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  • A New Way to Start a Meeting ✓
    Apparently I’m in meetings often enough that when I told my son I had meetings the other day, he grunted. “Meetings. Is that all adults do? Do you ever work in these meetings?” My honest answer: Sometimes. Meetings consume a l…
  • Thanksgiving: Giving Thanks to the Giver Good ✓
    Thanksgiving, or giving thanks, as a form of prayer, is technically the church’s principle act of worship, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, and in many places, like this Monastery, day after day. The Eucharist is itself an extended prayer of…
  • Do the Right Thing!
    Churches often fail to observe copyright laws, or even the basics of courtesy. We have this unfortunate habit of thinking that just because it is "for the church" it is OK if I make a few copies of this or that. So, Sunday School teachers photocopy…
  • Show Me!
    ... let us love one another, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. (1 John 3:18) Whenever I read this week’s Epistle, Audrey Hepburn’s voice jumps into my head as Eliza Doolittle explodes at Freddie: Words, words, words I’m…
  • Quiet Kids
    If you went to church camp, you may remember it fondly – friends, games, singing in chapel and swimming in a pool or lake. Or, like me, your feelings about camp may be mixed. You loved the singing in chapel, enjoyed some of the games, but the fir…
  • What Happens to Moses?
    We had only been dating for a couple of weeks. It was dreary, cold fall day so we decided to spend the afternoon watching TV. Our channel surfing landed on The Ten Commandments, Charlton Heston-style. We watched as the Egyptians chased …
  • Earth: “And God saw that it was good.”
    Sunday is Earth Day. And, despite my best intentions, I haven’t prepared anything to acknowledge the day. Every year, Earth Day sneaks up on me. Like spring in New England, I know it is coming: I get little tastes and hints of it during the d…
  • Imagine
    Imagine if every church meeting began by asking the same question: “How will what we are doing here affect or involve people living in poverty?” In 1991 the late Roman Catholic Bishop Kenneth E. Untener of Saginaw, Michigan, issued a decr…
  • Telling a Story Through Liturgy
    On Good Friday I went to church for an hour and a half. Being a three-hour service I skipped a good portion of it, but as the church website explained, worshippers were welcome to come and go as their schedules permitted. I have to confess I left e…
  • Flowering the Cross
    One of the delights in being new is experiencing a church’s long-held tradition for the first time. On Easter Sunday, a day full of tradition and pomp, I was moved by our new church’s custom of “flowering the cross.” As the hand…
  • “Love One Another”
    Taking off your socks in a strange place is never particularly comfortable. What if the floor isn’t clean? What if your feet smell? We’d rather sit in our pews and stick to the rituals we know. Still, on Maundy Thursday Episcopalians around the…
  • The Sixth [meatless] Friday of Lent
  • Church Smackdown? Not in this Town
    What if we didn’t see other Christians as competition but as fellow collaborators in the kingdom of God? It was our church’s turn to host the monthly meeting of the community welcome wagon. But this isn’t a Chamber of Commerce, co…
  • Ritual and Creativity
  • The Fourth [Meatless] Friday of Lent
    I have always had an interest in the faith practices of the Amish community, and find certain aspects of the culture surprising and even counter-intuitive. The degree of freedom offered to Amish children—both in decisions surrounding marriage and…
  • Will they know we are Christians?
    The man’s displeasure is evident. He grumbles on the walk through the doctor’s office, then rips into the technician. He had an appointment. Other people just walked in. He had to wait 20 minutes. He doesn’t appreciate the lack of servi…
  • Taking Shelter
    Why does it take the worst to bring out the best? Tragedy in the form of super-cell tornados ripped through southern Indiana, Kentucky, and small towns across the south. TV news and the Internet swarmed with devastating pictures of homes redu…
  • Ashes -- and a message in a bottle
    I like shiny and new. I’m not typically first on the bandwagon of the latest trend, but I normally get in line for ride two or three. This is especially true with communication, and I’ve spent many keystrokes for ECF Vital Practices and o…
  • Un-masking Mardi Gras
    The festivities were well underway by the time we arrived. Sequined dresses and glittered faces greeted us at the door. The normally more staid atmosphere of a diocesan convention was replaced with the upbeat celebration of Mardi Gras, comple…
  • Has Forward Movement Gone Mad for Lent Madness?
