The True Order of the Church

The more that I have gotten involved in things in this diocese, the more that I realize that we in the Lay Order really don't realize that in the pyramid of the church, we are really the top of it. From what I have seen, it seems as though most of us think that we are at the bottom of the pyramid, and it seems that the clergy realizes it. Let me tell you why this topic is on my mind.

At the 2007 Good Friday service at my congregation, we did the Stations of the Cross after the service. Now the service was bilingual, which I had no problem with, but for the Stations the pastor proceeded to do the entire opening in Spanish. At the first station he has one of the Spanish to read the station. We get to the next station and he asks one of the English speakers to read, and as we go through station to station we alternate between the languages. As we go through each station, he calls upon a different person to read it. Then we get to the final station and all of the other English speakers except for me. He then asks if someone would like to volunteer to read this station. He start to raise my hand and he picks someone else.

That Sunday I ask during Coffee Hour if I will be permitted to read one of the stations since I wasn't given a chance to. I was told how wrong I was and that it was all my fault and the one to blame. I kept trying to explain that I had raised my hand, but I was told that I hadn't, and without using the word, I was told that I was lying.

At no time through this whole thing was I told that I could do one of the stations, and I took it as him saying “NO”. Since the whole thing was my fault according to him, I decided that I was going to go to another church the next Good Friday.

Since I do the Stations throughout the year at the church, I decided one day that I wanted to have a copy of it at home. I typed “Stations of the Cross” into Google, and was amazed at the number of hits I got. So I decided to tighten the search even more by added “pdf” into the search. I was amazed at the number that it found. As I looked, I noticed that there were a number of different ones, with some using themes related to other topics such as AIDS, War, and others. I printed out one and read through it.

Now the congregation that I am in does not do the Stations during Lent except for Good Friday, but I had been going to another congregation that did. The more of these Stations that I looked at, the more that I realized this could be something interesting to do in my own congregation. I sat and wrote a letter to the pastor asking that I could lead a series of Stations for the 5 Fridays prior to Good Friday and that these would be done in English. He read it and proceeded to tell me that doing this the 5 Fridays before was a Spanish thing. I then explained that it wasn't just a Spanish thing to do, and that I had been going to one at another congregation. He then said that the one that we had was bilingual, so that it could be in both languages. I then showed him a couple of the ones that I was planning on using, and unless someone was going to translate them that this was going to be only in English. I had to ask again in a few weeks if he had a problem with it and if it was OK to do. He said OK.

As I looked at more and more the different Stations that have been done, I began to think that it would be interesting to write one of my own that surrounded some them. I thought about doing it based around Racism, and some other topics came to mind, but I knew that their was some topic that I could write it one.

I am involved in a subcommittee of a subcommittee in the diocese that is dealing with trying to find some ways to deal with Reconciliation because of things that have happened in the diocese. One of the other people involved in this happens to be my pastor. One night he mentioned the idea of a Stations based on reconciliation. Within a couple of hours after getting home, I have written the first draft. Over the next few days, I proceeded to do redrafts as ideas came to mind on how to do it. That Sunday I handed him a copy. He was real surprised.

Emails passed between him and the others involved with this group, and someone had a problem with the idea of doing something like this. I explained what we had just done in the church and the purpose of this, and he seemed OK with it.

As time went on, I kept doing redrafts, and I feel that I have come up with something that I am almost happy with. Come the night of the meeting of the larger group, I had made some copies and as my pastor mentioned the idea of stations, I reached into my bag and threw the copies that I had made onto the table. They grabbed a copy and proceeded to look through it. Someone had mentioned using a liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, but as he and others proceeded to look through what I had done, they seemed to become happier and happier.

Then something hit me. I suddenly realized that I was in a room where of the 10 people in it, I was the only one who wasn't or wasn't thinking about becoming a clergy person. I quickly added it that the idea that I had in mind was to put something together that doesn't require a clergy person to be involved. This was something that could be used not only by a congregation, or diocese, but something that could be used by a family where each setting could remove the included stories and insert their own.

