With the season of Lent upon us, Iโm 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…
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.
Last Minute Instructions for Lent
Lent is drawing near! The word โLentโ comes from the Old English lencten, meaning spring-time, when the days lengthen. Youโve probably already noticed that! Lent covers the 40 days, excluding Sundays, before the great Paschal Feast of Easter, which is always celebrated in the Western Church on the First Sunday after the first full moon…
Why the Parish?
Many people coming to Anglicanism from other Christian traditions are surprised by the use of the term parish. They had always referred to their church as simply โchurchโ or โcongregation.โ But now, this word parish is used. What is a parish? It it different? And if so, how? And why? Let’s lay out two understandings of what defines a parish….
On Hearing Confessions
On Hearing Confessions Letโs just face it, many Anglican priests today are ordained with little to no training in hearing confessions. Many attended seminaries in the Evangelical or Reformed traditions and for them, the practice is foreign. Many came into Anglicanism in churches which never emphasize it, and so, they have never really thought about…
Confession and Mercy in an Age of Justice
Justice? A few months ago here in Waco, Texas, where I live, a man was given 50 years in prison without parole for stealing a rack of pork ribs. He was a repeat offender, and he had threatened to pull a knife on the grocers who caught him with the rack of ribs tucked up his…
Anglicanism and the Benedict Option
The Anglican spiritual theologian Martin Thornton once remarked that โthe genius of St Benedict cannot be confined within the walls of Monte Cassino or any other monastery.โ In continuing a discussion of the so-called Benedict Option, and what it means for Anglicans, my suspicion, and what is becoming my conviction, is that we Anglicans hold…
Catechesis and the Benedict Option
In the last week, you may have heard the phrase โthe Benedict Option.โ It was coined by the Christian commentator Rod Dreher in reference to Alasdair MacIntyreโs assertion in his seminal work After Virtue that in the midst of ideological and moral confusion, we need a new Saint Benedict to build communities of ecclesial culture…
Why We Plant 3: Mission
“Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” John 20:21 In many missionary circles it is often said: โThe Church doesn’t have a mission. God has a mission. And His mission has a Church.โ Quite right! God the Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord was…
Why Plant Churches Part 2: Worship
โ…that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.โ (Philippians 2:10-11) There are many ideas prevalent today as to just what a church should do. Some will say that…
Why Plant More Churches?
Part One: Our World Needs More Churches We live in the midst of one of the greatest mission fields the Church has ever seen. In North America today, there are almost 160 million unchurched and unreached people. We are reaching a point at which American Christians have a greater opportunity for mission staying exactly where they…
