The Village Rector

Fox News - Evangelical Leader Falls

2006-11-03T04:50:00.000-08:00

This story is heart-breaking. Please keep all these people in your prayers. I am posting this story for the three lessons it reminds me to consider: 1. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," 2. "Be holy in all your conduct for it is written 'be ye holy for I am holy' says the Lord." 3. "If any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The leader of the 30 million-memberNational Association of Evangelicals, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, resigned Thursday after being accused of paying for sex with a man in monthly trysts over the past three years.

The Rev. Ted Haggard, a married father of five who has been called one of the most influential evangelical Christians in the nation, denied the allegations. His accuser refused to share with The Associated Press voice mails that he said backed up his claim.

Haggard also stepped aside as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates, saying he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations."

...The acting senior pastor at New Life, Ross Parsley, told KKTV-TV of Colorado Springs that Haggard admitted that some of the accusations were true, but Parsley did not elaborate.

Click here to read the whole story

Lego Church

2006-10-29T17:32:00.000-08:00

My wife often teases me because I am so totally centered on the church that when we go on vacation, I even take them on tours of Church buildings and monastaries. While looking at the mosaics in the crypt of some old church, she says things like, "only a priest would think this is fun." Perhaps that is why one of my parishioners sent me an email alerting me to important information.

It seems that, finally, there is someone who is a bigger "church geek" than me - and my hat is off to her. Amy Hughes, a computer programmer who enjoys doing Lego projects has built an impressive church entirely made of legos. Even I haven't gone that far! Amy, you are something else. 75,000+ legos and seating for over 1,000 lego-faithful. Check out these photos!

Check out her web site for many more pictures at
http://www.amyhughes.org/lego/church/photosfirst.html

Christians are Suffering in Middle East

2006-10-17T18:37:00.000-07:00

12 October, 2006
IRAQ
Decapitated Syrian-Orthodox priest laid to rest in Mosul Funeral held today. Captors demanded public apologies for Benedict XVI’s Regensburg address and payment of US$ 250-350,000 ransom. Christians are enduring more brutal violence; a 14-year boy is crucified.

Mosul (AsiaNews) – Fr Paulos Eskandar was laid to rest in Mosul today. The decapitated body of the Syrian-Orthodox priest was found in an eastern district of this Iraqi city yesterday. He was abducted last Monday by an unknown Islamic group which posted a hefty ransom of 0-350,000, the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) reported. The group also demanded that signs be posted on his church apologising for the Pope's Regensburg remarks as a pre-condition for negotiations.

AINA also published a letter from an Iraqi priest who fled to Sweden, describing what amounts to a full blown campaign of terror against Christians in Iraq.

Based on accounts from Christians still living in the country, Fr Adris Hanna warns that “Christians are living a terrified life in Mosul and Baghdad. Several priests have been kidnapped, girls are being raped and murdered, and a couple of days ago a fourteen-year-old boy was crucified in the Christian neighbourhood of Albasra.”

Father P. Hanna also reported that he spoke “to a group of nuns who were robbed and treated brutally on their way between Baghdad to Amman in Jordan.”

He ended his letter with a plea: “We must do what we can to stop [the massacre] . . . . We must do something.”

From AsiaNews.it

Looking for a Good Read?

2006-09-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

I'd like to recommend two books for your reading. If you are interested, I'd also like to form a sort of book club where we could read these books together and discuss the issues at hand.

The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering who Jesus was and is.
by N.T. Wright, Anglican bishop of Durham, England

This excellent little book is a summation of Bishop Wright's longer and scholarly works. From the dust cover: "The Challenge of Jesus poses a double-edged challenge: to grow in our understanding of the historical Jesus within the Palistinian world of the first century, and to follow Jesus more faithfully into the post modern world of the twenty-first century."

This book is so good and so timely, I may use it as a fall mid-week study.

Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
by Nancy Pearcy

This book on worldview is one of the more important popular treatments of this extraordinarily important subject. Every Christian needs to think through the issues of forming a worldview, and this is as good a place to start as I have found.

Book Club
If you are interested in reading either of these two books, drop me an email our post here on my blog. I look forward to our discussions.

What I Love About Being Anglican

2006-09-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

St. Patrick's Breastplate

My darling and wonderful wife started posting things she loves about being Anglican over at her family blog. I thought it such a good idea (and such a fun insight into my wife's spirituality) that I decided to do the same. So - this is a shameless rip-off.

First, I love the music. In particular, I love the ancient hymns with lyrics and tunes that are so rich, full, and glorious. What makes these so much "more" than modern hymnody? I believe it is because these ancient hymns were born of pain, suffering, and a struggle greater than we have ever known in our comfy American lives.

Art does reflect life. And as American culture becomes ever more shallow, silly, and sentimental, the music of the Church has degenerated into little ditties that are sometimes described as "Jesus is my boy-friend, and I really love him" songs.

But when Christians were kidnapped, enslaved for most of their their childhood, dreamed visions that led to escape, trained for years in monastaries that faced hunger, murderous poverty, and plague - only to be sent by the Holy Spirit to go back and convert their former slave-masters - those Christians wrote hymns like this:

St. Patrick's Breast-Plate
1940 Hymnal
Tune: St. Patrick
lyrics: St. Patrick, Missionary bishop who converted Ireland
after being a slave there (377-466)
Tranlation: Cecil Alexander, 1889
Note: The italicized portion does not appear in the 1940 hymnal.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

To which I say: Amen! And thanks be to God!

Welcome to my Blog

2006-09-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Well it was bound to happen. Everybody has one - now, me, too. but Why?

I hope to use this blog to communicate with the parish and the world. It is going to be a shameless display of my interests, devotions, thoughts and ideas concerning everything ecclesial, liturgical, musical, and whimsical.

Criticism is welcomed and enjoyed. I even handle "mean people" pretty well. In fact, I usually post mean comments on the bulletin board of the parish hall, where people gather to giggle. So if you publish - you may be published. ;-) IE, lets try to keep it civil.

Let's have some fun.