By Greta Kelly

    Before I came home to Christ in college, I spent my childhood building a house in the humanities. Fortunately I’m blessed by parents who nurtured my artistic interests. They gifted me oil pastels which I used to draw the messiest, most colorful animals I could manage. I received a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein for my seventh birthday, inspiring pages of my own silly rhymes. They enrolled me in Irish dance lessons which I continued for ten years, and even now Celtic music runs in my blood. I sang in choir, took guitar lessons, tried my hand at photography, painting, cello… if you could take Martha out of the kitchen and put her in a studio, that was me.
    Unfortunately, the studio proved to be a shaky house. Over time, I quit a lot of my hobbies because there was no more joy, only comparison. My drawings lacked dimension, my rhymes sounded childish, I plateaued in dance. If I wasn’t any good, no, if I wasn’t the best, what was the point? So I stuck to reading, and studying, and I found Christ along the way. In the Church, I tried to do everything right. Go to Bible study, serve on Sundays, do daily devotionals, say my nightly prayers, and so on. I found myself exhausted, disdaining my role as hospitality lead as I prepared communion bread in the kitchen— Martha made her way back.
    Worn out and bitter is how I showed up to Christ Church in 2022. I kept at my same restless habits, not knowing what to do with myself until we came to our summer sermon series on Exodus a year later. In the midst of all the Israelite’s failures, we stopped to discuss beauty. Father Scott preached on Bezalel and Oholiab, describing how they were filled with the Spirit of God, how they used their talents to create the Tabernacle, and how it was a gloriously beautiful work of art. A fitting place for the glory of God to dwell. He tied this holy work of beauty to our own set up and worship at Christ Church which got me thinking that perhaps my own art could be worshipful. 
    I sat with the images from Exodus, dreaming of deep blues, reds, and golds. I imagined the pomegranates, almond flowers, and bells outlining the priestly garments as well as the Garden they harken back to. I saw the image of busy songbirds pausing their flight to rest in the trees, and I started painting. My summer evenings melted away until a few weeks later my tabernacle bird was finished. I had to laugh when I realized how God brought me full circle, creating colorful animals! 
    But more important than painting, I had come to rest at the feet of Jesus. I didn’t create for anyone but the Lord, and for once, I didn’t care what anyone else thought of the product because I knew it was good for my soul. I have since taken up painting and other childhood passions as forms of prayer. My hope now is to set aside a space in the Church where others can create worshipfully. A space where the people of God can rest or wrestle with ideas, and where we can point each other to the glory of Christ by giving our beautiful gifts back to God.

    As the old anglicanism goes, matter matters. Our worship is already deeply informed by beauty and art, from the hand crafted cross that presides over each service to the melodies poured out by our musicians. Our setup team and Sacristan follow the way of Bezalel as they resurrect our space each Sunday. And God Himself is the artist, the Creator who formed the whole of the earth and all therein. Not only this, but He was gracious enough to grant us dominion in His image so that we might also take part in the shaping of and caring for creation. Art, and even more broadly craft, is a way in which we can image our divine Creator, worship Him, and offer up His good gifts.
     Art is also formational and missional. As anyone who participates in our Easter Vigil can attest, worshipful art becomes a seasonal discipline that forms the maker as much as the maker forms it. And even more beautifully, the sharing of that art can be a grand witness to the glory of God. Vigil is our biggest service of the year for a reason: culture allows those outside of the church to enter in, to see, converse, question, and store up. What a beautiful way to witness the Gospel story for the first time! 
    Ultimately, art has always had a place in the Church as evidenced by the Creation story in Genesis and the building of the Tabernacle in Exodus. Until recent history, the Church has been a center for art and culture, producing Bach’s organ music, the Sistine Chapel, Eastern Iconography, and the list goes on. In his letter to artists (1999), Pope John Paul II writes that the Church needs art. She needs artists, musicians, and architects to make the message of Christ, the invisible world of the Spirit, perceptible. Christian artists can and should be using their gifts!

    While Vigil is a wonderful first step in artful worship, participation is necessarily limited. We want to create more artistic opportunities across a wider breadth of media for those who are unable to participate during Holy Week. Do you write poetry? Do you paint? Do you dance, decorate cakes, sew, or whittle? Would you like to apply your gifting to a liturgical theme and share your work?
    We will be hosting a liturgical gallery night themed around the Three Great Feasts (Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday) on Saturday, June 13th. Anyone in the church is eligible to submit a piece, including children. The event will involve a soft start children’s viewing for our artists with early bedtimes, followed by a time to view other art installations, and closing with performed art like music, poetry, and dance.

   Participation involves choosing one feast to meditate on and create around. The gallery will have a section for each feast (see creative prompts below). If you are interested, we are asking for general idea submissions like a brief sketch or explanation of the piece you’re envisioning, and one or two examples of similar work you have done. 
    Submissions will be reviewed anonymously by an art board, and any vetting process will depend on the number of submissions we receive along with a general eye on keeping the event family appropriate and theologically sound.
    Please note that we will have a limited number of spots given time and space constraints (aiming for twenty visual artists and ten performers). If you are creating/performing, please also be prepared to provide anything needed for display like a frame, vase, or easel.
    If you want to get involved, but aren’t sure how, we will have a congregation-made installation involving origami. Come to our folding party (Date TBD)! We will also recruit volunteers closer to the event.

2/18 – General submissions due
early spring – Vetting process
5/1 – Progress check ins/final edit conversations
5/17 – Final pieces and artist statements submitted for bulletin printing
6/13 – Gallery Night!

Tell us a little bit about your backgrounds.

I grew up in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, PA, raised in a small Catholic church as the youngest of three. I headed south to Florida for undergrad, finishing at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, FL. It was here that encountering God’s love for me as his beloved son changed the trajectory of my life. I moved to the west suburbs of Chicago to study counseling at Wheaton College, where I met Susie, as neighbors and co-baristas, who is now the one I enjoy making coffee for every morning as my wife. Susie grew up as a pastor's kid in west Michigan and attended Wheaton for undergrad. She said that she always knew her life would be about the local church but didn't know what form that would take. While engaged, we began discerning a call to pastoral ministry. This led us to Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, AL, both enrolling in classes together in 2022, and now having just graduated this past month! Along the way, we welcomed our son, Levi, in the Fall of 2023, and are so grateful for all God has done here over the past four years!

