Founders Day 2020 - Rector's Rambling for 7/26/2020

Today we are celebrating Founders’ Day.  We chose the last weekend in July for the celebration because it is a good time to break up the long green-vestment season in the summer, and a nice excuse for an ice cream social.

St. John’s was founded on December 27, 1858, which is the Feast Day of St. John the Evangelist.  But two days after Christmas is a hard time to get people together for a parish celebration of our founding!

Today we are using the first American Book of Common Prayer, from 1789.  Before the American Revolution, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer from the Church of England was in use in those parishes that would become the Episcopal Church after our Independence.  For a while that book continued in use until we put together our own, with clergy crossing out the name of King George and praying for the leaders of our new self-government.

The 1789 Book of Common Prayer was based on the English 1662 BCP, with the Scottish Prayer Book’s Eucharistic Prayer.  The English Book has the prayer invoking the Holy Spirit over the gifts before the words of Jesus “this is my Body”, “this is my Blood”.  This follows the Western Christian (Roman Catholic) form.  The Scottish Church (and our Prayer Book) has it after our Lord’s words, like the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

The use of the Scottish Canon was in thanksgiving for their being willing to share with the new Church in America the apostolic succession to have our own bishops.  The English Church refused at first, but relented when they realized the Scottish were going to help us anyway.  And by the way, if you are a fan of the play Hamilton, it was that same Samuel Seabury in the play who later changed sides and became the first American bishop.

You will notice that although some of the printing/spelling has changed (only one year did I call us miferable finners), and there are a few changes in the ordering of the prayers, overall, the 1789 Book of Common Prayer, up to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, contains prayer that is recognizably Anglican Christian.  And, by God’s grace, St. John’s has not deviated in the prayer and theology of the Church as the Episcopal Church received it from England, which received it from Palestine, were where the first generation of the Church received their teaching from Jesus and his apostles.

Made for Mission - Rector's Rambling for July 19, 2020

Once again I return to St. John’s after a week away at the St. Michael’s Conference for Youth.  And this year’s Conference was different than any of the previous 24 Conferences! 

First we were at half-enrolment to allow us to have social distancing in the chapel, cafeteria (no buffet style this year), and classes.   Also, we did most of the Conference outside in the shade (I am sure I have sweated off an extra couple of pounds this week).  And what is normally a huggy group of people found ourselves expressing admiration for each other from 6 feet away!  

But despite the challenges that this year presented, what didn’t change was the glorious worship, the excellent teaching about Jesus and His Church, and the fellowship of devout Christian young men and women.   Those three things, in that order of priority, is what makes the St. Michael’s Conference for Youth top notch.

Over this Coronatide the Vestry has been doing a study, via zoom, on the book Made for Mission: renewing your parish culture by Tim Glemkowski.

Written for Roman Catholic parishes, there is much in common that is help for us as traditional Episcopalians.   The book has helped us to begin to identify issues to be corrected, and most importantly is helping us to focus and renew our parish culture to become Mission-focused.  

The author says we need to ask ourselves three important questions: What does it mean to be Christian? What does it mean to be a member of this parish? Why does our parish exist?

The right answer to all three is “Jesus Christ”.  Our challenge is to become focused on becoming better Disciples (followers of Jesus Christ) and better at sharing our faith in Jesus Christ.  In other words, our parish motto - To know Christ and to make Him known.

As we are coming back together in public worship and then soon (hopefully) for other gatherings we will be working on this focus - becoming better at following Jesus and sharing him!

This was the focus of the St. Michael’s Conference this past week.  And St. John’s needs this focus too!

First week accomplished - Rector's Rambling for 7/12/2020

It was so wonderful last Sunday to see, IN REAL LIFE, the people of St. John’s at St. John’s.  After all those weeks of phone calls and Zoom coffee hours, it was great to have people in the building to worship together.

Being on a holiday weekend was perhaps a good way to slowly get back into Public Worship, and begin to work out our COVID-19 precautions.  We had a total of 42 people at our four Services last weekend.

The Noon Service was added because initially the dioceses said that we could only have 50 people at any one service.  But now that that was corrected to 25% of occupancy, it has become redundant and today will be the last Noon service.  When/if Tigers Baseball and Lions Football begins happening with fans in attendance, that Service would not have parking available for it anyway.  Perhaps we can reinstate it in the future if there is a demand for space, and can be for those who walk/bike to Church.

The addition that is here to stay for a while is the new 5:00 PM Service of Evening Prayer.  The “new” is the addition to the schedule.  Sunday Evening Prayer, or Evensong, is actually a great tradition in Episcopal/Anglican Parishes.  Here at St. John’s, until the 1930s, we offered four Morning Holy Communion Services on Sunday (one in American Sign Language), and three Evening Prayer/Evensong (one in A.S.L.).

Evening Prayer on Sunday is both an opportunity for those who could not attend worship on Sunday Morning to fulfill their obligation to worship Him in Church later in the day, as well as a chance for those who were present at morning worship to return in the afternoon to further sanctify their “keep Holy the Sabbath Day” by ending the day as they started it.

For now it is Evening Prayer with a homily (tonight’s Minister and Preacher is our own Cam Walker).  In the coming months we will begin to work in some simple congregational settings of the canticles and two hymns, and can invite guest preachers as well.

We are OPEN - Rector's Rambling for July 5, 2020

Welcome back!

It is so good to be saying that after this long period of time away.  If you would have told me back in February that this virus in Wuhan, China, would eventually shut down St. John’s to Sunday Public Worship for 112 days, I would have perhaps stared at you blankly, and then, eventually, laughed uncomfortably.  But here we are 112 days later.  So, for approximately 2688 hours, we have been apart from each other for common worship, and I have missed you all!

I am mostly a “glass half full” sort of person, and as hard the Stay Home Order was on this extreme extrovert, I did use the time away from the church facility for some good.

We have begun the upgrade to our livestreaming capabilities.  We have contracted with a company that allows us to livestream to multiple platforms (YouTube, Facebook and Twitter) from one iPhone, and we will be installing a professional camera in the sanctuary that will also take advantage of the sound system so that we can improve the quality even more.  Weekday Masses   and Evening Prayer regularly have upwards of 100 views on the combination of platforms, and Sunday even more.  Additionally, the Daily Morning Mediations are reaching a broad audience.  I have received mail, e-mail, and a phone call from people in Oregon, Washington, Las Vegas, South Dakota, and even Liverpool, England – expressing gratitude for our livestreaming and daily mediations.  Our YouTube channel, with over 2.2 million video views, is being used by clergy around the country as a part of their online worship.  During Coronatide, our reach has expanded.

Also, I had more time to pray, and took advantage of that, as well as more time to exercise.  And as we ease back into the new normal, I am going to make sure both of those things continue to be a priority.

I thank God for the return to public worship.  I know not everyone is ready to return yet, and we will continue to livestream into the future to continue our ministry of traditional Anglican worship and teaching far and wide.