Accio! The perfect charm for lazy people who can\u2019t be bothered to get up and fetch the TV remote.<\/p>\n
Wingardium Leviosa! Makes things levitate.<\/p>\n
Expecto Patronum! The\u00a0Harry\u00a0Potter\u00a0spell\u00a0to end all\u00a0Harry\u00a0Potter\u00a0spells.\u00a0 (Don\u2019t ask me what it does.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A lot of Christians treat the Bible that way: Pray this way.\u00a0 Use these words.\u00a0 God works a miracle.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t read the Bible that way.\u00a0 Scripture is \u201cGod- breathed.\u201d\u00a0 God is in it, speaks from it.\u00a0 God challenges us.<\/p>\n
Is that a simpler approach to the Bible?\u00a0 Does it mean that we can walk away from the will of God or explain away the demands of Scripture.\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n
It means that we can never walk away from its demands without striving or struggling.\u00a0 \u201cForgive\u201d \u2013 over and over again.\u00a0 Don\u2019t murder?\u00a0 No, don\u2019t hate.\u00a0 To believe that Scripture is God-breathed is to open ourselves up to divine possibilities \u2013 endlessly, without reservation.<\/p>\n
Three: Episcopalians believe that worship is too important to make stuff up.<\/em><\/p>\nTrue confession: I was still a United Methodist when I came back to the United States from studying in England, but I had worshipped in the Anglican Church while I lived and studied there.<\/p>\n
I came back to a church that celebrated communion once a quarter.\u00a0 At first, I didn\u2019t realize how much my attitude toward worship had changed, and \u2013 honestly \u2013 I was where I was.\u00a0 I felt obliged to make the best of it.\u00a0 So, I led people in worship.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t have prayer book, so Sunday after Sunday it was my responsibility to keep the service going and to move us from prayers to Scripture, from Scripture to the sermon and from the sermon to more prayers.\u00a0 Most of that I had to make up on the fly.\u00a0 That was the drill and I prayed hard about it.\u00a0 I also think that there was a lot of real worship that happened.\u00a0 But it was also exhausting and, because I couldn\u2019t know from moment to moment what we really ought to be doing, it was impossible to know for sure whether we were doing the right thing.\u00a0 It all depended to a degree on how I felt about it.<\/p>\n
During those early days an older man in the congregation took notes on his bulletin during the service.\u00a0 As the Brits say, \u201cI was chuffed.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s finding something valuable, I told myself.\u00a0 Then, after church one day he came up to me and showed me a copy of his bulletin.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve been timing the service and I know how to shorten it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Sure enough, he hadn\u2019t been taking notes, he had been tracking how much time we spent on each part of the service.\u00a0 And what did he think the solution could be?\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s cut the rest of the liturgy out of the service.\u201d\u00a0 Mostly, that amounted to reading the Psalms.\u00a0 At that moment, I realized I couldn\u2019t be a Methodist anymore, not that kind anyway.*<\/p>\n
You see, we Episcopalians believe that our worship is grounded in words and in actions that are as old as the church itself.\u00a0 What we say and what we do is based upon the wisdom of the church, and what I feel or think about the way that the service is going doesn\u2019t depend on me. It depends upon what the church has learned about God and about worship over thousands of years.\u00a0 What I feel and what you feel don\u2019t matter.\u00a0 What matters is the truth about God and our liturgy each Sunday offers us the wisdom of the ages.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t make stuff up.<\/p>\n
Four: Episcopalians believe that we are what we eat.<\/em><\/p>\nLet\u2019s go back to that experience I had in England.\u00a0 When we worshipped, every week we received communion.\u00a0\u00a0 Do you know why we do that?<\/p>\n
The Methodist Church that I was part of believed we did it because we were remembering the sacrifice that Jesus made.\u00a0 We were looking back to something that happened a long time ago and we did it once a quarter whether we needed to or not.\u00a0 (One of my parishioners told me, \u201cYou don\u2019t want to do it too often or it isn\u2019t special any longer.\u201d)**<\/p>\n
We remember what Jesus did, too, but we also believe that when we eat the body and blood of Jesus, we also take the life of Jesus into us.\u00a0 We are what we eat.\u00a0 And the more of Jesus we eat, the more we are made to become like Jesus.\u00a0 To forgive like him.\u00a0 To love like him.\u00a0 To sacrifice like him.<\/p>\n