How did you hear about Christ Church Madison?

Christ Church was one of the first churches we knew of that was live streaming services when covid shutdowns began. Susie had known about Christ Church since the beginning (her sister and Marissa are close friends/were college roommates!) and she invited me to watch the Easter livestream service when we were dating. It was in my final semester at Wheaton, when I began praying about a call to pastoral ministry. Worshipping with y’all through the livestream, as Scott was jamming on the banjo, I thought I could see myself doing something similar someday (even if it never involves a banjo). A vision for pastoral ministry was slowly being kindled in surprising ways. Scott has been a pastor from afar to us over the years and we have been so encouraged by how Jesus is building his church and calling others home in Madison!

What are you looking forward to moving up here?

It has been amazing to hear about (and witness when we have gotten the chance to visit) all God is doing in and through Christ Church, as we resonate with the vision of building a house of communion, formation, and mission. We look forward to learning from and serving alongside y'all. We are also excited to be back in the midwest (ask us how we feel about this come February) and to explore Madison and the surrounding areas, as we chase around our son. We are eager for a season with less homework and more time to connect with people, and the opportunity to continue establishing family rhythms and culture as we build a home together.

What are some things you love doing?

A few things Daniel enjoys are running, fly fishing, coffee, and family hikes with Susie and Levi. Susie enjoys morning sunshine, opportunities for artistic learning and expression (from arranging wildflowers to pottery), and good coffee & conversation with a friend. We both love hosting, family dance parties, reading novels, and time to linger with those we love.

We are thrilled to finally invite our people into the rite of Confirmation. From now on, it will be an integral part of the membership process at Christ Church Madison. Confirmation is something that all apostolic traditions practice, and yet it is new or confusing for many of us. To that end, I'd like to help us answer four major questions:
1) Where does Confirmation come from?
2) What actually happens in the service?
3) What is its purpose?
4) What role does it play in joining Christ Church?

I. THE BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL BASIS FOR CONFIRMATION

The roots of confirmation are found in Holy Scripture, particularly in the tradition of the laying on of hands. In the Old Testament, the laying on of hands was a special act that set apart leaders and ministers for special service unto the Lord, and symbolized the bestowing of unique blessing or spiritual gifting. For example, priests received the laying on of hands when they were ordained for ministry, as well as any sacrificial animals that were to be offered up in worship (Numbers 8:10-13). Moses did the same thing for Joshua when he was set apart to be his successor, that he might be filled with the Spirit of wisdom and authority to accomplish his task (Numbers 27:18-23).

When we get to the New Testament, we find that this special practice continued on in the Church that Jesus commissioned, except that it wasn’t just leaders who received the laying on hands, but all Christians—to the shock of the disciples, Jesus even laid hands on children (Mark 10:16)! In the book of Acts, everyone who repented and believed in the Gospel was invited to be baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, and they all received the laying on hands (Acts 8:14-17; 19:6). While Acts records multiple stories of how this happened in different ways, what is clear is that the laying on of hands was intimately connected to Baptism and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, for setting apart and gifting someone for life in Christ.

The Apostle Paul gives us a deeper look into how this functioned in one of his letters to the young pastor, Timothy. As Paul is encouraging him to grow into who God has called him to be, he says in 2 Tim. 1:6-7: “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”  In this passage all these themes come together: Timothy had received a special spiritual gift in the laying on of hands, and Paul is praying that he would fan that gift into flame.

The historic Christian rite of Confirmation grew out of this rich biblical soil. Though it has been developed in different traditions in different ways, in all of them it involves a baptized Christian receiving the laying on of hands from an elder in the Church, that the gifts of the Spirit might be inflamed within them for the work of ministry.

II. WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN CONFIRMATION

The actual service of Confirmation is quite simple and involves two special components. First, the confirmands come before the bishop, and publicly confess their faith in Christ and their commitment to follow him as Lord. This is done by renewing the vows made at baptism, which are all about turning from the world, the flesh, and the devil (repentance) and turning towards Jesus and his ways (faith). If you want to read the liturgy and these vows, you can find them here, and on p. 177 in the 2019 Book of Common Prayer.

The second part of the Confirmation service is what we have examined in Scripture. The confirmand comes before a bishop to receive the laying on of hands, and the bishop prays that the Holy Spirit would be strengthened and fanned into flame in the Christian, to empower them for life and mission in Christ. It has to be a bishop who lays on hands in Confirmation, because the bishop stands in that apostolic office of the Church that goes all the way back to the first apostles. Because of this, the bishop’s hands are like the Church’s hands, across time and space, being laid on the Christian.

III. THE PURPOSE OF CONFIRMATION

Now that we’ve seen where confirmation comes from and what it is, what is it for? I like professor Alex Fogleman’s summary, that it’s all about maturity and mission.

First, confirmation is a rite of Christian maturity. In its preface to the Confirmation liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer states, “The Anglican Church requires a public and personal profession of faith from every adult believer in Jesus Christ. Confirmation by a bishop is its liturgical expression.” Put simply, Confirmation is a special opportunity for us to confirm our faith in Jesus. For youth, it serves as a special opportunity for them to own the faith for themselves, whether they were baptized as infants, children, or whether they are just coming to faith. For adults, it’s an opportunity for people to say yes to Jesus who are coming back to faith, or who are simply journeying deeper into their faith. For both youth and adults, Confirmation is meant to follow a period of formation in the essentials of the faith, which at Christ Church is our Christian Foundations course for adults, and Youth Confirmation for youth.

Second, Confirmation is a rite of Christian mission. One of the cool things about the Confirmation service is how similar it is to the ordination service for those entering Holy Orders. When I was ordained as a priest, I took priestly vows, and then a bishop laid hands on me and prayed that, like Joshua, the Spirit would equip me to serve in the office of priest faithfully. In a way, Confirmation is like lay ordination, in that it is an opportunity for every Christian to be set apart through the laying on of hands, to be strengthened for the work of ministry in the royal priesthood of God’s people.

IV. CONFIRMATION AND MEMBERSHIP

Finally, confirmation is a part of our membership process. This is not unique to Christ Church, but has been integral to how full participatory membership has worked in parishes around the world for centuries. Simply put, we want all our leaders and members to have walked through the beautiful process of being baptized into Christ and publicly confirmed in their faith. So while confirmation is bigger than both our local congregation and Anglicanism more broadly (being confirmed is not just "becoming Anglican"), it is a precious part of our discipleship process.

