#Episcopal – “Social Media Sunday” a Digital Invitation

While in church this Sunday or when you get home, get out your smart phone. Facebook a selfie, live-tweet a prayer, blog an idea, video the hymn-singing, Instagram photos, Pinterest fun images, Foursquare a location — and use #Episcopal — so “Social Media Sunday” goes viral.

Social Media Sunday is an invitation to Episcopalians to share faith in the digital universe, according to Carolyn Clement and Laura Catalano, church social media administrators, who came up with the idea. “It’s a way of saying this is what’s going on in [the] church.”

“People can take a selfie, or a picture of stained glass in their church or something fun going on and post them on Facebook, or Twitter. It’s a neat way to get an idea of what’s happening across the church.”

Besides being a fun day, Social Media Sunday “hopefully, will give us some kind of information about how many Episcopalians are out there, actively using social media to share their faith. It’ll be interesting to see,” Clement said. Meanwhile, she added: “We just want to see #episcopal go viral on June 29.”

From an Episcopal News Service article by Pat McCaughan

Jesus, the Way

Christ Church, St. Joseph, La., 18 May 2014 

My late husband and I were hunting buddies. After he died, I mostly quit hunting because, as I’m sure many of you know, it’s way more fun to hunt with a buddy.

But that’s not the story for this morning. The story for this morning is how we got lost, more specifically, how the one who was always certain she knew where we were, and which way to go, got turned around and got us completely lost.. because he trusted and followed her.

 

See, he was born and grew up in a city.., and he had a lousy sense of direction. You could never have told him, “Go east on I-20, then south on Highway 65 to reach St. Joseph,” because he never knew which way was east and which way south. Do I turn right or left? he would ask.

I, on the other hand, grew up in the country, and had and still have a good sense of direction. Tell me that St. Joseph is southeast of Monroe about an hour and a half’s drive, and I’ll immediately have a mental map of going east on I-20 a ways and then south on some state highway, the name of which I might need to look up.

Give me a map, I have often bragged, and I can get anywhere I want to go, and home again! It got a little harder when we moved to Louisiana, where everything this side of the Ouachita is flat and covered with palmettos and… to people from Pennsylvania, looks exactly alike, indeed, seems to have no distinguishing features to help you find your way.

 

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Tomorrow evening!

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith

invites you to come learn about

Higher Education Funding & the Workforce

 

St. Thomas' Episcopal Church

Thursday, May 1

7 - 8:30 p.m.

 

This issue is of special interest and concern to students. Please try to attend. The purpose of Interfaith Civic Academies is to provide data and initiate thought and discussion of the issues of our community.

Today's sermon: Wounded Healer

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Mer Rouge, La.

I have a scar on my knee. It’s not actually a very impressive scar. You probably wouldn’t notice it even if I were wearing shorts this morning!

But I enjoy telling the story of getting it anyway. I even think of the story in church sometimes because it involves sheep. In fact, I can’t NOT think of it when scripture reminds us, “all we are like sheep who have gone astray”!

You see, sheep are not very smart. One day on a small farm in Iowa, I and my brothers were helping my father in the barn when suddenly the skies opened and the rains came down—huge, drenching, rains.

Our small flock of ewes and newborn lambs was grazing in a pasture nearby. “Quick,” my father said, “get the lambs.”

And we all rushed into the pasture, took a soaking wet lamb into our arms and ran into the barn—the mother following us, of course—then back for another and another until all had been saved.

Sheep will stand in a heavy rain until the lambs get cold and water-logged, fall to the ground and die.

The scar happened because, running to the barn with an armful of wet lamb in a downpour, I failed to see a hunk of barbed wire on the ground and ran into it, ripping open my knee.

No big deal, really. Didn’t even go to the doctor. With no medical insurance, it had to be a lot worse than that to merit a trip to the doctor!

But I enjoy telling the story. It tells you something about me. It gives me a bit of “street cred,” if you will, or I guess “farm cred” would be a better term.

Today’s Gospel story often gets used to talk about things like Thomas’ doubting, his need to get visual confirmation of the resurrection of Jesus, and his ultimate, powerful statement of faith.

I, myself, have used this story to preach about how it is okay to be a bit skeptical, to ask questions and to wait and see. After all, the other 11 also didn’t believe the women when they first burst into the room claiming they had seen Jesus! So Thomas certainly should not take the rap alone!

And the story is about those things..., but I think that focus passes over something very, very important—namely, Jesus showing the disciples his scars, and then breathing the Holy Spirit into them.

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Civic Academy

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith

invites you to come learn about

Higher Education Funding & the Workforce

 

St. Thomas' Episcopal Church

Thursday, May 1

7 - 8:30 p.m.

 

 

This will be in lieu of a Canterbury@ULM meeting this week. Interfaith's involvement in this issue is directly related to our concerns as faculty and students at this university. Hope to see you there.

Bishop Jake's Easter Sermon

Old Tombs, New Life

Listen to Audio on SoundCloud

There are some things that only God can do. 

Jon Bruno is the Bishop of Los Angeles.* Before becoming Bishop Jon served an inner city parish in gang territory. Sitting in those pews among the maids and the mechanics and the janitors and the waitresses were members of rival gangs. 

You could describe some of these young men and women as former gang members. They had undergone a remarkable transformation of heart, soul, and mind. They hadn’t just quit an organization. They were new people. Compassion, respect, and vulnerability had displaced violence, contempt, and intimidation as the defining core of their lives.

Edward Burne-Jones' "The Morning of the Resurrection"

But they hadn’t gotten there all at once. And they certainly hadn’t gotten there on their own. There are some things that only God can do.

Most of the gang members in that parish were just that. Gang members: murderers, thieves, drug dealers. 

Don’t get the idea that these intimidating young men and women had rushed to church because they had seen the light and amended their ways. Against their better judgment they slipped into the back pews, eyeing everybody with suspicion. Their hearts raced when they recognized members of other gangs. They may have exchanged blows and gunfire with some of them.

Gangs do not offer an exit strategy. Well, that’s not entirely true. The tomb is a gang’s exit strategy. You get killed and you’re out. You try to get out and they kill you. In other words, you’re already in the tomb. You’re just waiting for it to be official.

And so gang members stumbled, staggered, and wandered into Bishop Jon’s parish because they had the faint hope that the tomb was not the last word. That maybe, just maybe, God offers a way out of the tomb and into some new life that they didn’t yet understand. 

As it turns out, God does get people out of their tombs. That’s what we celebrate Easter morning. 

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Christós anésti!

God Play, by Bette J. Kauffman

Anésti̱ o Kýrios , prágmati.