    For decades, Forward Movement has been most widely known for its flagship publication, Forward Day by Day. Hundreds of thousands of readers around the world find inspiration in the quarterly printed booklet. In the US, many Episcopalians learned ab…
  • Accountability in Community.
    A month into our move the shininess has worn off, and we’re beginning to call this home – and the other place, “where we used to live.” Now comes the hard part of making friends and building community. Last week our church held …
  • Reading the Bible?
    Scott Gunn’s Jan 2, 2012 Seven whole days blog post brought the Bible Challenge back into my consciousness. The concept is simple: Read the Bible in a year by following the Bible Challenge’s formula of reading the books of the Bible “in seque…
  • Were You Transformed?
    The end of a year always puts me in a reflective mood. Like a DJ at some local radio station, I take full advantage of these days to look back and compile lists of the past year’s greatest hits and less successful ventures. It’s also when I ask m…
  • Talking to Kids about Faith
    It was hard to choose which class to take of the three offered this fall at our Center at St. Andrew’s. Dr. Ann Redding who was defrocked by Bishop Wolff of Rhode Island for becoming a Muslim is offering, “Making Peace with Islam: An Introducti…
  • Dreaming, Google, and the Church
    What’s your dream? I spent the past 2 ½ days dreaming with the board of Forward Movement, an organization dedicated to reinvigorating the church. We did board things like approve the financial report and talk about policies, but we also sp…
  • How Do You Engage the Bible?
    Congregations across the Anglican Communion are invited to take part in a communion-wide survey which asks how Episcopalians and Anglicans understand and engage with the Bible. In the Diocese of Connecticut’s September 24, 2011 weekly eNews, edi…
  • Old Dogs, New Tricks
    I love how God flips our expectations upside down. Sixty years separate the two couples. The first couple is in their 90s, the husband dapper in a tie and white slacks, whose likeness to Bob Barker always requires a double take. He steadies h…
  • Regrets?
    The heavy conversation starts out, as is often the case, on a light note. Mommy, why aren’t you eating your toast? It’s the last piece, I answer. I want to see if you are still hungry before I eat it. My 7-year-old son ponders t…
  • Spiritual but not Religious?
    You bore me. That’s the conclusion of a UCC pastor in her superb, pointed commentary. I’m not normally a Facebook re-poster, but her blog was so compelling that I thought it was worth sharing. Who knew that it would ignite? Fr…
  • An Unexpected Gift
    A crew from Calvary, Ashland, Ky., was supposed to be rolling in late last night, weary but exhilarated from a train trip to Washington, D.C., part pilgrimage to the National Cathedral, part journey on historic rail cars. But first there was …
  • Marking 9/11
    With the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon falling on a Sunday next month, most churches are developing some way to respond. At St. Andrew’s, Seattle, we will hold a service of Light and Remembrance on the eve…
  • Taking it to the Streets
    Members of another urban congregation are picketing the second service of St. John’s in Columbus, Ohio. The service is Street Church, where for the past five years, the Rev. Lee Anne Reat presides over a full Eucharist on a street corner in…
  • The Bible Challenge
    Note: Check out Marek's Tip Sheet for creating a Bible Challenge in your own congregation. Episcopalians take pride in reading more scripture aloud in church on Sunday than most denominations, but few Episcopalians have read the entire Bib…
  • Waxing nostalgic: Back to school
    Bring on the routine.  In 12 days, the kids begin school for the fall, and our family settles into a regular schedule. Homework, dinner, a little TV. Piano practice, art lessons and for the first time, maybe karate. I say maybe, because t…
  • Connecting Generations
    For my family, vacations are usually intergenerational affairs. From an early age, I remember vacationing with an assortment of my MacKay aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents as well as day trips and picnics with cousins, aunt, uncle, grandpare…
  • A Children's Place
    Episcopalians aren’t the only people God trusts to take the summer off. At our church, the nursery attendant goes home from college, and the kids join the congregation for the whole service. During the program year, the nursery is staffed…
  • Back to the Garden
    When we picked a theme for our Vacation Bible School this summer we naturally gravitated to Green. Our parish has made ecology a major theme during my five years in charge, so it was only natural that we took our young people down that path this su…
  • Mambo Sawa Sawa
    (All is well…..I have goodness in my heart.)   Today, I want to share the story of Grace Art Camp, a ministry offered by Grace Memorial Episcopal Church in Portland, Oregon.  For me, growing up, summer meant camp. Among my earliest memori…
  • Giving Church the 'Super 8' Treatment
    I want to Super 8 the church experience of my youth. J.J. Abram’s cinematic homage to Stephen Spielberg relishes in nostalgia without overdoing the saccharine. We caught the flick on date night, and it prompted many a tale over dinner about t…
  • Our ‘Father’ or????