Whether you are new to Jesus or to Christ Church or just going deeper, we invite you to participate in our Christian Foundations course, and join us on this journey of saying yes to Jesus, and having the Spirit within you fanned into flame.

Fr. Scott
Lent 2025

Greetings brothers and sisters!

We are excited to officially announce a new course at Christ Church Madison: Christian Foundations. We discussed this briefly at the all-church retreat, and now we have more details about what it is, why we are rolling this out, and how you can sign up.

Christian Foundations is an 8-week course designed to teach the essentials of the Christian faith and introduce our people to the doctrinal and devotional heritage we stand upon in the Church. The course follows in the historic tradition of Christian catechesis, forming disciples through the Holy Scriptures, the Creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. Each week will involve a teaching, discussion questions, and companion readings from the ACNA catechism, To Be A Christian. The topics for the sessions will be:

1. Ancient Paths and Firm Foundations
2. God and the Gospel
3. Scripture and Tradition
4. The Church
5. The Sacraments
6. The Lord's Prayer
7. The Ten Commandments
8. The Royal Priesthood

Everyone. As mentioned above, our desire is that everyone at Christ Church will go through this course, so that our church can share the same foundations of faith. Because of this, we are inviting the whole community to walk through it this year, and are praying for a glorious harvest of baptisms and confirmations in Eastertide. After that, we will offer the course once every Fall and Spring for folks who are seeking to learn more about Jesus or join the Church.

Alongside this, we will be offering our first ever Youth Confirmation course for our teens. The course will involve similar content, working towards baptism or confirmation, but will be its own distinct track. (Parents of teens, more on this to come!)

This first time around, Christian Foundations will be our Soup & Bread curriculum for the Spring. This will allow us all to study the content together in communities and structures that are already in place. We will begin the week of January 20, 2025, when small groups relaunch after Christmas, and we will wrap up the last week of March. Here’s what this practically means:

• If you are already in a Soup & Bread group: You don’t need to do anything! Just get excited to take this journey with your existing group.
• If you are not in a Soup & Bread group: From now until December 8, 2024, you can sign up. At this point, the commitment would just be for the 8 gatherings in the Spring, not necessarily to join a group for all of next year. Groups will meet on several evenings throughout the week, and we also hope to offer a Zoom group for folks who are traveling or for parents who could not be in a traditional Soup & Bread. Click the button below to get going.

During the last week of June, representatives from every diocese of the Anglican Church in North America, and many international guests, gathered at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, PA for Provincial Assembly. It was a long, very full week of meetings, worship services, and opportunities to connect with people from across our denomination. I was privileged to participate as a delegate from our diocese, together with Fr. Kent and Ann Anderson, and several other brothers and sisters from the Upper Midwest. Here are a few things that stood out to me from that time.

Before I got there, a few big meetings had already happened, sharing news that was super encouraging – our province is growing, both in attendance, number of congregations, and income, and has exceeded pre-COVID levels on those metrics. Praise God! Currently, across Canada, the United States, and Mexico, there are 29 dioceses with a total of 1,013 ACNA churches, attended by nearly 85 thousand people on an average Sunday. There were about a thousand people at Provincial Assembly itself, and it was really powerful to hear the roomful of Anglicans praying and singing together!

Every morning of the three days of Assembly, we studied the book of 2 Timothy under the delightful guidance of Rennis Ponniah, retired bishop of the Diocese of Singapore. I was so moved by his gentle spirit and love for God as he led us through these passages and shared stories from his ministry. He encouraged us, as Paul does in the letter, to guard the good deposit entrusted to us by the Lord, pursue holiness, and proclaim the gospel. Bishop Rennis was one of many international visitors – there were at least a dozen Archbishops from different Provinces around the world, including Brazil, Rwanda, and Europe. The Anglican Communion is the largest Protestant denomination in the world, and the ACNA is just one small region (Province) of it. 

Sally Breedlove and Rev. Sue Currie, leaders of Selah (an Anglican spiritual direction training certificate), encouraged us to follow Jesus’ example of withdrawing into solitude to pray and connect with God, not as a means of hiding from the world or ministry, but as a recentering for clarity and calling. Rev. John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center, called on the church not to shrink away from hard things, but rather to bring the clarity and truth of the gospel in the midst of cultural confusion and bad ideas.

There were so many breakouts to choose from, and I’m sure many wonderful things coming out of all of them. I chose to go with ones that aligned with my new focus on Missions this year. The Matthew 25 Initiative is our denomination’s justice and mercy-oriented network, and in the session, we heard from a panel of several leaders from across the ACNA who are contending for Shalom in their contexts. It was inspiring to hear their stories of how the Lord guided them to see and serve their neighbors. The Global Missions Initiative recently put together a six-week course on Missions, which I’m excited to explore for Christ Church. I also connected with Isaiah 40, a ministry that provides counseling, healing prayer, coaching, and teaching focused on healing and wholeness.

Archbishop Foley Beach gave an address describing the four areas of his leadership over the last ten years (two terms) in office. It was helpful for me to understand a little bit more what it is that an Archbishop does! These included (1) leading the College of Bishops (that’s what we call the collective of all the bishops in our Province; it’s not a training school!), (2) Provincial matters (like developing our Book of Common Prayer and Catechism), (3) ecumenical engagement and (4) international connections. These are things that will shift into the hands of now-Archbishop Steve Wood. We got to hear the testimonies of Archbishop Steve and his wife Jackie on Friday morning, including how a tragic fire destroyed their church building several years ago, and Archbishop Steve nearly died from COVID. He preached during the closing Eucharist, focusing on the Comfortable Words (which follow the Absolution in our worship liturgy) as conveying the fundamentals of our faith. At the end of that service was the official transfer of spiritual authority, and Bishop Steve Wood began his five-year term as the Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America. You can learn more about ++Steve here.

On an emotional level, I came away from Provincial Assembly encouraged and excited to continue serving this church. I was so pleasantly surprised by the overall warm reception of our bishop and our team, in the midst of the challenges of his trial process. I got to meet some really cool people, including some of my seminary professors and classmates whom I’ve only connected with online, and I hope those relationships bear fruit in the future. I was blessed to be among so many Anglican brothers and sisters from around the world, and to feel part of something bigger than just our congregation or diocese. At the same time, after encountering other expressions of Anglicanism, I am so thankful to be part of our Upper Midwest diocesan family!