Do you remember your baptism?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 But when we go back over those words when others are baptized, we get a chance to reread them and they point out that we were baptized into the life of Jesus.\u00a0 Well, in communion or Eucharist, we take the life of Jesus into us again and again.\u00a0 That is also a part of what it means to be an Episcopalian.\u00a0 We don\u2019t believe that we are just remembering something that happened in the past.\u00a0 We are experiencing something that happens to us over and over again.\u00a0 We are becoming more and more like Jesus.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s hard to explain. But maybe this will help: If your parents wanted you to be healthy, but all you ever did was remember that they wanted you to be healthy and the rest of the time all you did was eat potato chips and drink chocolate milk, then you would never be the healthy adult your parents longed for you to be.\u00a0 But, if you ate vegetables on a regular basis, then you would become what your parents hoped you would be and you would be healthy.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit like that with Jesus.\u00a0 Jesus wants you to forgive, love and sacrifice the way that he did, but it isn\u2019t enough to remember that now and then.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to take that in all the time and live like that all the time.\u00a0 The Eucharist or communion helps to make that possible.<\/p>\n
When we receive the Eucharist and when we receive the body and blood of Jesus into ourselves, it will help us to become the kind of people that God wants us to be.\u00a0 That\u2019s called God\u2019s grace working within us to transform us.<\/p>\n
Five: Episcopalians believe that what is oldy is not moldy.<\/em><\/p>\nPlease forgive the rhyme.<\/p>\n
We all live in a world where new is good.\u00a0 New cars, new houses, new clothes, new phones.\u00a0 Oldy is moldy.\u00a0 Or so we think.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not what Episcopalians believe.\u00a0 As I said before, we believe that we are part of a faith that is over 2000 years old.<\/p>\n
Again, perhaps an analogy would be helpful: I had lots of ideas about what was best when I was young.\u00a0 I was pretty sure that I knew better than my parents what would be fun, what was best, and how things worked.\u00a0 But I discovered that my parents knew a lot of things that I didn\u2019t know. \u00a0They knew that not everybody is capable of being a good friend.\u00a0 That sometimes people could be cruel.\u00a0 They knew that hard work and discipline was not all that much fun when you are doing it, but they knew that in the long run hard work and discipline made things possible that you never dreamed you could accomplish.\u00a0 Practicing scales made it possible to play a musical instrument.\u00a0 Shooting baskets from the free throw line led to points.<\/p>\n
The same is true of Episcopalians.\u00a0 Oldy is not moldy.\u00a0 We listen to the past.\u00a0 We know there is wisdom to be found there.\u00a0 We listen to our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and great, great, great grandparents.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t always right.\u00a0 Sometimes they made mistakes.\u00a0 Sometimes they made really big mistakes.\u00a0 But they did not make those mistakes because they were old, but because they were human \u2013 just like us.\u00a0 And what they found out and what we believe is that they discovered things about worshipping and following God that are important and justify our attention.<\/p>\n
Oldy isn\u2019t moldy.\u00a0 New isn\u2019t necessarily good.<\/p>\n
Six: Episcopalians believe that \u201cJesus died to take away our sins, not our minds.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThat\u2019s the theme of an old church promotion actually.\u00a0 Like other Christians, we Episcopalians \u00a0believe that the big problem for us as human beings is that too often we want to be our own gods.\u00a0 That is the essence of sin, and Jesus died so that our sin would no longer control us.\u00a0 When we learn to let go and let God guide us, we are always better off.<\/p>\n
But some Christians are afraid that what we learn about our world is the real threat.\u00a0 Some Christian leaders reveal this, telling their followers, \u201cDon\u2019t think too hard about the origins of the universe or the role of evolution.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get too involved in the complexities of philosophy.<\/p>\n
If you think about it, though, that can\u2019t be true.\u00a0 As one of my professors observed years ago, \u201cAll truth is God\u2019s truth\u201d and, that being the case, a knowledge of the world that God made will always lead us back us to God.\u00a0 It is also worth remembering that if we had to be protected from the truth to make our faith possible, then it really wouldn\u2019t be a very reliable faith.<\/p>\n
So, with countless Christians from the past, we believe that Jesus died to take away our sins, not our minds.\u00a0 Christians have been and will continue to be great scientists, psychologists, historians, physicians, philosophers, explorers and countless others who search for the truth.\u00a0 Join them.<\/p>\n
