Speaking of Orchards: On Church Planting
May 15, 2011
A friend of the blog and blogger himself, Rev. Josh Rowley, is in the process of starting a new ‘missional community’ for the Presbyterians, and he recently posted a quote by H. Stanley Wood in his Extraordinary Leaders in Extraordinary Times (p. 152-153)
“A way forward for new-church development in denominations that value the connecting tissue of their congregations and judicatory structures might be to aid existing churches to start new churches, including the sending of ‘home-grown’ leadership to be NCD pastors”
As it happens I was just about to post something on this very topic. My diocese of Minnesota was started by one of our great missionary bishops, the Rt. Rev. Henry Benjamin Whipple. In large part because of his efforts, Minnesota has a very strong Episcopal presence relative to most other states in between the coasts. Besides saving hundreds of Sioux who were due to be unjustly executed by appeal to Pres. Abraham Lincoln, it is said that he once floated an entire church building down a river in order to plant it downstream. If you are ever in Minnesota, do go venerate his tomb underneath the Cathedral of our Merciful Savior in Fairbault. Which, as it happens, was the parish I was confirmed in.
We are all aware of the myriad of opinions there are as to why the Mainline is shrinking so rapidly, and we shall save such speculation for another day. At the very least it must be admitted that we lack the same zeal for planting new churches that Pentecostal and evangelical churches do. While the new multi-site campus style of growth is an anti-charismatic personality cult, and is therefore to be scorned in every way, what some evangelical churches often do is have thriving congregations put resources into starting new parishes, often sending clergy and lay people to aid.
To the extent that we even do plant new churches, the Mainline tends to do so in ways that are extraordinarily expensive, centralized, slow, and conservative. And if we’re honest, we don’t naturally put effort into evangelizing immigrant populations. (Though we’ve had some great opportunities with Hmong and Karen immigrants here. We’re slowly translating a prayer book into the language of the Hmong after a several hundred Hmong Roman Catholics sought to become Episcopalians, and the first parish I attended, Messiah in St. Paul, has successfully integrated a substantial Karen refugee group.)
Now I don’t want to suggest we go around our diocese’ at all, but there is no reason that a diocese could not encourage this kind of planting and even give aid to those congregations who would do so. Does anyone know of any diocese’ or parishes in particular that are doing this sort of thing? There are many avenues that could be explored for fundraising but this seems like one of the more successful and generally healthy kinds.
Putting Things in Perspective
April 9, 2011
I hope that I’m not sounding too much like an anti-intellectual, but there are definitely times where I am reminded about the frustrating gap between certain academic conversations and the real needs of the Church, as well as the indulgent curriculum offered at some seminaries reflecting more the desires of professors than the recognition of appropriate classes for pastoral training. (See these two articles to really fill this out more – here and here).
My father makes an annual trip to India to evangelize and work with local pastors. A significant number of these country pastors, as it happens, cannot even read. Not a Bible, not a hymnal. When he told me this I remember wondering to myself how they could even perform their pastoral duties.
Now, I am in total support of educated clergy, indeed that is why this tidbit of information really got my imagination going, once again, as it is prone so to do, about seminary education. If one were to teach these pastors, just what might be an appropriate “core” to enable and empower them? And by thinking about this, it began to prompt thoughts on our own seminary education here in the States.
It seems to me that apart from needing first to teach them to read, and considering it is totally impractical to expect these pastors to attend a residential seminary, an appropriate “core” would ideally revolve around four books: The Bible, a Prayer Book, a hymnal and a catechism.
At first I questioned this – surely this is a peculiarly Anglican way of looking at things? But inasmuch as there could be developed a Pentecostal (Pentecostal because my father is an Assemblies of God minister) “Prayer Book, hymnal and catechism” it began to strike me as far more appropriate than I would’ve thought at first. Precisely because these clergy have a “blank slate” when it comes to the Faith, and precisely because they couldn’t be expected to leave their responsibilities for too long, by teaching them to read and giving them these elementary tools, what they lacked in “full training” they made up in practice by really getting to know these books.
What it seems the A/G might need, then, is a Book of Common Prayer -of sorts! – appropriate to their tradition, for the training of clergy where otherwise training is unavailable. And as for us, perhaps our own core should revolve around these rather than having so many electives open for “Feminist readings in Daniel” or whatever.
The Icon Corner or Home Altar
June 23, 2010
My Home Altar
The Home Altar or Icon Corner is a venerable tradition in Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox claim it dates from the 1st century (which of their practices, doesn’t?). Personally, I find that having a space set aside for prayer and devotion to be useful for my own discipline; even so, getting myself to consistently use it is always an inner struggle. I’ve decided to show all of you this holy place to inspire and challenge you to make a space of your own in which to pray, and meditate on the mysteries and goodness of God.