I want to encourage you to take advantage of opportunities to get together with our broader Anglican community. Come and see what we’re part of! Our diocese has an annual get-together called Revive on October 25-26, 2024, Friday evening through Saturday late afternoon. We’d love to have a contingent of Christ Church folks take a road trip down for that. It’s totally worth it!

If you attend our church and recently journeyed with us through Holy Week, you may have noticed that on Palm Sunday we suddenly had this new, gorgeously built cross. This is the story of where that new cross came from and how it was built.

The Gift of a New Cross
Every year on our church birthday (All Saints' Sunday) we have given the congregation a gift. This past November was our 5th birthday, and in line with the (completely non-spiritual) tradition of giving wooden gifts on 5th anniversaries, we thought it would be amazing to bless our church with a new cross, as our old one was on its last leg. In our Anglican tradition, it is essential that a wooden cross stand in the center of our sacred space of worship, symbolizing the centrality of Jesus' Cross to everything we do and believe. Thus, we saw this as an opportunity to not just throw something together, but to invest in something beautiful, using the gifts that God has distributed in our congregation.

Angel, Ian, and Kent: Our Very Own Bezalels and Oholiabs
Last year we studied in Exodus how God set apart two guys named Bezalel and Oholiab from the people of Israel, and "filled [them] with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts" (Exodus 31:3-5). Praise God He is still filling people with His Spirit to be ministers of craftsmanship, for glory and for beauty. In our situation, this was Angel Gaytan, Ian Rundquist, and Kent McDonell.

From dreaming up its design, to gathering all the right materials, to spending countless hours in the shop solving problems and bringing the project together, Angel, Ian, and Kent built our cross as a labor of love. Here is what Ian said about its construction and meaning:

The cross and base stand over 8' tall, and the arms are approximately 4' wide. We designed it to be constructed of numerous pieces of wood glued together into panels, and then those panels are glued together to form the square of the upright and the cross arms. The base is made of four panels as well that are glued individually together and then tapered and mitered to form the corners of a pyramid, with the top of the pyramid crowned by a mitered walnut frame. Inside of this pyramid is a steel plate upon which everything rests. At the center of this plate is a welded and plywood-wrapped steel post which we are able to insert into the hollow cross bottom allowing the cross to rest firmly on the plywood with the steel reaching up 18" (one cubit) into the cross to keep in place without any fear of tipping.

There are a number of different things that we wanted to think about while constructing this cross, and I don't want to over symbolize something that is in and of itself a symbol of God's divine love and power and thereby distract from it's true purpose, but there are some things that I like to think about and ponder while looking at this cross. Firstly, you'll notice that the side panels are made up of three wider boards reminding us of the tri-unity of God, and from the front you see that there are seven pieces reminding us of the completeness of God's creation and salvific work and his perfection.

As far as the pyramid goes, obviously that shape and image are reflective of the Egyptians. I like to think about the Cross as conquering those ancient oppressors of Israel and that example of the power of God over the Egyptians in Exodus pointing towards Christ's work in the same manner as the pyramid base might visually draw one's eyes upwards towards the foot of the cross above it. If one were to look at the base before the cross rests on it, one might only see the oppression of the egyptians (i.e. the pyramid), and yet, God is there (the steel post) awaiting the cross which in due course will be set upon that foundation of that first salvific work.

The majority of this cross is built out of Maple, which is the state tree of Wisconsin, and yet there is poplar, and walnut, and red oak, and white oak, a beautiful myriad of species and colors that makes up the cross in the same manner as the wide diversity of the people of God who are all united together in his church. I believe that I can speak for Kent and Angel that our hope is that when you look at this cross you will not see any one of us, nor will you see our craftsmanship or our handiwork but you will see the Christ, who died not on a smoothly sanded and finished glossy work of art but upon a brutal rough-hewn tree. May we rejoice that the object and symbol of torture and brutal Roman power has been flipped on its head to symbolize the incomparable, beautiful, overwhelming, never ending love of God.

Carrying the Cross and Laying it Down
The team worked hard to finish the cross by Holy Week, and in a meaningful conclusion to the whole process, Ian and Angel were able to process it on Good Friday and lay it down for the whole community. How amazing that what was only an idea on paper months before, became at that moment the means through which Jesus ministered to hundreds of us at the Veneration of the Cross. May God continue to fill us with His Spirit, and may the ministry of craftsmanship abound more and more, for glory and for beauty.

Scott+
Eastertide 2024

Hello brothers and sisters!

As many of you know, we are currently working our way through the book of 1 Thessalonians on Sunday mornings, and this past week I preached on Paul’s stunning teaching concerning the Second Coming of Christ in 4:13-5:11. One of the things we considered in 4:13-17 is how Jesus, by his Cross and Resurrection, has transformed death into sleep for his followers and that at his Second Coming “the dead in Christ will rise” (4:16). This word encourages us and teaches us “not to grieve as others do who have no hope” (4:13).

And yet, Paul’s language of “sleep” raises other questions. For instance, are the saints who have “fallen asleep” in a state of unconsciousness until the final resurrection? What about the thief on the cross, to whom Jesus said, “today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43)? For better or worse, I did not go into this in my sermon. But I have since had several of you ask me about this, so I figure it might be helpful to (briefly!) offer a bit more biblical clarity in response to these important questions.

While so much remains a mystery this side of heaven, the Bible repeatedly affirms two things:

First, Scripture teaches that all who die in the Lord are “asleep in Christ”, awaiting the final resurrection of the body. This is what Paul is speaking into in 1 Thessalonians 4. He also uses this same language about sleep and the final resurrection of the body in 1 Corinthians 15:16-23:

The idea here is the same as what we thought about on Sunday. Christians do not believe that the body is lost forever, but that, like Christ, our bodies are seeds that at death are sown into the ground, waiting to be raised, or “awoken” at the return of Christ. Jesus’ own Resurrection is our great example (the “first fruits”, or the “first to wake up”) of what will one day happen to all our bodies. This bodily resurrection is central to Christian hope, and we await it with eager anticipation.

Second, Scripture teaches that all who who die in Jesus go to be “with the Lord.” While Paul is clear that all the saints await the final resurrection of the body, he is also clear that those who have died enjoy precious spiritual fellowship with Jesus in between death and resurrection. This is where the thief on the cross comes in. It is also why we do not believe in “soul sleep”, which is the idea that at death we go completely unconscious or spiritually dormant (this is taught by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists).

