It’s been an exhausting week. You spent much of it at the hospital, praying for a dying Christian, giving comfort to a grieving family. You missed time with your own family to be a pastor to the parish. You sat with a beloved parishioner’s children as they argued over how they wanted the funeral and…
The Rev. Lee Nelson, S.S.C., is a priest of the Society of the Holy Cross and the Diocese of Fort Worth. He has planted churches in Waco and College Station, Texas, with the aim of making disciples on college campuses. He is currently the Chair of the Committee for Catechesis of the Anglican Church in North America, which produced To Be a Christian, an Anglican Catechism.
The Burial Rite of The Book of Common Prayer 2019 Explained
Quite a few new priests have never officiated at a funeral. We have received many requests for a simple overview, so we reached out to Fr. Lee Nelson to write such a post. We also include a funeral planning guide that can be used to help individuals and families plan. This post assumes the ability…
Told the Devil That I’m Going on a Strike: Kanye West for All Saints’ Day
“We could call ‘halfway believers’ Only halfway read Ephesians Only if they knew what I knew I was never new till I knew of True and living God, Yeshua The true and living God Somebody pray for me.” Since last week, I’ve been listening to Kanye West’s new album Jesus is King and not just…
On Publishing the Banns of Marriage
This coming Sunday and in today’s email, the church plant I serve will have a “first” of sorts – the first time the Banns of Marriage will be published. The Banns of Marriage are an ancient custom and have been canonically binding in the West since the 13th Century. Bann in the Middle English simply…
The Stranger is to be Welcomed as Christ Himself: Benedictine Wisdom on Welcoming and Pastoring Strangers, Visitors, and Newcomers
Fr. Dale Hall recently wrote an excellent post about welcoming people all people in the Benedictine way. This post is about what that might look like in a local parish. Basics “Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say, “I came as a guest, and you received Me”…
When You Hate Ministry: Don’t Quit It, Fix It.
It’s time for a little honesty. Just you and me talking. There are parts of pastoral ministry you hate, hate, hate. You’d rather clean toilets. You’d rather go to the dentist. For a root canal. You drive by garbage collectors and think: that’s appealing! Sometimes, our lofty ideals, our devotion to Jesus just isn’t enough…
Want Your Church to Grow?
So you want your church to grow, do you? Listen, I get it, every pastor wants their church to grow. And it’s not just selfish ambition, although there will always be some of that. On our best days, we know the hard work we put into preaching and pastoral care, in equipping our people to…
Lenten Disciplines: Prayer
Continuing with our series on Lenten disciplines, we come to Lent’s emphasis on prayer. The words of Our Lord from the Sermon on the Mount set forth an example that has formed the backbone of Christian prayer from the beginning. “[W]hen you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they…
Lenten Disciplines: Almsgiving
We continue our series on the Lenten disciplines with one often neglected during this season: almsgiving. Almsgiving is not a word that we use often today. We will often speak of “mission support,” “charity,” or something akin to “philanthropy.” These terms certainly speak of God’s mission or of his call to us to be a…
Lenten Disciplines: Fasting
With the season of Lent upon us, I’m setting out to explore the traditional Lenten disciplines of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. These disciplines are taken from the opening verses of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. See how Jesus begins each section of…
Last Minute Instructions for Lent
Lent is drawing near! The word “Lent” comes from the Old English “lencten,” meaning springtime, when the days lengthen. You’ve probably already noticed that! Lent spans the 40 days, excluding Sundays, leading up to the great Paschal Feast of Easter. It is always celebrated in the Western Church on the First Sunday after the first…
Why the Parish?
It surprises many people entering Anglicanism from other Christian traditions that we use the term ‘parish’. They had always referred to their church as simply “church” or “congregation,” but now they hear the word “parish.” What is a parish? How is it different, and why? Let’s lay out two understandings of what defines a parish. The first is a canonical designation, or how…