I have a feeling that the end result will be something that will require a clergy person to be involved. I think that if I see it going into that direction, I will ask if the curtain that Jesus tore down was being put back up by them. I hope that I am wrong.

Over the last few days I have been sitting and thinking about the curtain, and the more that I think about it, the more that I realized that the church has put part of the curtain back up. I'm not talking just about the Episcopal/Anglican Church, but most churches and society in general. We look and think about the clergy as being higher than the rest of us in a way. Think about it. Have you ever found yourself being careful about the words that you use or what you say when you are around someone in clergy gear? Have you ever asked a clergy person to Bless you or something? Do you find yourself talking about the things in the Bible only when a clergy person is around? Think about it. Jesus basically got rid of the “middle man”, and said for us to deal directly with God.

Now don't get me wrong, as I feel that we need to have the clergy as a reminder and as a teacher to us about the Good News that the Holy Trinity has for us. We need our clergy to be our spiritual guides. We need our Priest to give the Good News in our congregations, and for our Deacons to take the Good News into the streets and elsewhere.

The thing that most of us in the Lay Order forget is that the other Orders within the church can not survive without us. For the other Orders to have buildings, get paid, etc., it take the Lay Order to sit in the pews and make financial offerings. What purpose would Grace Cathedral and the National Cathedral serve if the Lay Order isn't around? Think about it. Do you really think that you won't get into Heaven if you Baptized someone, performed communion, or blessed someone and that person then decided to dedicate their life to the Holy Trinity?

I hope that if a Stations of Reconciliation is done, that the final product is something that doesn't demand that someone from the clergy be involved, and that it is led by someone from the Lay Order. Now don't get me wrong, as I love our clergy, but I think that it's time for us in the Lay Order to do some work.

I know, I know, I have posted several things not to far apart in days after not posting anything here in months, but some things have been on my mind lately.

In Peace

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Is Texas Acting Like The Nazi Party?

I use to be heavily involved in an Episcopal group over on MySpace, but I really became tired of the conservatives their only wanting to post and saying how the Episcopal Church is such a bad place, speaking ill about the Presiding Bishop, and other stuff. Now I have never understood why these folks would remain in a place where they are so unhappy when there are a number of other denominations that they could join. With the way that they talk, I wonder if they should join the group in Texas that has been in the news lately. Now don't get me wrong, I do believe in the freedom of speech, but with all of the whining that these folks are doing, it doesn't make sense as to why they bother to stay.

But with the stuff that is going on with the group in Texas, it seems to me that the state is acting like the Nazi Party of WWII. I am glad that the police did go in to investigate after the girl called, as I think that the idea of these much older guys marrying these teenage girls is wrong, but it seems as though the actions by the state is getting stranger.

During WWII, the Nazi Party would round up the Jews and take them to concentration camps. At these camps, they would separate the men from the women and children. What happened in Texas? The police came in and removed all of the women & children from the men. The Nazi Party would put these people into buildings/camps that were really unfit for a bunch of people. In Texas, the women and children where put into a building that had two toilets. The Nazi Party would separated the kids over a certain age from their mother. What has happened in Texas now? The women with kids over the age of four have been separated from their mothers.

I ask, is Texas acting like the Nazi Party? The state is saying that they are doing this for the welfare of the children, but wouldn't it be better for the children to be with their parents? I wonder how many of these kids will now become mentally messed up because of this action. I would think that by this point they would of identified the teen girl who called, and would of even discovered other females. It shouldn't take long for them to identify the girl, as she is a teenager with one child. Sure it could take time before other women would come forward, but it seems as though when given the choice of being back at the compound or the conditions that they were put in by the state, they would choose to go back to the compound with the men as they will see that they had it better at the compound. Now I could be wrong, but I would think that there are enough empty motel/hotel rooms to have put these people, but instead they are treated like cattle.

