We outline the history of the Holy Week Collects, located on pages 607–609 of the Book of Common Prayer 2019. In researching this topic, we drew especially from commentaries by Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., Marion J. Hatchett, C. Frederick Barbee, and Paul F. M. Zahl. What is a “Collect?” A collect is a short, formal prayer, written in “collect…
J.I. Packer: A Remembrance
J.I. (James Innell) Packer was born July 22, 1926, and died last Friday, July 17, 2020. He was 93 years old. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” writes the Psalmist.
Anglican Pastors vs. Priests? An Introduction to Anglican Holy Orders
I have been a full-time Anglican minister since 2005, when my wife and I moved to the Middle East as cross-cultural workers (i.e., missionaries). However, I was not ordained to the diaconate until 2017 and to the priesthood in 2018. From 2005–2017, I was involved in ministries of evangelism, discipleship, and teaching, first in the…
My Journey Into Anglicanism
A Brief Defense of “Conversion” Stories Sometimes I wish I lived in the Church of the first Millennia, before the Great Schism of 1054. Things would be a heck of a lot easier. One could say “I’m a Christian” and people would more or less know what you meant. I don’t live in that world;…
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…
Lancelot Andrewes, the Star of Preachers
Why Read Lancelot Andrewes? Besides contending for the greatest name in British history, Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626) was the most renowned preacher of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Nicknamed stella predicantium (“star of preachers”) by Thomas Fuller, Andrewes has been a source of fascination and reverence for Catholic-leaning Anglicans from Archbishop William Laud in the immediate wake…
