Contending for the parish list
Would you believe it if I told you that more than a few have showed up in church these past few Sundays since I began praying over them?
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Encouraging the 1662 BCP IE in your church
Pastors, consider providing some encouragement for the use of The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition within your parish.
Grove Books: “The Practice of Evangelical Spirituality”
If you are not familiar with Grove Books, you are missing out. Grove Books was started by the great evangelical bishop and liturgist Colin Buchanan in 1971. The goal of the booklets is summed up in their tagline: Not the last word…but often the first. Each booklet is a short …
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Planning instruction on the Articles of Religion
Ten sermons or ten class sessions is a manageable amount of time, probably not dissimilar to the sermon series that pastors already arrange. The sessions could easily be covered over the course of a Church season. These divisions align with the three-fold division that is customary across the Anglican tradition, but they also allow for focused and manageable attention to the doctrines in the Articles.
Is grace really that common?
What could be so bad about common grace? Didn’t God love sinners enough to send His Son to die for them?
The problem of suffering
Why do we suffer? Where is God in our pain? What hope do we have amidst suffering? What does God say about pain?
Mercies temporal and spiritual reviewed
God of the morning, at whose voice
The sun begins his daily race;
And every day and every hour
Proclaim thy faithfulness and grace.
God shows himself
God keeps me ever mindful of him. When I rise in the morning, when I open a book, when I turn a corner, God is there—his face in mine.
Empty vessels
What would you say is the defining characteristic of a Christian? Faith? Love? Kindness? Zeal for the gospel? A Christian certainly should cultivate these and many other virtues, but is there one that underlies all the others? From the list above, my guess is that most people would say love …
Christ the Christian’s support
Once, Lord, a broken reed I was,
And could not stand at all;
And now my standing is by grace,
Should grace remove I fall.
Review: “The First Book of Homilies” in modern English
In the past few decades, there has been a grassroots resurgence of evangelical Anglicanism as a confessional position. A new generation has uncovered our formularies. The Articles of Religion have been brought back out of the drawer of “historical documents” and shown to have tremendous value in defining Anglicanism—not that …
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Aspiring to heaven
Inflamed with ardour half divine,For heaven I earthly gain resign;Those starry lamps that grace the pole,Inspire with joy my raptured soul. O the dear festivals of night,What glorious dazzling to the fight!A fair angelic band maintainsDelightful watch o’er heavenly plains. Why am I kept a prisoner here,So distant from that …
Christians and “pronoun hospitality”
If we aren’t hiding under a rock, we will be increasingly meeting, working, and living with those who identify as transgender. Should we use their chosen pronouns?
The vicar’s life
Through the portal and down the Nave,
he march’d with Holy Writ in hand,
to kneel and pray
at break of day,
and lean upon the reading stand.
What is humility?
To be nothing in order that God may be everything. That is Murray’s definition of humility. And I dare say it was John the Baptist’s definition as well.
Review: “Eastertide” by Ashley Null
Dr. Null has combined his top-notch research on Thomas Cranmer with a great level of pastoral concern.
