I’m pleased to announce that Fr Thomas McKenzie is joining Anglican Pastor as a writer. The original vision of Anglican Pastor was to include other writing clergy to help explain Anglican experience, and provide pastoral perspectives on worship, faith, and life. I think it a real coup that we nabbed Fr Thomas. It may have…
The Sacred Pathways of Other People
If Iโm being honest, I have to admit that I rarely try to learn how other Christians have experienced God, and then encourage them in that. Instead, I try to get them to experience God in the same way I have, without ever really hearing and trying to understand their experience. This is true for…
Who am I?
Who doesnโt, at some point, ask the question, โWho am I?โ The band Supertramp expressed this desperation in their 1979 song entitled โThe Logical Songโ: There are times when all the worldยดs asleep, The questions run too deep, For such a simple man. Wonยดt you please, please tell me what weยดve learned? I know it…
Good Friday and the Language of Sacrifice
Shouldn’t it be called “Bad” Friday? Radical Sin, Radical Savior It was a horrible thing that we human beings killed our creator. He came to us in lowly form, as a poor baby in a manger. He taught, he healed, he preached, he loved, he forgave. And not in spite his grace and love, but…
Maundy Thursday: Blessed Humility
Sermon for Maundy Thursday 2013, Holy Cross, Loganville, Georgia. Tonight is about humility.ย The humility of Jesus, the Master and Lord who was a servant. By living among us as one of us.ย By allowing himself to be sacrificed for our sins.ย By washing feet. And he says that humility is the โfull extent of his love.โ Judas…
Showing the Spirit
At a clergy retreat, I once asked a fellow priest what his church was like. He said that his parish had two groups of people. He raised both hands high in the air, turned his face to the heavens, closed his eyes, and swayed gently. โThatโs the first group,โ he said. Then, he clasped his…
What do Anglicans Believe about Holy Baptism?
All Christians, not just Anglicans, should trust their baptism. If they believe that Baptism is something God does in and for us, not something we do. And that is exactly how the early Church and the Reformers saw this sacrament! God brings people to the water of baptism. He sends his Holy Spirit into their…
After Communion: A Rookie Anglican Guide to the Post-Communion Liturgies
What happens when a worshipper approaches God with faith in Christ through the liturgies of Word and Sacrament? What happens after we come by faith to receive Holy Communion? Anglicans believe that the worship experience has a transformative effect on the worshipper. The people of God change as they spend time together in the presence…
Infant Baptism: Why do Anglicans Baptize Babies?
Why baptize infants? The Anglican theme verse for children would have to be, โLet the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.โ Matthew 19.14 Starting very early in the life of the Christian Church, Christian children were seen as members of the covenant community…
Mystery and The Mundane
Worship is something that people do, and in doing worship, people experience it. In experiencing worship, people profoundly changed. The exact way God works through the experience of worship is a mystery. It is a mystery because it is experienced by the whole being rather than learned cognitively by the mind or by planning and…