As we saw when the Olympic Torch was here and in a couple of other countries, people were out protesting against China and trying to get the Chinese government to free Tibet because of the way that the people in Tibet are being treated, but yet none of these people seem to be out protesting the way that Texas has treated these women. Maybe it's just that the press isn't reporting it?

Of what I have heard about the group from the press reports, I don't agree with the beliefs of the group outside the fact that they claim to be Christians. I feel that it is wrong to force these girls to marry older men, and I wonder if there are now men in this country now trying to figure out how they could start their own group where they could marry and have sex with teenage girls in the name of Religion?

But again I ask, is the State of Texas acting like the Nazi Party? Don't get me wrong, as most people in Texas are wonderful people, but are the actions by the state are like that of the Nazi Party?

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1963 March on Washington

This is a slide-show that I made a while ago, and thought that I would share it with you. It's on the 1963 March on Washington. If you have troulbe trying to get it to play, try clicking on the lower left area below the video.

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The Gospel According to Jesus

“Love the Lord with all of your heart, all of your mind, and with all of your soul. And the second great commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. On these to commandments hang all of the laws of the prophets.” - Jesus Christ

 

Growing up I really had no interest in the politics of the church, for I was young and things like that never really interested me. Yeah I went to church each and every Sunday, and my parents were and still are involved in different aspects of the church outside of just going to service, and even though I was a acolyte, sang in the choir, and did other things, the politics of the church was something that never really interested me.

 

I was living in Philadelphia at the time when women were first officially ordained, and I remember thinking to myself that it was nice, but what had taken the Episcopal Church so long in having that, for I had seen it in other Christian communities in the Black community. Was the Episcopal church really that far behind the times? Then later the that diocese said that it was ok to have females as acolytes. At the time that the congregation I was in decided to have it's first female acolyte, I was the senior acolyte, and they were very nervous about approaching me to inform me. I had the power to make someone a good or bad acolyte, for no other acolyte had the same skill set that I had. People loved when my best friend and I served, for they knew that they were going to see it done as though it has a super high mass with a show. When they finally told me what they decided that they wanted to do, they were very surprised when I said that I thought that it would be great. Unlike others that I trained, she was trained to hold up the tradition that my friend and I had begun.

 

When I moved to the diocese that I am in now, I figured that I would no longer have to serve as an acolyte, but when those at the congregation that I was in say how I would shake my head at the way that the acolytes did things, to told me that if I felt that I could do better to get up their one Sunday and show them how it was suppose to be done. I really didn't want to do it, but the next Sunday I put vestments on and showed them how it should be done. I was immediately made head acolyte.

 

Over time I became more and more involved with that congregation, and was even thinking about becoming a Deacon, but then something happened that changed my mind. I was elected to be one of our Deanery representatives, and I because to see the politics that goes on within the larger church organization. It made me realize that the what I had been thinking was just purely about Christianity wasn't so. Yes, for week after week, year after year, I had been going into the buildings and saying the words that were put into front of me, but that isn't what made me a Christian.

 

Christianity isn't about the buildings and organizational structures, but what is in somebody's heart. We hear and say the words. We read our Bibles and learn each and every verse, but does that make one a Christian? Currently several church organizations are going through rough times with infighting about who can and cannot do what, and what the Bible says, but Jesus made the whole thing so simple for us to understand.

 

We have gotten so caught up in other matters, that we are making things more difficult than they really should be. We find it so easy to tell each other that we love one another, but when was the last time that you just simply said “God I love You!”? Think about it. I'm not talking about prayers and other such stuff, but just simply said to the Holy Trinity that you loved him?

 

I want you to get up right now, go outside and make a 360 degree turn and say “God I love you.” I don't care if someone else is out there and may see you, and think that you are nuts. From your heart let God know how you feel.

 

Go Ahead, I will wait.

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Now didn't that feel good?

 

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See Ya!!!

See Ya!!!