Per tradition my Icon Corner faces East (toward Jerusalem). Here’s a list of items from top to bottom:
1. Icon of Resurrection of Christ, or the Harrowing of Hell (which is it? Nerd fight.) It is traditional to have an Icon of Christ above all others to signify Christ’s Lordship above all others. See picture below for detail.
2. An Icon of Christ Pantocrator, handwritten on Mt. Athos (according to the little plaque on the back), which came to me in a thrift store–those pagans had it lying in a junk bin with baseball gloves and crayons, priced at $.99!
3. A Crucifix from Kenya, which reminds me to pray for my sisters and brothers on the African continent. Besides an Icon of Christ, a crucifix is probably the next most essential item for an Icon Corner.
4. A palm leaf tied into a cross from Palm Sunday 2010 (tucked behind the crucifix). Hopefully, I’ll remember to burn it on Shrove Tuesday 2011.
5. An Icon of the Wedding at Cana, handwritten by an Orthodox iconographer from Minnesota, and given to my wife and I as a wedding present by the illustrious Dr. J. Davenport. See detail in picture below.
6. An Icon of Christ the Word creating the heavenly beings, and an Icon of Christ the Word creating the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. Along with the Resurrection Icon above, these were gifted to me by my brother-in-law and fellow contributor, Mr. Shawn Wamsley M.A., M.Div. (or do they go the other way around? Nerd fight.)
7. A votive candle and censer. Both were from thrift stores. I have not used the censer. I keep meaning to order some frankincense, but have yet to do so. A perpetually burning oil lamp is traditional in Eastern Orthodox Icon Corners. I’m a little nervous about starting a fire with one, personally.
8. I almost forgot the ordo kalendar on the wall level (more or less) with the crucifix, which shows all Episcopal fasts, feasts and saints days.
9. Back down on the blue table is my Book of Common Prayer/ Bible.
10. A set of Anglican prayer beads and a (barely visible) Jerusalem Cross pendant.
11. The table features a storage drawer for matches and stuff and shelf below filled with books of a (mostly) devotional or liturgical nature. It was also a gift from a dear friend who was getting rid of it.
Prayer and Fasting for Peace
June 4, 2010
Today, as I sat contemplating the possibility of (more) war in the Middle East, I realized something: I don’t pray nearly enough for peace. Sure the deacon recites this prayer every Sunday:
“Guide the people of this land, and of all nations, in the ways of justice and peace; that we may honor one another and serve the common good…Lord, in your mercy”
To which I heartily reply: “Hear our prayer.” But that is by and large the extent of my prayer life concerning peace. What’s more, I’ve never fasted for peace.
It occurred to me that there are thousands–maybe tens of thousands–of Christians out there who don’t believe that peace is possible or even beneficial, who believe that America’s wars are blessed by God, who believe that violence toward Muslims, gays and other perceived enemies is just fine, and who pray and fast on a regular basis. There are National Days of Prayer when God has to listen to (among better things) idolatrous, nationalistic prayers about how He needs to bless America and Israel and destroy China, Iran, and North Korea, and how the Holy Spirit needs to touch Obama’s heart and make him repeal the healthcare bill, and resign, and get ”born again.”
But, when do I (we) pray that God fulfills the prophesy given in Isaiah 2:1-5? When do I (we) pray that God changes the hearts of human-beings–myself included–who harbor violence and hatred in their hearts toward fellow human-beings?
I may be an E-whisk-i-palian, and I even voted for George W. Obama (in answer to the billboard: “How can I miss George W. Bush, when we have one of his clones running the country right now!”) but, I still believe that God intervenes in human history. Don’t get me wrong, I also believe that we are God’s hands and feet, living Icons of Christ and representatives of His coming Kingdom. Right action must accompany prayer, but it is all too often the prayer part that gets left out in my life.
So, I propose that those of us in our little blog community who a) believe in peace and non-violence, and b) believe that God answers prayer start to assign some action to our beliefs. Maybe I’m the only one of you guys who isn’t, in which case, I need your guidance.
Shall we set aside one day a week to fast and pray for peace?
Shall we plan a week of fasting and prayer this summer?
How do you guys pray and fast for peace? I hope some of my peacenik friends will chime in here…
*PICTURE NOTE: I was looking for a cheesy prayer picture. I think I did pretty well. Gotta love lightning emanating from folded hands, accompanied by a dove and and open Bible. All that’s missing is an American flag and a M-16.
Boxes and The Collect For Purity
May 3, 2010
NOTE: I read this reflection last week during the liturgy before the Collect For Purity.
