It was J. I. Packer who made an Anglican out of me. Although I had attended a student-led Anglican service when I first became a seminarian at Regent College, it wasn’t until I moved to the Anglican church that Dr. Packer attended (and at which he sometimes led liturgy) that I was struck by the beauty and majesty of Anglican [...]
Handshakes and metal plates I grew up around deacons. In my Southern Baptist upbringing, deacons were most commonly observed at the doors of the church offering handshakes and smiles. Otherwise, they were found in their other natural habitat: at the end of a pew passing or taking a metal plate. Often, this was an offertory plate, but on special occasions, [...]
Editor’s Note: The piece below represents the opinion of the author. Anglican Pastor does not take a site-wide position for or against women’s ordination. We do, however, require both clarity and charity. We ask that your responses to it do so as well. After reading this piece, please see Lee Nelson's response and Emily McGowin's rejoinder. The connection between christology [...]
Born a little on the melancholy side, I was always attracted to the bleaker parts of Scripture. You know, the parts where a prophet would cry out to God for help, or where God would lament the betrayal of His bride. Or the psalms of lament where the psalmist feels desperate and horrifically abandoned. These passages captured my imagination like [...]
Ah, Spain. A beautiful country where, every now and then, non-Catholics who are Christians get married. Or a Roman Catholic gets married to a non-Catholic, which often means no Catholic wedding. And sometimes these folks come to us Anglicans. Just how much can the Anglican liturgy be modified? In this article, I want to share my own experience as an [...]
Bowing to Baal I recently heard someone on the radio say that we (Americans) live in a “post-religion” nation. The radio personality went on to describe how America has become a land void of virtue, no longer giving spiritual matters much thought. In other words, America has become increasingly secular. This is, in my opinion, untrue. Allow me to suggest [...]
Emanuel Burke previously shared his Anglican journey here: "Anglican, for the Love of God." In this post below, Emanuel shares about his journey into iconography. If you'd like to support his work, check out his Patreon page. Icons? Aren’t they idolatrous? Many Western Christians, particularly in America, have a difficult time understanding why icons are so meaningful and integral to the [...]
Slightly edited from a sermon I recently preached at Church of the Savior in Wheaton, IL. There are just some passages of the Bible that you can’t get away from. Sometimes it’s because a passage is particularly inspiring, encouraging, or comforting. Think Psalm 23. Other times, it’s because the passage really bugs you. And I’ll confess that our Gospel lesson, [...]
Editor's Note: The following letter was written by Fr. Shawn McCain to his congregation, Resurrection Anglican Church in Austin, TX. It originally appeared on the church's website. With Shawn's permission, we're sharing it with you as we pray together for justice and peace. Rez family, We are all still reeling from mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. If you’re like [...]
If someone had told me ten years ago that today I would be an Anglican priest, I would not have responded with joy or even disappointment; I simply would have been confused. Raised in a squarely evangelical culture, I grew up without conscious knowledge of liturgical denominations—and probably a degree of suspicion toward them. I still remember the first time [...]
For many years, I attended a church that called itself a "Bible church." I really loved it and am thankful for everything I received there. But many years later I started to reflect on what exactly that name means. What does it mean to claim that your church is biblical, a "Bible church"? First of all, it (at least implicitly) [...]
Editor's note: Here at Anglican Pastor, we feature content from low church to high church, as long as it's written with both clarity and charity. Even if you would never consider an "ad orientem" Holy Communion in your own church, I invite you to read about how and why Fr. Ben Jefferies has made the switch in his parish. It comes [...]
For the last two years, I’ve been teaching Scripture, theology, and ethics at a small Christian high school that shares space with a local church. It took me a year and a half to realize that, on one of my classroom walls, half-hidden behind a filing cabinet and obscured beneath a coat of paint, was a Bible verse, written in [...]
NOTE: If you're looking for a Collect for Father's Day, consider this one, written by Fr. Bryan Owen at Creedal Christian: O Lord our God, creator of heaven and earth, through your Son Jesus Christ you have revealed yourself as a heavenly Father to all of your children. Bless, we pray, all earthly fathers. Strengthen them to nurture, protect, and [...]
The sixth Sunday of Eastertide, known as Rogation Sunday, is a day that Anglican pastors should get dirt on their vestments. This is not only encouraged, it’s expected. The psalmist said ‘all flesh is like grass,’ so it’s good that the people of God walk along grass in worship and praise a few times a year. Rogation Days are a [...]
For the first two years of my life at college, I slept in late on Sundays. There was a hole in my heart I couldn’t seem to fill by partying on Friday and Saturday night, but Sunday service wasn’t the answer. The local church was just a place for people to come and be fake together. As a college student [...]
One of the earliest guides for pastors, the Book of Titus, tells a church leader to address drinking problems in the church, to instruct people "not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine" (Titus 2:3). The need hasn't changed much. The National Institutes of Health estimate that 17.6 million people—about one in every 12 adults—abuse alcohol or are alcohol [...]
The following quote is from Stanley Hauerwas’ book Resident Aliens. It has hung in my office for years and I find myself reading on many occasions. As a college chaplain, I am often thinking about how to talk to my students about church; what it is, what it isn’t, why they need to be a part of it, and how [...]
In Anglican circles we all too often find ourselves dealing with the issue (sin) of gossip—spreading rumors and reports about others without first confirming the facts. Recently, Archbishop Foley Beach addressed this issue on the ANCA website in an article titled, “A Christian Code of Ethics for Using Social Media.” He states: Most of us have done it!! We have [...]
Mother's Day sermons, at least in certain circles, can be a bit controversial. After all, Mother's Day is not a liturgical holiday, an official part of the Church calendar. So, should you preach Mother's Day sermons? In a word, yes. This year (2020), let me say it even more strongly, “You’d better!” (For all of our Anglican Compas content on preaching, go [...]
Motherhood is one of the most fundamental human roles, given by God and knit into our DNA. Hallmark’s calendar doesn’t dictate our preaching, but this particular holiday seems worth some attention. Some Mother's Day Sermon tips are listed below and can be developed into whole sermons; others are just words of advice. Use this list to re-imagine how you could approach [...]
The horrific fire at Notre-Dame de Paris on Monday has captured many of us. Nearly every tourist who has been to France has visited it. Nearly everyone who has an image of Paris has Notre Dame at the center. Seemingly floating on the Île de la Cité, it actually is at the heart, sectioned off and yet pulsing through the [...]
It was a sunny day in Glasgow and the preacher was speaking to thousands of people in one of the large parks of the city. I had attended with a number of friends from a Christian campus ministry in Edinburgh where I was working on my PhD in Divinity (focus, World Christianity. Shameless plug: buy the book.) The preacher in [...]
I work with college students and so, like it or not, I have to deal with social media. Over the years, I have resisted being saturated in the world of the ghost, the gram, the book, and the bird, but my tech-savvy students keep dragging me back into virtual spaces I find nearly impossible to keep up with. I wish [...]