Consider Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8: "So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Paul understood that though death would mean a temporary separation from the body (being “away from the body”), it would mean being “at home” with the Lord. He reaffirms this in Philippians 1:21-23: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain… I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” 

On top of this, the Bible teaches that the departed saints join “the great cloud of witnesses” and “the assembly of the firstborn” in heaven (Hebrews 12:1,23). This is what we thought about on All Saints’ Sunday in the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. The faithful departed go from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant. We get glimpses in Revelation of the departed saints who are, even now, worshipping with all the host of heaven and pleading before the throne God (Revelation 4:4, 10, 11; 5:8-10; 13; 6:9-11; 7:9-12). As we discussed, we join with them in worship every Sunday, and we await with them the same bodily resurrection and final judgment, crying out from both sides of earth and heaven: “how long, O Lord?” 

To conclude, in Christian theology, and more practically, as we stand over our loved ones’ graves, the Bible teaches us to cling to these two comforting realities at the same time. On the one hand, those who die in Christ go to be “at home with the Lord.” They are enrolled in the assembly of the Church Triumphant and get to wash their robes white in the blood of the Lamb, resting from their earthly labors in God’s presence. Yet, on the other hand, we do not believe in a dis-embodied eternity. Rather, we believe our bodies will rest in sleep after death, just as Christ rested in death on Holy Saturday. And thus we groan with all Creation in eager anticipation for that Day when the trumpet will sound, the perishable seeds of our bodies will be raised imperishable, the children of God will be revealed with the New Heavens and the New Earth, “and we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

Scott+

Our church follows a daily Bible reading plan called the Lectionary. You can find it starting on p. 738 in the Book of Common Prayer (2019), and in the Bible portion of our App. We just finished 2 Kings, and had a shift in the Old Testament reading – we’re starting to read from the Apocrypha. If you’re thinking “Hold up a second, Kaitlyn… the Apocrypha?! Why is that in the Lectionary, alongside the actual Bible?” I’d like to introduce you to what the Apocrypha is, what it is not, and how to engage with it as it comes up in the Lectionary and elsewhere.

What the Apocrypha IS
Our Catechism says:
"The fourteen books of the Apocrypha, historically acknowledged by [the Anglican] church, are pre-Christian Jewish writings that provide background for the New Testament and are included in many editions of the Bible. They may be read as examples of faithful living but “not to establish any doctrine.” (Articles of Religion, 6) 

The various writings of the Apocrypha come from the 400-year period between the Old and New Testaments. The earliest manuscripts are from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament put together in the 2nd-3rd century BC, and widely used by Jews during the time of Jesus and the early church. St. Jerome (a Bible scholar in the 3rd/4th century AD) said the books of the Apocrypha were worth reading, but not authoritative Scripture, mostly because they were not included in the Hebrew canon. During the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church firmly included the Apocrypha (what they call the Deuterocanon) within the canon of Scripture. Some reformers threw the Apocrypha out completely, while Luther, Calvin and the Anglican reformers stuck with Jerome’s position.

Our Lectionary contains passages from these books of the Apocrypha:

• Judith – a dramatic story of a Jewish widow who seduces and beheads an Assyrian general (Holofernes) to save her town from invasion.
• Ecclesiasticus, aka. Jesus the Son of Sirach, or Ben Sira – a collection of wisdom sayings and poems with ethical teaching, which resembles the book of Proverbs.
• Wisdom, aka the Wisdom of Solomon – also similar to Proverbs, depicting Wisdom (called “she” throughout the book) as an attribute of God.
• Baruch – attributed to the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, and includes the Epistle of Jeremiah at the end, which is sometimes separated out as its own book.
• Susanna – a prologue to the book of Daniel in which a young Hebrew woman is spied on and then blackmailed by two elders, and Daniel intervenes to get to the bottom of what actually happened.
• 1 & 2 Maccabees – historical accounts of the cultural, religious and political struggle in Judea during the 2nd century BC.

There are a few others books listed in the 39 Articles that aren’t included in the Lectionary:

• 3 & 4 Esdras, aka 3 & 4 Ezra; 1 & 2 Ezra are the canonical books of Ezra & Nehemiah
• Tobias, aka Tobit
• A longer ending of the Book of Esther 
• Additions to Daniel:
  • The Song of the Three Children, aka The Prayer of Azariah
  • Of Bel and the Dragon 
• The Prayer of Manasses, also spelled Manasseh

 
What the Apocrypha IS NOT
First and foremost, the Apocrypha is not inspired Scripture. Second, it is not a catch-all term for all other Jewish and Christian writings that are not Scripture. There are a lot of ancient Jewish religious texts that are not included in the Apocrypha (e.g the book of Enoch). There are also a ton of writings by early Christians, including the Apostolic Fathers which our staff team is reading right now. You may have also heard about Gnostic texts, such as the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas, which claim to have additional information about the life and teachings of Jesus and his apostles. All that to say, not all ancient Bible-adjacent texts are part of the Apocrypha.

How to engage the Apocrypha
The 66 books of the Bible contain all things necessary for salvation, and establish the guardrails of our faith. Full stop. That is a core Reformed Catholic belief, and so we don’t claim the Apocrypha has the same status as Scripture. That said, reading the Apocrypha can be edifying and helpful as long as we lean on our Bible knowledge to keep us within the guardrails. We needn’t be afraid to check out these books. Personally, I’ve especially appreciated the historical context of 1 & 2 Maccabees; they’ve helped me understand what was going on in the time of Jesus, especially all the power dynamics and Messianic expectations. I also enjoy the story of Judith because she’s an incredibly courageous and clever woman.

To end on a practical note, since the Bible translations available in our App don’t include the books of the Apocrypha, there will be gaps in the reading plan there, so you’ll need to find those passages elsewhere if you’d like to read them. Also, if you prefer not to read the Apocrypha, and replace it with other Old Testament readings, that’s totally fine. “All may, some should, none must”, as we like to say.

You can access the Apocrypha in a few different ways. Anglican Liturgy Press recently published an ESV Bible with the Apocrypha in the back. Various editions of the Apocrypha alone have also been published. If you’re curious how others at Christ Church are experiencing the Lectionary, check out the Divine Office Lectionary group on our App.

