gathered a breathtaking array of manuscripts, fragments, codices, books, scrolls, and other material to show the history of the Bible as a book from around the time of Jesus to about the year 1000.

As a person who spends a good deal of time each week reading and studying the Bible, I must say that my appreciation for the Bible and its history is much greater now. I would encourage every person of faith, and certainly every preacher, to make a pilgrimage to the Sackler gallery before January to see this exhibit. It's moving to look at a fragment of the New Testament from the second century. Aside from the spiritual experience, the educational value alone makes the trip worthwhile. If you can't go, buy the exhibit catalog -- but try to go. I'll be going back for a longer visit.

PB on Today Show

Our Presiding Bishop will be on the Today show Friday. Tune in to NBC in the morning to catch an interview. Yes, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is our Presiding Bishop, as of November 1. Watch the interview on TV to get a glimpse of this extraordinary leader. You can also look at her new official website, which just launched today.

Update: Here's a link to watch the interview, in case you missed it.