News Updates

News Updates

August 2005

• Worship Is for Children, Too

  In many of our parishes these days, children are included in at least some of our eucharistic worship. Gone seems to be the days when boys and girls dressed up in suits and dresses and behaved like good little men and women. We're more relaxed, and our worship is more inclusive of different folks, including children. But sometimes it seems they are taking over the worship, talking, fidgeting, wiggling, and otherwise making themselves right at home!

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• Twenty Five Notable Years

  On June 9, the Rev. Canon John Andrew will retire as rector of St. Thomas' Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City's famous church, and return to his native England to live. When in Washington recently, he shared some thoughts about his 25 years in the Episcopal Church - a ministry notable for traditional worship, great music, liturgy and preaching, pastoral care and community outreach.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• Love Thy Neighbor

  "First identify the need." The advice from the Rev. Patrick Close, rector of St. Peter's Church in Mountain Lakes, N. J., appears to have been the guiding principle for many parishes around the country which have developed effective outreach projects addressing specific concerns within their communities.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• Boston Landmark Thrives Again

  While the church building of Trinity Church, Boston, the congregation began to shrink ominously, beginning in the mid 1960s. But the church has made a healthy turnaround.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• Accountability Is Necessary for Everyone in the Parish

  There is a desperate need to develop holy models of accountability in ministry at every level - lay, episcopal, presbyteral and diaconal. One of the reasons for an emerging crisis in parish ministry is the struggle to find appropriate accountability in the parish. As the Rev. James C. Fenhagen, retired director of the Cornerstone Project, has stated, "Too often, the priest becomes the scapegoat for a problem that demands a wider accountability than is often acknowledged." Yet there are entrenched barriers to wider, mutual accountability.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• Six Coastal Mississippi Churches Demolished

  The whereabouts and safety of all but two of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast clergy have been confirmed, according to the diocese’s canon to the ordinary. But Hurricane Katrina has demolished at least six of the 10 parishes in the Coastal Convocation.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• How Do You Pray?

  Prayer is as individual as a thumbprint, as private as a heartbeat. One rarely thinks about how one prays, and the question, when asked recently, took many people by surprise.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• Special Appeal as Northwest Texas Faces Funding Crunch

  Not only is the Diocese of Northwest Texas in a cash “crunch” for the present, but “it appears that without help from individual members of the diocese, our situation will continue to deteriorate,” according to the bishop, the Rt. Rev. C. Wallis Ohl, Jr., who issued an appeal to individual members on Aug. 15.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• Over the Edge?

  In a church as unsettled as ours, a fair number of clergy are finding it hard to keep their bearings, sometimes to the point of self-destructive behavior, vocational misgivings, or a stifling sense of malaise.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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• Want Better Preaching? Try the Laity

  For a long time, laity and clergy have been complaining about the poor quality of preaching in much of the Episcopal Church.

  Posted on August 31, 2005

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