I’m never quite sure whether I pull off what I’m working on. Yesterday, given the constraints of other commitments, I wasn’t happy with the final shape of the sermon. But some of what I was groping toward must have come through. A parishioner called me today and said lovely things about my sermon yesterday.

That’s not why I’m writing. Instead, I’m writing about two other things. First, a series of conversations at coffee hour about our decrepit dishwasher and how we should proceed. We can get it fixed. The problem is, it doesn’t do what we need it to do. It constrains our ministry because our kitchen is not adequate for the purposes to which we put it, or could put it, with the proper equipment. Our food pantry can’t re-package bulk food for example.

Then, I saw a post on the Episcopal Cafe that led me to this. There’s much here with which I disagree but it seems to me that the right questions are being asked. I especially like the parable of the life-saving station. I’d heard it before but it had slipped my mind. In some ways, it captures the history of Christianity in America. The full parable is here.

I was involved for a couple of years in a parish that was a fairly recent church plant. It was successful at the level of bringing people in, but I don’t think it was particularly at shaping and forming disciples.

I do think on one level that it is all about liturgy or worship. The old Anglican/Episcopal mantra was lex orandi, lex credendi, praying shapes believing. We have a gift to offer the larger church and the world–a gift of an experience of God rooted in beautiful music, beautiful language, and at Grace, a beautiful space. We need to find ways of sharing that.