To learn more about reading the Apocrypha from a Protestant perspective, take a look at this series on “Reading and Enjoying the Apocrypha” by the Anglican scholar Stephen Noll. You can also check out this article by a Baptist scholar, which helpfully points out how the Apocrypha has been used and misused throughout history. 

All Saints has always been special at Christ Church Madison, since it was when we officially launched as a church plant back in 2018. To be specific, we celebrate our birthday on All Saints Sunday - the first Sunday after the Feast of All Saints, which is November 1. Over the decade+ that I’ve been Anglican, All Saints has come to be one of my personal favorite feasts of the church (if we’re allowed to have favorites), and it’s also a feast that’s new for a lot of folks who come from non-liturgical backgrounds. What exactly are we celebrating on All Saints?

In the Bible, the Greek word “hagios”, which is translated as “holy” or “saint” means “to be set apart”. Referring the saints as God’s holy people, it’s used a bunch in the Psalms, in the end-time prophecies in Daniel and Revelation, and over 35 times in Paul’s epistles. Here’s one of my favorite examples:

I love this vision of unity and belonging to God’s family, shaped by Jesus Christ, stretching through the generations all the way back to the prophets and apostles, and ever growing. As a missionary kid, I have always had a complicated relationship with the concept of home and heritage. My parents are Americans of Irish and German descent who met as missionaries in the Netherlands before moving to Poland in the late 80’s. My sisters and I were raised with all of those influences, and I’ve never felt like I fully belonged to any one culture or people group.

That is, until I found myself in a liturgical church in college, repeating every Sunday: “I believe in the communion of saints,” and I slowly came to realize that I’m a member of the massive, historic, global household of God. I looked around the sanctuary full of mostly strangers and I thought “These are my people!” When I’ve had opportunities to meet Christians from all over the world, I can wholeheartedly call them my brothers and sisters.

More recently, as I read about 7th century Celtic monastic communities (a recently nerdy kick I’m on) I feel connected to them, even though they’re probably not a part of my biological family tree. I love my living crazy uncles, but I also love my godly (and sometimes crazy) spiritual ancestors like Francis of Assisi, Aidan of Lindisfarne, Ignatius of Loyola, Amy Carmichael, Gladys Aylward and Billy Graham, who set themselves apart from the world around them, and devoted themselves to living for Jesus. I’m much prouder of being a Christian like these spiritual heroes, than of being American like Abraham Lincoln, or Polish like Maria Skłodowska Curie, or even Anglican like C.S. Lewis (though I’m very proud of all of those.)

Being a Christian is the core of my identity, and while the most important part of that is following Jesus Christ day by day, on the Feast of All Saints I celebrate that I’m not on that journey alone. I celebrate Christ Church Madison, where I finally feel at home, together with all of you. I celebrate the rich ancestry of generations of believers who came before me and passed down the faith. And I celebrate the brothers and sisters around the world who help me recognize how the culture around me is influencing my faith. I invite you to join me in this celebration as we near the Feast of All Saints together.

All Hallow's Eve 2023
Dcn. Kaitlyn

You can learn more about the history of All Saints here, and read a meditation on the collect for All Saints here.

Reading the Bible Daily

When I was 18 I started a Bible reading plan that took me through the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice every year. I have tried to stick to that discipline in some shape or form ever since, and I can confidently say no other spiritual practice has been more transformational or consequential in my life. When I began, sometimes my daily reading was explosive and full of consolation, while other times it simply felt like eating the vegetables my mom packed in my lunch. And yet over time, as I ingested the full witness of Scripture over and over, the bizarre thing was that I started to notice something happening to me. My affections began to be changed and re-oriented. My imagination became gradually more sanctified. And above all, my picture of the Lord Jesus began to expand and deepen in living color. Now, having lived off of the daily bread of the Scriptures for so long, I could not stop if I tried. As Peter said, “Where else can I go? Only you have the words of life.”

The Historic Lectionary

Countless Christians throughout the ages have experienced this same thing, which was why it was recommended to me in the first place. And only later in my life did I realize that the Church has provided a common Bible reading plan for the people of God, which we call “the Lectionary.” In fact, during the English Reformation this was one of the chief things that Thomas Cranmer--one of the original architects of the Book of Common Prayer (or BCP)--set out to do. His intent was to create a common lectionary for the English speaking church which could be read morning and evening wherever the people gathered. As he wrote in the preface to the 1549 BCP, his intent was that "the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once in the year...that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) should continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true religion.”

We are inheritors of this tradition. We still have such a lectionary today, and I cannot think of anything so beneficial for Christ Church Madison as incorporating it into our daily life. First, because it allows us to receive the implanted word of God in daily doses. But second, because it allows us to do it together, so that when we are grabbing coffee or bumping into each other around Madison, we can say, “did you read that Psalm this morning?” or “wow…how epic is Ecclesiastes 2!”

Our Lectionary

The lectionary we use is provided in our denomination’s 2019 BCP (learn more about its creation here). If you own a BCP, you can find it in the very back, under the title “Daily Office Lectionary.” If you don’t have one, you can find a free PDF here. The lectionary is divided into two sections, one on the left side of the page, and one on the right. They are both organized according to the calendar year, and both contain a reading from the OT, NT, and the Psalms. One way to do it—the more hardcore way—is to read both sections daily, which would take you through the OT once and the NT twice each year. Another way—the simpler way we have chosen to do it—is to just read one section each day, which takes us through the NT once each year and the OT once every two years. Last year we followed the readings on the right side of the page (titled II), and this year we are following the readings on the left side of the page (titled I). See a picture below.

Our App

But also, thanks to some awesome people in our church, the coolest way to access the readings for the day can be found in our super nifty app! By the way, did you know our church has an app?! Yes we do, and you can learn all about it here. In our app there is a tab at the bottom that says “lectionary,” and if you tap it, and click on “plan,” you can find all the readings for each day that folks from our church have painstakingly entered into the calendar.

All that to say, my hope is that our church might seize these rich tools to feast personally and daily on the Scriptures. These are also the Scriptures that you'll here when you come to Morning Prayer and Evensong. And through it all, may we indeed become “inflamed with the love of true religion."

