I recently came across a worship video by CityAlight, Not I But Through Christ In Me. It is an original hymn which encapsulates the gospel very well. I love it. One of the young women leading the song is so bright in her worship it drew out my hunger for Christ. When I researched the group I found them to be part of Anglican diocese in Australia. I don't care about the framework because they are knowing Christ Jesus. I like the idea of framework better than institution because the latter can mean you are committed to an institution. (Get that, like an asylum :)) I know you are not so. It is about true fellowship, koinonia, which we share here. I have wondered about seeking ordination as I have sat under ministry for 50 years and learned to do the work of the ministry (Eph. 4) I think of John Bunyan, who as a fellow Puritan was jailed for preaching without a license. That error led to Pilgrim's Progress. All these thoughts to say, you go girl! Thanks for sharing and committing to His purpose. No matter where we serve, we are part of one eternal body, under one tent as CT promotes.
Loved reading this. I know how flawed the church is as an institution, I know why people hesitate to join, and I take all those things seriously; still witnessing people make a commitment to the church never fails to move me. It looks like a prophetic act, like acting out of belief in what God has said about his people even as you wait for his words to be fulfilled. Congratulations.
Part of this process for me included reading some Anglican-specific church history, and it was very interesting on this point. Of course, it's so messy. The Henry VIII stuff is so bad you can really only laugh. The timeline on Anne Boleyn's pregnancy ... c'mon, man. And Thomas Cranmer, who wrote the Book of Common Prayer, was intimately involved in legitimizing that whole situation.
But the history of it also drove home that Cranmer, for instance, was simultaneously sincerely trying to faithfully serve the church in a time and culture and government SO different from ours. He wrote beautiful prayers and was ultimately martyred by other Christians for "heresy."
In other times and places, I expect it was probably easier for the average person in the pews to assume the basic goodness of the institution and the trustworthiness of the people running it. For us, maybe not so much -- and yet our sophisticated cynicism is too simple too.
I recently came across a worship video by CityAlight, Not I But Through Christ In Me. It is an original hymn which encapsulates the gospel very well. I love it. One of the young women leading the song is so bright in her worship it drew out my hunger for Christ. When I researched the group I found them to be part of Anglican diocese in Australia. I don't care about the framework because they are knowing Christ Jesus. I like the idea of framework better than institution because the latter can mean you are committed to an institution. (Get that, like an asylum :)) I know you are not so. It is about true fellowship, koinonia, which we share here. I have wondered about seeking ordination as I have sat under ministry for 50 years and learned to do the work of the ministry (Eph. 4) I think of John Bunyan, who as a fellow Puritan was jailed for preaching without a license. That error led to Pilgrim's Progress. All these thoughts to say, you go girl! Thanks for sharing and committing to His purpose. No matter where we serve, we are part of one eternal body, under one tent as CT promotes.
thanks so much!
Congratulations! We were confirmed in the ACNA a few years ago in Washington, DC. Thank you for this reflection.
thank you!
Loved reading this. I know how flawed the church is as an institution, I know why people hesitate to join, and I take all those things seriously; still witnessing people make a commitment to the church never fails to move me. It looks like a prophetic act, like acting out of belief in what God has said about his people even as you wait for his words to be fulfilled. Congratulations.
Part of this process for me included reading some Anglican-specific church history, and it was very interesting on this point. Of course, it's so messy. The Henry VIII stuff is so bad you can really only laugh. The timeline on Anne Boleyn's pregnancy ... c'mon, man. And Thomas Cranmer, who wrote the Book of Common Prayer, was intimately involved in legitimizing that whole situation.
But the history of it also drove home that Cranmer, for instance, was simultaneously sincerely trying to faithfully serve the church in a time and culture and government SO different from ours. He wrote beautiful prayers and was ultimately martyred by other Christians for "heresy."
In other times and places, I expect it was probably easier for the average person in the pews to assume the basic goodness of the institution and the trustworthiness of the people running it. For us, maybe not so much -- and yet our sophisticated cynicism is too simple too.