The Eagles Fight Song

What it is to be a Christian

A mini statement of religious instruction used during our worship in the Episcopal Church when we baptize new members can act as a mustard seed, upon which to build our faith. The Baptismal Covenant contains five questions regarding how we, as Christians, are called to live out our faith. And where we, as the beloved children of God that we are, can find help. The answer from our worship is: I will, with God’s help. Our help comes from one place and one place only, and that is God. Our Baptismal Covenant concludes with five questions. 1. Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? 2. Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? 3. Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? 4. Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? 5. ...

And so the Spirit Speaks

Earlier today, February 21st, I opened my Daily Office book for an inspiration for me to "share the message" as my Baptist brother calls the role of preaching for our Wednesday morning joint worship event with Oxford Circle Baptist Church; I call it preaching. I opened to the reading for today and found 1 Corinthians 2:1-13, which I've printed a portion of below. After a long day, the reading kept haunting me, as the Scripture is known to do. I opened the Mission St. Claire website and they had published the wrong lesson, 1 Cor 1:1-13, which I have never found them to do before today. So, what was the Spirit trying to convey to me? I think it means that the Spirit wants me to pay extra attention to today's lesson(s.) I have been following posts on the Facebook site of the Third Order Franciscans for years. I have the pleasure of working with a Third Order Franciscan and so I sought out the group. There has been a running discussion over the past few days abou...

Pentecost and Scripture

This Week, the Holy Spirit is offering us an invitation to hear the word of God in a way that we have never heard the word before. My prayer was that the Holy Spirit would open the Bible for me in a way that I could understand the message that God has for me, and for us all. The message of the Bible can be difficult to grasp. The language, at times, seems to come from days long gone by; the context, first living as free people and then united by a monarchy, and then finally overrun by and dominated by an Imperial Army is difficult to say the least. Think for example the life, judgement, punishment, and execution that Jesus suffered at the hands of Imperial authority. Capital punishment was a foreign concept to the Hebrew people, it was something that the Greeks and then Romans did. In Hebrew culture for a capital offender the highest punishment was to banish one from the community and condemning the convicted to live in a sanctuary city, alone, and without any support from their f...

Reflections of an Urban Priest

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