Fr. Scott
Christmastide 2022

Nearly two years ago now, Fr. Scott shared with me an invitation from our church leaders to discern a calling to the diaconate. As an Anglican church we recognize three ordained orders of ministers in the Church - bishops, priests, and deacons - but Christ Church hasn’t had a deacon yet. After a lot of prayer, conversations with mentors and friends, references, background checks, and taking my ordination exam, I will be ordained as a deacon during our Sunday morning service at Christ Church on December 18th. 

Many denominations have “deacons”, but their role in the life of the church varies widely depending on the tradition. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about what deacons do in our church. At some point in the near future, Fr. Scott, Fr. Kent and I are going to teach about Holy Orders and lay ministry more broadly, but we thought it might be helpful to share a little more about deacons in particular before my ordination.  

Anglican Deacons
A great place to start to try to figure out what Anglicans believe about anything is to look in the Book of Common Prayer - our prayers and liturgies describe what we believe in a really beautiful and concise way. The liturgy for the ordination of a deacon says: It belongs to the office of a Deacon to share in the humility and service of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the strengthening of the Church, which is his body. My elevator pitch is that a deacon is a lifelong servant of the Church whose ministry models the humility and service of Jesus, but can involve a wide variety of things outside the liturgical tasks in the worship service. Here’s the rest of the bishop’s exhortation to the person being ordained as a deacon (i.e. the ordinand):

You are to read the Gospel and proclaim Christ at all times through your service, to instruct both young and old in the Catechism, and, at the direction of the Bishop or Priest, to baptize and preach.

You are to assist the Priest in public worship, to guide the intercessions of the Congregation, to aid in the administration of Holy Communion, and to carry the Sacrament to those who are kept from the Table by illness, infirmity, or imprisonment.

Furthermore, you are to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world. It is the Deacon’s office to encourage and equip the household of God to care for the stranger, to embrace the poor and helpless, and to seek them out, so that they may be relieved. -  Book of Common Prayer (ACNA, 2019), p.477-478

The order in which different aspects of the role are described is important - it reflects how each task flows out of the ones that precede it. Like a multi-tiered fountain, a deacon’s ministry is fueled by the life-giving waters of Christ’s humility and service. Those waters cascade out into the first pool, expressed through the reading and proclamation of the Gospel, then trickle down into another tier of assisting in public worship and administering the Sacrament. Finally, the deacon’s service flows out through spouts and channels into the midst of the specific needs and concerns of the people, in what our diocese loves to call a holy “field ministry”.  The fountain is not just there to be admired, though Lord-willing a deacon’s ministry is a beautiful sight to behold. Rather, the deacon exists to strengthen the Church - the water is there to strengthen the body of Christ as we drink of it.

Like any metaphor, this is an imperfect one, but it helps to illustrate the fact that all the deacon’s tasks will flow out of sharing in Christ’s humility and service, and that the first and most organic expression of that connection is reading the Gospel and proclaiming Christ at all times. Deacons throughout Church history have modeled this gospel-proclaiming lifestyle, each in their unique contexts, and I’d be happy to nerd out about some of my favorite historical deacons over a cup of coffee, if you’re interested. (Get excited about Philip the Evangelist, Athanasius of Alexandria, Irene of Chrysovalantou, Francis of Assisi, and Cuthbert Sympson!)

What’s Changing
Once I’m ordained, the most visible change will be that I’ll start wearing a collar and a robe in worship settings. (If you haven’t read Fr. Scott’s awesome blog post about why he started wearing a robe, you can find it here.) I’ll also take over leading a few liturgical things in our services, which others have been covering so far, including reading the Gospel, leading the Confession, setting the Table for Eucharist, and giving the Dismissal at the end of the service. Basically I’ll be assisting the priest in a more visible way. 
The most significant change, though, is one I can’t really describe to you yet because I doubt I’ll understand it until I’ve been a deacon for a while (and maybe not even then!) As Anglicans, we believe an ontological change (within one’s very being) occurs when the bishop lays his hands on the ordinand and prays for the Holy Spirit to give a special spiritual grace for the life of service ahead. That’s why I prefer to talk in terms of who a deacon is vs. what a deacon does - because it’s not only a calling to lifelong service, it’s a life-altering calling.

What’s Not Changing
I will still be our Ministry Director - nothing in my job description is changing (any more than usual in church plant life), so I’ll continue supporting Fr. Scott in running the day-to-day operations of Christ Church, including administration, communication, volunteer management, and whatever else is needed. I’ll keep praying and dreaming about how we can grow in our life of prayer together as a church through intercession (including Prayers of the People), prayer ministry, silent retreats, and spiritual disciplines. I will continue learning and growing through my online program at Trinity School for Ministry (I’m pursuing a Certificate of Diaconal Studies there). Over the summer I took a class on the history and theology of the diaconate, which was mind-blowing and super exciting. 

If you have any questions about my ordination, or the diaconate in general, please reach out and I’d love to get together for coffee or tea and chat more. When you come to church on December 18th you’ll get to participate in our first ordination service at Christ Church, and just like worship any other Sunday, it’ll be something we all do together. I hope you’ll be able to be there, and I heartily invite your prayers in the meantime! Thank you so much for the outpouring of support and love since we announced my ordination. I look forward to what God has in store for us, Christ Church!  

Grace and Peace,
Kaitlyn

If you want to read more about how we think about deacons, priests and bishops, check out this resource put out by our diocese: “Understanding Holy Orders”.

“Why did you start wearing a robe? Are you going to wear one forever?”

This is a very understandable question that I have been asked recently. Over the last 4 or so years of Christ Church’s life, I never wore a robe. And all of a sudden, this past Holy Week I started wearing an alb (the proper word for a white robe) during Holy Eucharist on Sunday mornings, and I haven't stopped. I know that for those of you who love the beauty of sacramental worship, you may have fist pumped with liturgical excitement. But I also know that for those of you who love Christ Church, but are still uneasy with some of the more formal parts of our Anglican tradition, this may have caused a minor freakout (“Oh no! Not the robe! The collar was already stretching my limits!”). Wearing a robe is not a requirement in our diocese, so why did I start wearing one? There are two main reasons:

A Ministry to the Congregation

The first reason is that I think this is a ministry and gift to you all, our congregation. That might seem weird to say, so let me explain why. The American church is in a profound season of reckoning with the downsides of celebrity pastor culture, and more particularly with the cult of personality in church life, no matter the size of the congregation. There’s nothing wrong with leadership or strong personalities—those are great things. But we are all learning that there is a problem when the church is organized around a personality.