Many of us live much of our lives in individual little boxes. We are inevitably insulated from the lives of others by the mini-environments we surround ourselves with. We wake up in the box of our home, make our own coffee, eat our own breakfast and drive away in the box of our cars, listening to our own music and going at our own pace.
At work or school, we occupy the box of our desk, shuffling through our email inboxes and the quaint little box of our “to do” list. At the end of the day the car box and the home box and the TV box and the computer box are waiting to encapsulate us again.
But this first part of worship, The Gathering, is designed to break the box. The prayers and music call us out of our individual spaces and into a bigger space, God’s space—where we discover a different pace, God’s pace—and a new people, God’s people.
The medieval Church had fallen into the habit of relegating this part of the liturgy to the clergy alone, before the service began, in an enclosed, exclusive place—a box, if you will.
But the Anglican Reformer Thomas Cranmer believed The Gathering was a call to everyone in the church, not just the priests. So when he wrote our Book of Common Prayer, he moved The Gathering from the clergy’s box to the common place of the people. All were to participate in gathering together—for we were all called into God’s shared space.
So let this prayer lift you from your box. God’s space is waiting and open. It is the place you’ll meet the divine. It is the place you’ll meet your community. It is the place we stand in now.
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Seminary V.III : Limits in Round Table Theology
April 8, 2010
Before a brief excersion in response to a friend, I was commenting on how seminaries should be purposeful about formation. How we do and do not educate will – I cannot emphasize enough the will – shape the future of our fellowship. There is no getting around it. “Knowledge is Power,” Foucault said, and I couldn’t agree with him more. Of course this has always been known and responsible teachers through the ages would have had no moral qualms about telling people how and even what to think, especially in early stages of learning.
Of late there has been a minor revival of so-called “classical education” largely in response to an essay written by the famous Dorothy Sayers entitled, “The Lost Tools of Learning.” I take this essay to be essentially correct and this (other) hyperbolic statement by Hauerwas properly frames where I am going with these next couple essays:
“As a way to challenge such a [liberal] view of freedom, I start my classes by telling my students that I do not teach in a manner that is meant to help them make up their own minds. Instead, I tell them that I do not believe they have minds worth making up until they have been trained by me. I realize such a statement is deeply offensive to students since it exhibits a complete lack of pedagogic sensitivities. Yet I cannot imagine any teacher who is serious who would allow students to make up their own minds.” —Stanley Hauerwas, “Christian Schooling or Making Students Dysfunctional,” in Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), p. 220. HT: Faith and Theology
I’m preparing a very incomplete and theoretical curriculum for an entire seminary education that I hope to post in the next week or so. For now let us consider a significant if not the most significant aspect of formation (I’m here speaking as an Anglican but most any “Rule of Prayer” in continuity within the liturgical and spiritual tradition of the Church could work); the Daily Office. Any seminary worth its salt will pray, at the very least, the Morning and Evening Office. I’ve always found the “noon” prayer in the ’79 BCP to be lackluster and unfocused but of course the Compline as well as the Service of Light are both spectacular. It may not be of utter necessity that every student attend every single service, though I can’t imagine anything less than three weekday offices being at all adequate. Whatever the case it ought to be performed daily.
Going a step beyond this I think it would be a stroke of brilliance to incorporate the material of the Office directly into the taught classes. So hermeneutics, exegesis (same thing really) and Bible classes should teach from the Scripture readings each day. Instead of a class on “Pauline Theology,” or “Pauline Letters” or “The Synoptics,” a seminary could have a “Bible” track that spans the whole of the education which covers the same material that such a class would have, but is done in a wholistic manner.
Many of the classes could be taught this way. After learning the grammar, such a class could serve “double duty” as a “Greek Reading” class. A teacher could take the NT passage and teach how to grammatically structure that passage. Etc…to infinity. It seems to me that the connection between the Office and the classes could be made in any number of creative ways.
One weakness is obviously the current Lectionary. Anglican liturgical expert and spectacular blogger Derek Olsen says that the point of the Daily Office Lectionary, as compared to the Lectionary for use at the Mass, is to read and learn the Bible, not to be mystagogical. There is of course a place for that but not here. I still dig a two-year structure but it could stand to be more consistent in how it proceeds through books. The entire OT and Deutero-canon every two years, NT about once a year, and the Psalms once a month or month and a half seems both substantial and doable. The books should be read from beginning to end with no cutting out the non-liberal-protestant parts as it does now.
I am assuming that doing the dishes, cleaning the bathrooms and feeding the poor also fit into the general life of the Seminary but those are less “educational” in the same sense that I am talking about here.
