The Practical Parson

 This past Saturday, the Diocese of which I am part held its ordinations to the priesthood.  This year we had 3 goodly candidates for orders, all sincere men who have expressed clearly over their years of formation a desire to serve and build up the church of God.  The service was obliged to be held at St. Timothy's Episcopal church in Winston-Salem; due to the fact that none of our own chapels at present would be able to hold the number of people who attended the service. I and the entire diocese are eternally grateful to the rector and people of St. Timothy's for allowing us to use their smaller chapel (to the side of the main church).  Words cannot possibly express our gratitude for their friendship and mutual work over the years.   The smaller chapel at St. Timothy's is not as small as it may sound, it's actually a quite decently sized church, and was the original church that their congregation started in many decades ago.  As I myself stood in the...

There is currently a building campaign going on in the heart of Rural North Carolina, which strives to rebuild the church and Christendom; which have both suffered much loss as a result of the excesses of the past 50+ years. I will tell you all about this project from the fundraising site: The Missionary Diocese of the Sacred Heart was established in 2016, in response to the loss of faith that the Church has seen over the past several decades. Its mission is to provide truth to a fallen world, a home for those forgotten, and a place where all may encounter Christ at the foot of the cross in His holy sacraments. Our diocese is blessed to be experiencing growth and expansion of our missionary outreaches; and we seek to build physically so that the work we carry out in the name of the Lord may have permanence and a home. To this end, we are seeking to build a (relatively) small cathedral at our Bishop's seat in Ruffin, North Carolina; which will be the mother church of our diocese. It...

 In recent decades, more so since about 2007; there has been an increasing demand from people in the world for all churches to open up the ministry to women instead of just men.  While there are some denominations where such a shift would not matter greatly, as they are focused primarily on the written word instead of any actual service; to make such a demand of the sacramental priesthood is a problem which cannot be simply overcome by political ideology or social justice cause.  To put it bluntly, women cannot be priests.   Having nailed the colors to the mast with that statement, I will elaborate: From the beginnings of the Christian Church, the services and means of worship were never intended to be divorced from their Jewish origins.  To this day, within traditional sacramental worship, there are elements of the service which correlate to ancient Jewish temple practices; from the manner in which the priest holds his hands in prayer, to the way in which ...

 So the General Conference of the United Methodist Church decided this past week, that they would lift the church's ban on openly gay clergy, broaden the church's definition on marriage, and extend to deacons the right to baptize and consecrate the elements of Communion.  Quite the few days they had, no?   While the traditionalist world is loosing its collective mind over the 'gay clergy' matter, they overlook simple facts that make the situation worse than it truly seems.  There have always been gay clergy in every church, and there always will be; because it is not something that people simply, actively choose for themselves.  No, what is worse is what is done WITH who and what one may be in this life.  Rather than simply expressing "we are clergy and gay" and going back to worshiping the Lord in the traditions handed to them; the UMC has decided that it needs to change everything in order to make a pronounced statement about their acceptance of gay ...