    Elizabeth Kaeton has a proposal for the Church for Fathers Day: “I think we should use the day to begin a movement to give up 'Father' as an honorific title for male clergy.” Growing up in the Episcopal Church in New England in the 50s, 60s,…
  • Sharing the Good News
    Do you remember the Pentecost story? I'll admit that at the beginning of this week, I had to look it up. If it wasn’t for Facebook and the various online theological resources I subscribe to, Pentecost wouldn’t make the list of things I would t…
  • Closed in Observance of the Ascension of Our Lord
    The stores are closed today. On my way to a staff retreat in the verdant hills of southern Ohio, I won't be able to make my usual stop at the Amish store to purchase some amazing cheeses and fresh-baked bread. Today is the feast of Asce…
  • Building Community -- at a Campground -- and Church
    Campers could share a lot with parishioners when it comes to building community. We travel frequently with our children – my son was seven weeks old when I flew to New York City for a business trip. I wasn’t ready to leave him yet, so we …
  • Spirituality of Fundraising
    Can fundraising be good for your spiritual health? Henri Nouwen thinks so. Many of us have come to love Henri Nouwen – his books, wisdom, life story, and especially his ability to convey the depths of spiritual life and practice in a way that…
  • How Does Your Garden Grow?
    Some mornings we found a bucket of blackberries on our porch. On other days, parishioners would drop off a jug of maple syrup, tapped from their trees, or a few blue gill, freshly caught. In the first country parish we served, the people live…
  • Marketing 101
    Guess who is running Vacation Bible School at my church this summer? Yours truly. It gives me the opportunity to get back to basics on marketing that I used to advise other churches to use when I was the Missioner for Communications Ministry at the…
  • Kindness of FB friends
    Blanche DuBois relied on the kindness of strangers, but I am thankful for the kindness of Facebook. Already this morning, dozens of people from across every stage of my life have taken a moment to wish happy birthday on Facebook. On the surfa…
  • What was THAT All About?
    The rector who was my first supervisor as a young priest used to tell the story of a fellow rector who checked in to a mental hospital for Easter Week nearly every year. I, myself, share openly that when Jesus emerges from the tomb on Easter mornin…
  • Giving our Church to our Children for Easter
    My earliest church memory is from Easter 1960: I sang in the Cherubs’ choir at both the 9:00 am and 11:00 am services at William Street Methodist Church in Delaware, Ohio. I remember distinctly the musty smell of the basement room where moms hand…
  • A Taste of Heaven
    Easter dinner doesn’t normally make me feel holy. Happy? Yes. Full to the brim with succulent ham, dumplings, green beans and three-layer chocolate cake? Yes, definitely. But holy? Not so much. That normally happens during the triumph…
  • Don't Try This At Home
    It’s probably the most successful example of reverse psychology that’s out there - “Whatever you do, please don’t try this at home.” The effect is instantaneous. Mild-mannered souls become daredevils; otherwise sane folk start working out…
  • Where are the Young Adults?