 

 Well, it’s been nice having you folks in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin with us, but most of you have voted to leave the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion to start your own denomination. “But we only voted to leave the Episcopal Church and align ourselves with someone else,” you all are yelling. By leaving the Episcopal Church, you have left the Anglican Communion. It would be like the city of Fresno voting to leave the state of California and aligning itself with the state of New York. It’s sad that you all just don’t get it. I still just don’t understand why those who are so unhappy in the Episcopal/Anglican Church simply just don’t leave and either join or start their own denomination. Oh I know why they won’t. It’s because they realize that they will loss power. This fight really has nothing to do with homosexuality or women being ordained, it has to do with Power. They realize that they won’t have the power and influence that they have now.

 

 I hope that everyone has a enjoyable Christmas and Joyous Kwanzaa. I am hoping that maybe this year when I wish my Pastor a Joyous Kwanzaa he will not be rude to me like he was last year. What he did was basically racist.

 

 

I know that I haven’t been keeping this thing up with posts, but I think that it would be much better served if I only wrote from time to time with things of substance then with mindless plat. Hopefully after the holidays I will write on here more often.

 

Well here is hoping and praying that you and yours have a supreme Christian Holiday.

 

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Would you leave this country?

I find things interesting in Christianity today, as it seems to be that people just love to fight over the issue of Homosexuality. I think that it is time for the world to just simply realize that it exist and will continue to exist for the rest for the rest of the time that creatures exist on this planet. Their used to be a time in my life where I was very much against homosexuality and the gay lifestyle, but the more that I thought about the issue, and the issues that those of us that are Black/African-American have had to go through, I began to realize that the homosexual lifestyle was ok.

 

From what I know, all that they are asking for are the same rights as everybody else, which is what the Black Community was (and still is) asking for back in the 50s and 60s. Think about it. Now if this issue were about a racial group the uproar would be different. Imagine if this debate were about the racial group that you were a member of. What do you think that you would do if your child, sibling, cousin, best friend, parent, aunt, uncle etc were to come out openly one day and say that they were homosexual? What would you do if someone were to denounce you because of the color of your skin?

 

Jesus said that we should “… love our neighbor as ourselves…” Now think about it. If you started throwing stones and shooting bullets at your neighbor and you were to kill their child, would you want for them to come and do the same thing to you? Let’s say that the Homosexual Community began their own religion. Would you want them to show up at your house, or a funeral, or get on television saying how your lifestyle is so sinful and wrong? That we should have laws in this country banning things that you do consensually within your own home?

 

What would you do if you were to find out that most of the founders of this country were homosexual? Would you leave this country?

 

It is time for the world to realize that homosexuality is something that is not going to go away. Homosexuality is something that just doesn’t occur within the human species, but in other animals as well (type in “homosexuality in animals” on Goggle, and you will find plenty of scientific proof.)

 

I have yet to know any homosexual who wants to force that “lifestyle” on me, and frankly think that if one were to look upon that “lifestyle”, we would see that it is really no different than any other. Despite the fact that the “hippie” movement of the late 60s and early 70s took away from the focus of the Black Civil Rights Movement, the Black Community has never tried to force its lifestyle on other communities. The Black Community only wants all to accept its community, and that is the same thing that the Homosexual Community desires.

 

If you are unwilling to accept the lifestyle of the Homosexual Community, then just imagine if it was the reverse and it was your community. I’m not Gay, but I have seen and experience what the Black Community has gone through, and don’t think that on other Loving Community should have to go through the same thing.

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Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you

“Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. We know love by this, that he laid down for life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” -1 John 3:13-16

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Over the last year or so, I have been wondering if staying in the Episcopal Church is worth it. I mean with all of the stuff going on in the Anglican Communion it has made wanting to stay very hard. The Episcopal Church is the church that I was born into and have been a member of all of my life.

