I want to spend this morning’s post letting you know where we are in staffing our youth and children’s programs.  With the departure of Pam and Bobby earlier this summer we have some big holes to fill, but this also leads to new opportunities.  I have met with the youth and children’s commissions and we’ve tweaked some things here and there via email and we’re just about ready to publicize a job description – but for one, not two positions.  If you remember, last month I mentioned the working possibility …

I can’t remember where, but I think in the old Father Steve’s Morning Email I shared my thoughts about ministry burnout – mainly being that burnout is not always caused by volume but instead by having your energy drained.
Just because you are good at something does not mean that is where your passions lie.  There is a commercial on television now where women and men, all in their middle age, are sharing what they would like to do ‘when they grow up.’  What is clear is that their passion is …

I read everything I can from the Alban Institute.  Alban is the congregational development research organization par excellence.   The following article (I know it’s long, but a very interesting read) came in my inbox this morning.  It speaks somewhat to the theology that as church members (those who participate in the work of the Church) we are not owners.  The Church is not ‘ours’ as if we could possess the Body of Christ.  The paradox of church membership, as Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple once said/wrote, is that: The …

Actually, on this July 4 week, a different kind of flag – the Episcopal Church.  I don’t know how many are actually aware of the history and symbolism of our shield and flag, but I think it’s interesting.
The Episcopal Church flag (and shield) is an homage to both the Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church.  The familiar Union Jack, as I understand, is the flag of the United Kingdom.  The flag of England is white with a red cross. These are the colors (colours) of St George, the patron …

I was born decades, maybe centuries, too late.   Old School.  Throwback.  Whatever you want to call it, I like old things and things from days gone by.  On this July 4 weekend where many may have an extra day home from work, I’ve got a couple of movie recommendations for you that are – old.
A Man Called Peter – 1955.  The story of Scotch-American Presbyterian minister Peter Marshall, based on the book of the same title written by his wife, Catherine Marshall.  This is one of my all-time favorite …

I lost a good friend yesterday.  The Reverend Haskel (the rascal) Robert Reynolds.  I knew him as Bob.  Most everyone else knew him as Rabbi.  I don’t know how old Bob was when he died yesterday.  My best guess is 90 or 91.    Bob was a pastor in the United Methodist Church, but I never saw him preach.  He retired when I was in elementary school.  I never saw him baptize a baby or even lead a worship service.  But he was my mentor.
I first met Bob in the …

On the post “Why Chant?” I incorrectly quoted Christin Barnhardt.  she actually said there are fewer vowels in Latin and are pure vowel sounds.  That’s why is just sounds so darn good.

I’m reading a book of Blessed Mother Teresa’s private writings (Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta).  This book made some headlines when it was published in that Blessed Teresa’s letters shed “light” on the dark moments in her spiritual life.
The appendix includes rules for her new religious order that were handwritten in 1947 to her archbishop.  In these, she details the general end of her order: “to satiate the thirst of Jesus Christ on the Cross for love and souls by the Sisters [through] …

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940)

My family’s pew was on the Gospel side (left facing the altar) at the back.  We sat with the Hodge family.  It wasn’t always the case, but more times than not, that was our arrangement.  When I served my first church (where my father was raised and where my grandmother still attends), my grandmother would sit on the back pew on the Epistle side (right facing the altar).  “Granny, why do you sit in the back?” I asked early on.
“Oh, I don’t know.  It’s habit.  When your daddy was young, …