And this is the gift of the priesthood and holy orders. The priesthood is an office, to which a person is called to fill and be faithful. The priesthood is historic and global, and as an office it is bigger than whatever personality fills that office. People come and go as priests, but the office does not. It has endured and will endure as an institution that serves the Body of Christ. In this sense, it’s helpful to think of it like the presidency. Many presidents have come and gone, but the presidency is bigger and more enduring than any president. Our country is therefore structured around the office of the presidency, and not the personalities who fill it temporarily.

By wearing a robe on Sunday morning, my office is being emphasized, and not my personality. Indeed, to an extent, by putting on the robe, the office is covering my personality. This doesn’t mean I—Scott—disappear. But it does mean that in worship it is my role as priest, and my faithfulness to the office of the priesthood that is emphasized, just as a police officer who puts on a uniform comes to represent more than himself or herself.

How is this a ministry to the congregation? Well, a robe is a visual reminder that it is the office of the priesthood that is integral to our parish life of word and sacrament, and not me. It also teaches us that the pastor’s job, along with all those called to holy orders, is to be faithful to the requirements of their office, and not to bend it to themselves. All this is important, because while a personality can never quite be replaced, an office can always be filled again. I am definitely not planning on going anywhere,  but there will come a day that I no longer am the rector in this congregation. And that’s ok, because the office will remain, and another person will fill that role, and look exactly the same in their vestments, and be called to the same faithfulness in word and sacrament. Interestingly enough, this is how the book of Acts opens up, with the community filling a pastoral vacancy: "for it is written in the book of Psalms… ‘let another take his office’" (Acts 1:20).  This is a biblical and beautiful aspect of our apostolic faith that I think—in such a cultural season as this—is wise for us to bake into our church life from the start.

A Ministry to Me

But second, I confess that maybe the biggest reason I started wearing a robe is that it’s been a ministry to me. It may not seem like it, but I have always struggled with stage fright and being in front of people. And this is, as you can imagine, something of an occupational hazard when public preaching is a huge part of your job! But even more, like Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3, this wrestling with stage anxiety has often been an occasion for almost debilitating accusation from the enemy. I love and feel called to be a shepherd and teacher under God, but the struggle has been very real.

And thus, just as God clothes Joshua the priest in pure vestments, it has been an immense blessing for me to put on an alb each week. For one, I feel covered by the Lord. I feel sheltered by Him. But also, it reminds me that I minister out of my baptismal purity and the power of the High Priesthood of the Lord Jesus, who through His suffering has washed my garments clean by His blood. And even more, like a teenager with a weird looking uniform they have to wear to high school, it completely takes away any focus on how I look on Sundays. It’s impossible to look cool in a robe in 2022, and believe it or not, I am really thankful for that. The Church is not in the cool business; we are in the business of stewarding the mysteries of God.

So that’s why I started wearing a robe. Of course there are a lot of other contextual reasons. Like, for instance, I actually didn’t own a robe before this past Holy Week (was a bit slow on the draw on that one). Or it just never felt right in the gym. And there are far more biblical and historical reasons, as we will no doubt study next summer in Exodus when God first commands his priests to be clothed in fine vestments “for beauty and for glory” (Exodus 28:2). But those are the main two, and I hope this explanation helps. After Kaitlyn is ordained as a deacon, we hope to offer more teaching on the foundations of holy orders and how they compliment the priesthood of all believers, as we all minister by, and through, and for Jesus, our Head and High Priest.

In Him,

Scott+

The Age of the Livestream

Over two years ago, we found ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic. At that moment, sheltered in our homes, we are so thankful that God provided our livestream (and our skilled parishioners who helped us set it up) to unite us in worship. I will never forget preaching in a living room in my socks, to a laptop stacked on top of boxes, stacked on top of a stool. I’ll also never forget seeing folks read scripture from their homes, or cramming our musicians in front of the Olsons' fireplace. What a source of joy and ministry the livestream has been over the past two years!

The New Chapter

Now, as we have been able to return to regular, in person worship, we are entering into a new chapter of our church's COVID story. Starting July 3, we will be phasing out the livestream and serving those confined to their homes in a more embodied and eucharistic way.

This is for several reasons. On the one hand, it will ease the strain on our Sunday morning volunteers as folks are out of town over the summer. But the main reason is that as Anglicans, we prioritize in-person ministry where we worship in word & sacrament. The physical, local nature of gathering for worship is not just a preference for us, but rather has been an essential part of Christian practice throughout history and is vital to how we understand the ministry of Jesus. The livestream was a temporal solution to a serious public health crisis, and again, we thank God for it! But for us it was never intended to be normalized, as it can never offer the fullness of sacramental worship. We also fear the ways that livestream culture, like social media, offers the illusion of community while only deepening our isolation.

Now is a great time for us to re-commit ourselves to gathering for public worship—in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day—as the foundational practice of the Christian life. As it says in Hebrews 10:25, "Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

What if I Can’t Make it to Worship?

We totally understand that there are times you can’t make it to church, whether you are ill or are out of town, and we are aware that COVID is here to stay. Here are some recommendations for what to do if you can’t make it to church:

• If you are ill, please stay home. We want you to get well, and we want to love one another by keeping each other healthy and safe! In the place of the livestream we will be providing a simplified Morning Prayer liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer on our website that you can pray through individually or as a household. Even when praying Morning Prayer alone, you are joining in the worship of the entire church. Accompanying this, we will be ramping up our commitment to bring Eucharist to you after church, and to pray with you. This is what the church has done for millennia, and we love how it's more personal, pastoral, and eucharistic. All of these resources will be up on our Sundays web page come July, and the sermon podcast will continue as usual.

• If you are out town, we encourage you to go to a local church! We are not just in communion with our sister churches in our diocese, but we are bound to all faithful believers throughout the world. Thus, getting to worship with a local parish, wherever you are, is a great privilege and encouragement. Last year on our vacation in North Carolina, our family worshipped with two different churches and ended up having meals with families from both. It was a highlight of our trip. Here is where you can look up local ACNA churches if you are elsewhere in the country and specifically want to find an Anglican parish.

We have been through so much together over the past two years, and God has been faithful. Here’s to the next phase of being a tenacious and creative congregation!

Scott+
Pentecost, 2022

P.S. My dream is to put together a blooper/highlight reel from all our content over the past two years. How amazing would that be? Pray, and watch, and wait...and maybe it will come.