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 a funeral. We have had many requests for a simple overview, and we reached out to Fr. Lee Nelson for such a post. We also include a funeral planning guide that can be used to work with individuals and families in planning. 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…
Our Bodies Tell us Who We Are
This past week I wrote as a pastor doing one of the prime things a pastor is called to do, namely, the work of a public theologian. The Church’s conviction is that she is called to proclaim the truth in charity, not merely to herself alone, but to the whole world. This requires both clarity…
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…
Lent Disciplines: Prayer
“when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your…
Lenten Disciplines: Almsgiving
Almsgiving is not a word that we use often today. We will often speak of “mission support” or “charity” or something akin to “philanthropy.” These terms certainly speak of the mission of God, or of His call to us to be a people of love, but the traditional term for the Lenten discipline has been…