    Maybe it was the lemon cake, but by the end of Friday’s dinner at Julian House in Chicago the constant hand wringing about young adults and the future of the Episcopal Church seemed a distant memory. Where are young adults in the Episcopal Church? …
  • Soul Food Pyramid
    Have you had 6-8 servings of sacred story? What about the recommended monthly 2-4 servings of Christian action?  The Soul Food Pyramid outlines what is needed for a healthy, balanced spiritual diet.  Developed by the folks at St. Patrick’…
  • RX: A Circumcision of the Heart
    The March 18 lectionary reading from the letter to the Hebrews invites us to remember that the Word of God is living and active rather than a flat script on a page. However, the image of a two-edged sword piercing and dividing does not bring an ini…
  • Fighting the Good Fight with Curriculum
    The Apostle Paul compares the Christian life to a race; in 1st Corinthians he says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” The word curriculum comes from the Latin verb currere, which means, “to …
  • Saintly Smackdown
    How are you doing in your brackets so far? As much as I appreciate basketball (I did grow up in Kentucky after all), I’m not talking about college hoops here. I'm wondering how folks are doing with the slightly more spiritual bracket of Len…
  • For Lent: Downward Mobility
    The first Sunday in Lent has the same gospel story every year. Told in versions by Matthew, Mark and Luke, the forty-day temptation of Christ in the wilderness begins our own forty days of wandering. Each year on this Sunday, I remember my teacher …
  • In God's Time
    When the social worker called my sister and her brother-in-law 2 ½ years ago, she needed an emergency foster care placement for two children. My sister and her husband had just entered into the foster-to-adopt program in the state of Kentucky.…
  • Fat Tuesday
    The Church instituted Ash Wednesday and the people responded with Mardi Gras. The church established All Saints Day and the people offered up Halloween. Easter is the church’s highest holy day but the people love Christmas even more. Who’s in c…
  • A Lenten Carbon Fast
    With Ash Wednesday quickly approaching, I’m giving a lot of thought to what this year’s Lenten discipline will be. I’ve never been one to give up a particular food or drink; I lean towards clearing clutter out of my life to make room for grea…
  • Lenten Blessings
    Lent is fast approaching. Often, I am amazed by how quickly time passes…less than two weeks left until Ash Wednesday. This year we decided to try something new. Episcopal Relief & Development has usually had a single author for the Lenten d…
  • Bringing our Bodies to Church
    On a December night in 1996, a drunk driver swerved into my mother’s lane and crashed into us head on. I was 14, in the passenger’s seat, and immediately felt a white hot bolt of pain shoot through my lower back. Thanks to God and my mother’s…
  • The Proper Distance?
    A few weeks after my husband proposed, we shared dinner with his great-aunt and uncle, who is a United Methodist minister. They offered us various pieces of advice about marriage and life in ministry. Then the great-aunt turned to me: “Make…
  • A Tapestry of Ministries
    It was a week of snow, ice, wind, and rain. Numerous flight cancellations and airport closures laid havoc across the country. Add to this job layoffs, pay cuts, and budget struggles. Not to mention planning for Lent and preparing a Sunday sermon. …
  • Episcopal Foodies Network
    When I think of food and the Episcopal Church, I believe we’re much more than just wine and cheese. Within just the past few months I’ve come across:  John Hornbeck’s work with Episcopal Community Services in the Dioceses of Kansas & W…
  • Insights from Improv
    Last Saturday I went to a birthday party for a friend. After the food, socializing, and a round of charades, a young adult taught us improv comedy games. Most of us had never done improv before, but Patrick guided us in a firm and fun-loving manner…
  • The Postmodern Turn
    It is everywhere. The term Postmodernism is in the water these days. It is has been appropriated by a new generation of evangelical theologians who have embraced it as strongly as progressive theologians latched on to Liberation Theology 30-40 yea…
  • A Religion Born in a Barn
    In the 1980s, the Minnesota Ad Campaign of Episcopal Church made quite a splash with a series of funny print advertisements, some of which contained pretty good zingers. A few I remember: “Will it take six strong men to get you back into churc…
  • God’s Light Precedes our Light
    One sunny summer day as a young boy I experienced a miracle. I was holding a small magnifying lens, examining a flower petal. Suddenly the flower leapt on fire. I was shocked! In a profoundly simple way, I witnessed the power of captured light: eno…
  • Christmas Christians
    My congregation has had to learn to put up with the fact that I am more a Christmas than an Easter Christian. I embrace this holy day whose message is that God so loved the world that God sent a son born of Mary in a manger, whose love embraced…
  • How not to win friends and impress visitors
    Visitor frenzy kicks in high gear over the next two weeks, as newcomers and rarely-seen-ers attend Christmas services.  Welcoming visitors is a ministry -- and not everyone has the gift. Consider these true -- but don’t-try-this-at-home…
  • Bringing Bethlehem Alive….