Even More ’09 Reflections, or “Futures in Anglicanism,” or “For the Love of God Please Stop”
January 25, 2010
In a previous post I reflected on a chaotic year for Anglicans. The post itself remained largely ambiguous as to whether I saw much hope for the coming year and several commenters wondered aloud what might set us back on track.
Far be it from me to miss an opportunity to wax eloquent on my own opinions. In this post I shall briefly, unsystematically and without much justification toss out some things I’ve been thinking about that, it seems to me, could contribute to a discussion on being faithful to our Tradition. There is absolutely no reason that anyone should take the meanderings of a kid too seriously so take it all with a grain of salt.
Of course there are reasons I think these things, but with homework being of much greater importance than blogging I will largely keep from any thorough justifications for my two cents.
- 1)For the love of God everybody stop, stop, stop with revisions of all kinds. A total moratorium on all Prayer Book, theologically informed Canon Law, Liturgical and theological revision for at least a decade. Our English is not nearly old enough to need updating, our laws left unchanged will not hand us over to chaos, our prayer and collects are and have been largely consistent with Catholic Christian practice and thought and our theology is not yet proved false. This will provide the common bonds of public trust so as to continue to enable the recognizability within our fellowship. Any priest altering a liturgy independently should be swiftly disciplined and any bishop or province should be pleaded with to just chill out: This means you Church of England with your lady bishops (and I’m all about lady bishops), you Nigeria with your canonical marginalizing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, you Episcopal Church with your endorsing diocene composition and implementation of rites of same sex blessing and consideration of Communing the unbaptized, and you Australia with your insufficient theology of Priesthood and Eucharist.
- 2) With that in mind, for now focus on those things central to our life and mission as Churches. Worship, Evangelism, Justice and Catechesis seem to be atop this list to me.
It seems that these two things will build the trust and love necessary to begin to hash out the future of Anglican practice which will largely be in reference to, either for or against, the Anglican Covenant. It’s here and it’s not going away. The one, a choice rooted in the Protestant conviction that one is at liberty to interpret the Scriptures on their own, the other a choice for that Episcopal concilarity of the first four universally regarded Ecumenical councils.
But the “Covenant” is not nearly enough. As the massive and desperately needed book “Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness” states, there has been at least since the Second World War, a general inability to understand our Anglican identity. To that end I propose a few things…
- Episcopacy is absolutely central to Anglican theology and life. It must be insisted upon and emphasized that in continuity with the very early Church through the ages, we have vigorously maintained that Apostolic Succession by the reality that we have never christened a bishop without the laying on of hands of at least three other bishops so consecrated. Our Liturgies for consecration have never deviated from this. We are not Baptists with prayer books, indifferent to the right ordering of our life, neither do we think Church tradition so trite as to be of no authoritative worth. Our Articles also bear this out as we understand nothing in our liturgies to be contrary to Holy Scripture.
- Related to the above…What the hell ever happened to Common Prayer? I propose the possibility of a Book of Common Prayer for use in all Covenanted churches. Or, at the very least, in terms of the liturgist exraordinaire’ Dom Gregory Dix, the “Shape” of our liturgy should agreed upon, especially our Eucharistic liturgy and the liturgies for Episcopal functions like ordination, baptism and confirmation. Parishes should not be allowed to use the Roman Mass nor neglect the Hymnal in favor of modern chorus’, or ignore the Rubrics.
- Similarly we need a Catechism. Which, though not to be used as a “Confession” in the sense that it’s contents are necessarily to be comprehended or assented to in entirety for Salvation, should be widely used and authoritative.
- Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury is fundamental to being Anglican and is one of the only “checks” against loose consularity and is essential to ecumenical dialogue with the Roman and Orthodox Catholic churches.
- Jesus loves Fender guitars
- There being a large number of Christians in the so-called “Global South” does not meant that a) those Anglicans can disregard their history b) that they cannot nor need not listen to the insights of more historic fellowships, especially the Church of England c) that they have become our rightful judges
- The idea of in-house “parties” like “Anglo-catholic,” “Broad Church” and “Evangelical” needs to become progressively left behind in favor of solidarity. Evangelicals will have been unfaithful Anglicans to the extent that they do not include the whole Christian tradition in their theology, piety and Scripture reading; Anglo-catholics will have been unfaithful to the Reformation in England if they not recognize the centrality of Scripture over all else; and Broad churches will likewise fall short if they don’t realize that there is nothing virtuous about being bland.
- All of this points to the need of a more unified practice of piety.
- If you don’t like it, become a Baptist. ***update*** (One misses the point if they think I’m using “Baptist” pejoratively. I mean only that being Anglican is not simply uniquely British way of being a Congregationalist.)
- Authority is not a four letter word.
- I am most certainly full of myself.
Responses…? Additions…? Complaints…? I want ‘em all.
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