The thing that is bothering me is the Orthodox side of the church. The Episcopal Church is a denomination that is run similar to congress, but instead of a Senate we have a House of Bishops, and instead of a House of Representatives we have a House of Deputies. But it seems as though the Primates from many of the other Provinces of the Communion and the Orthodox of the Episcopal Church don’t seem to understand that it requires the vote of both houses to make major changes in the church here.

 <>They seem to have a problem with a couple of things, one not more than the other, but through their actions that are showing that they have hate in there hearts. Oh they claim that it isn’t hate that they have, and if this is true, then they must have fear. The actions over the last few years that the Episcopal Church have done over the last 30 or so years have let the world know that this denomination is a church that follows in the way that that the Holy Trinity has guided it. The were upset with the church permitting the ordination of women saying that it is against the teachings of the Bible, but if you look at the life of Jesus you will see that women lead when men were afraid to lead. Was it not the women who showed up at the crucifixion? Was it not the women who showed up to discover the tomb was open? When were the men? 

<>Not to long ago, a court in Southern California ruled in favor of the Episcopal Church (The Diocese of Los Angeles) in a property dispute over three congregations that left the Episcopal denomination. I think that I have written this here before, but it really makes me wonder if they are Christians. To me, if they were Christians they would stay and fight for the things that they believe in within the denomination. These people are like the faux sports fans of teams. These are the same people who when the team is losing aren’t showing up to the stadiums supporting their team, but the second that the team starts winning they claim to be the teams biggest fans. To me a true fan of a team is the one who attends the game when the team has had a losing season and stays through the entire game even in the worse of weather. I think that these congregations and Bishops would be like those who followed Jesus proclaiming him the savior, but were also amongst those who yelled and screamed to crucify him before Pilate.  <>

What is even sadder is the fact that many of these congregations that are leaving are trying to associate with churches in Nigeria and Uganda. Don’t these people realize that a large number of scams and other rip offs are coming from these two countries? I really wonder how many of these congregations will look at their bank accounts in a couple of years only to find that they have been totally cleaned out?  <>

I was reading an article talking about the Anglican Communion, and it pointed out something very interesting. It said that about 1/3 of the money that the communion operates with comes from the Episcopal Church. Now think about it. The Communion has some 77 million members, with 2 million being member of ECUSA. So it means that about 2.6% are providing a good portion of the money that goes into spreading the Gospels and doing great works around the world, and that doesn’t include additional moneys that ECUSA, its Dioceses, and congregations also spends in other ways. I really wonder how much damage to Christianity will be damaged if the Episcopal Church is removed from the Communion? How many children will starve to death because they will not longer be provided the meals that they once were by the moneys provided by the Episcopal Church?

Then I wonder, how much more work will the Episcopal Church be able to handle and support through its membership in the WCC? What would the Anglican Communion say and want to do if the Episcopal Church invested its moneys into organizations that find cures for cancer, AIDS, and SIDS? Or comes up with a way to end world hunger?  <>

I am sure that if the Episcopal Church is removed that some of the others within the Communion will think about leaving, and I am sure that some within the Episcopal Church will choose to leave it. It seems that the people complaining both within and out of ECUSA who are complaining and demanding responses from the Bishops fail to realize that the Episcopal Church is a democracy. The Anglican Communion is demanding a response about the actions of ECUSA by September 30. I think that if the Bishops should response, that they should make it clear that their response only represents the Bishops and not the Laity. They need to make it clear that they are a very small minority within the church here, and that the House of Deputies may choose to respond by saying that they reject what the Bishops say.  <>

With all of the stuff that is going on, I wondered if I should stay in the Episcopal Church. I think that my stay in the Episcopal Church will be for the rest of my life, but I think that my involvement within it will depend on the actions of the Bishops. For the church to stay in the Anglican Communion is not important to me, but I feel that the Bishop should stand up to what and how the Episcopal Church is. The Episcopal Church is following the ways that the Holy Trinity is guiding it, not the ways that man wants for it to go. I am a Christian first, and an Anglican second.

 

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