    Christians around the world can deepen their understandings of Jesus' birth – and the current context of Bethlehem and the Middle East – by making direct connections with Holy Land communities in Advent, Christmastide and year-round. Two quick …
  • Jesus and Santa
    Playing Santa helps me understand Jesus a little better. This isn't a debate about the commercialization of Christmas or whether we’ve spoiled our kids beyond all hope.And I know there’s so much more to my relationship with Christ than un…
  • Child's Eye View of Church
    We are one of the lucky Episcopal Churches to be blessed with an abundance of children. So far this fall over 150 kids have visited our Sunday School. This means we find 100 roles for children in our Annual Christmas pageant. The buzz around th…
  • St. Nicholas: Connecting the Past and the Present
    St. Nicholas stopped by our church last night. Although today is the feast day for the bishop, our church celebrated his vigil on Sunday evening with crafts, cookie decorating and lots of young kids squealing and chasing each other around the t…
  • Advent Calendars
    Last night I addressed the Advent calendars:One to each of our daughters, one to Bill’s aunt, and the last to Bill’s father.    Sending Advent calendars is my way of sharing Advent with people I love - who, due to distance, I do not see oft…
  • BreakingTradition
    I broke with tradition last night. Normally the tree decorating ends in tears – mostly mine. See, I like my tree to be just so. The artificial limbs spread out in an appealing fan, the favorite ornaments occupying the prime real estate. …
  • Open My Lips, O Lord
    I complain. I hate to admit it, but I do. Not all the time – I don’t think that people who know me would see it as a primary characteristic. But I do it more than I’d like to admit, and more than is healthy for my mind and spirit.
  • Responding to THE Call
    I had someone come into my office and share that they wanted to become a priest. This will be the fourth time that as rector I have responded to such a conversation by pulling together a formal discernment group. They will meet over nine months …
  • Meager Harvest
    In the second installment of his Fieldwork contribution, farmer Paul Clever reflects on The Good Earth Farm’s meager harvest: “It is easy gathering in abundant fields swollen with pride. Your hands fill bags upon bags, knowing that not only wil…
  • A Thanksgiving Feast - The Religious Kind
    Episcopalians corner the market on Thanksgiving. Sure, everyone across the United States celebrates Thanksgiving in some way, from cranberries and turkey dinners to lazy afternoons watching football and parades to studious planning of Black F…
  • It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas . . .
    I remember the day I was flying home from the east coast on Halloween and as I was getting off the plane I heard on the muzak the first Christmas carol of the season. Living with a retailer (my wife runs the Cathedral Shop at St. Mark’s Cathed…
  • Busybodies or Workers?
    I’ve been thinking a lot about “work” lately. The value of work, types of work, and how people work. St. Paul got me thinking even more last weekend with his letter to the Thessalonians. Bluntly put: if you won’t work, you shouldn’t eat. …
  • Back to basics
    The first semester of our experiment ends tonight. My church is a typical county-seat congregation in the foothills of Appalachia. If only Christmas Eve were our typical attendance on Sunday mornings, we’d be a packed 150. Instead, most Sun…
  • The Scarlet Cord: Conversations with God’s Chosen Women
    (Editor’s note: today’s blog is courtesy of Lindsay Hardin Freeman, former Vestry Papers editor.) What would have happened if Mary had said no to the angel Gabriel? What if there was no one to meet Jesus in the garden following the resurrect…
  • Top 10 Things Religious Leaders Say about Happiness
    Checking my email on this cool rainy morning, this headline stood out: “Top 10 Things Religious Leaders Say about Happiness” published on The Huffington Post. I clicked through not quite knowing what to expect. 
  • You Get What You Pay For
    Christian Formation when it is done right costs money. The money makes the commitment to education stronger; where your treasure is there will your heart (and head) be also.
  • Saints Alive
    Faye laundered money. Literally. At the small, rural church, she collected the offering at the end of the service and hid it in her clothes hamper until she could make it to the bank. We discovered the occasions when she washed the purse wi…
  • Add Your Two Cents: Christian Formation Survey
    From time to time, in conjunction with my ministry at Morehouse Education Resources (a division of Church Publishing Incorporated) I conduct a curriculum survey to get a pulse of what churches are using with children, youth and adults. It is helpfu…
  • Hollow me out
    When he didn’t win the pumpkin contest, I felt the tears sting. For most of Saturday, we worked on Cinderella’s coach, pulling the slime out of the pumpkin, carving windows, fashioning a door (that really opened!) and decorating the coach as…
  • GodSquad met at our house.
    The church van picked up the dozen or so students from the elementary school and brought them to our backyard, the kids starving for mid-afternoon snacks and a place to run off their energy.    After several tries to settle the group, we starte…