Finally \u2014 Seven: For Episcopalians, as someone once said, \u201cFaith is a journey, not a guilt trip.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nOver the years I have met a lot of people who believe that God is out to get them \u2013 make them feel bad about themselves, make them doubt themselves, make them feel small.<\/p>\n
Nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n
Sure, God wants us to know where, when and how we are hurting ourselves and others.\u00a0 We need to know that about ourselves, and it would be dangerous not to know it.\u00a0 When we lie, steal, cheat and hurt others, we make our lives miserable and we make the lives of others miserable.\u00a0 There is no hiding that and we shouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 No one who hides the truth about that from us is doing us any good.\u00a0 They are loving us into trouble.\u00a0 Trouble for ourselves and trouble for others.<\/p>\n
What God wants to do is free us to be better than we could ever hope or imagine.\u00a0 \u00a0I will tell you a secret, most of us, including most adults, never learn just how much God hopes for us.\u00a0 We always let a little bit of self-doubt or fear keep us from doing everything that we could do.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t necessary.<\/p>\n
William Wilberforce ended the slave trade without any support when he set out to change the laws in England.\u00a0 Martin Luther King changed the way that we think about race, in spite of the fact that many people despised and attacked him.\u00a0 Mother Theresa fed millions and faced off with the mayor of New York, insisting that people care for the poor and the most defenseless among us.<\/p>\n
As Episcopalians, we believe in that kind of journey.\u00a0 Not a guilt trip.\u00a0 A journey of faith, a journey of giving, loving and freeing others.<\/p>\n
If you do anything because you are an Episcopalian, join us on the journey.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
*Much has changed in the United Methodist Church and not all parts of the church had that attitude toward liturgy, but that was the attitude in my corner of things.<\/p>\n
**Again, this was not the attitude of Methodists everywhere and isn\u2019t the official position of the church, but it was that way in my corner of the world at the time.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My wife, The Reverend Natalie Van Kirk, is Rector of Saint Barnabas, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. We have been preaching a series of sermons based upon what we have called, \u201cQuestions Our Youth Are Asking.\u201d It has been a good service and their questions have been thought provoking.\u00a0 One of the most recent questions was, \u201cWhat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2518,2740,2686,123,2683,2755,2764,2746,2767,2761,2749,2758,2743,2737,115,2752],"tags":[2770],"class_list":["post-2512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptism","category-christian","category-communion","category-episcopal-church","category-eucharist","category-forgiveness","category-guilt","category-harry-potter","category-journey","category-knowledge","category-magic","category-minds","category-nicene-creed","category-tec","category-the-episcopal-church","category-tradition","tag-te"],"yoast_head":"\n
Seven Reasons to Be an Episcopalian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My wife, The Reverend Natalie Van Kirk, is Rector of Saint Barnabas, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. We have been preaching a series of sermons based upon what we\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2019\/04\/seven-reasons-to-be-an-episcopalian\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven Reasons to Be an Episcopalian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My wife, The Reverend Natalie Van Kirk, is Rector of Saint Barnabas, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. 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Schmidt, Jr. is inaugural holder of the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation and a Senior Scholar at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. He is also Vice Rector at Good Shepherd, Brentwood, TN; an Episcopal Priest; spiritual director; retreat facilitator; conference leader; and writer. He is the author of numerous published articles and reviews, as well as several books: A Still Small Voice: Women, Ordination and the Church (Syracuse University Press, 1998), The Changing Face of God (Morehouse, 2000), When Suffering Persists (Morehouse, 2001), in Italian translation: Sofferenza, All ricerca di una riposta (Torino: Claudiana, 2004), What God Wants for Your Life \ufeff(Harper, 2005), Conversations with Scripture: Revelation (Morehouse, 2005), \ufeffConversations with Scripture: Luke \ufeff(Morehouse, 2009), and The Dave Test (Abingdon, 2013). He and his wife, Natalie (who is also an Episcopal priest), live in Arrington, TN. 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<\/a>My wife, The Reverend Natalie Van Kirk, is Rector of Saint Barnabas, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. We have been preaching a series of sermons based upon what we have called, \u201cQuestions Our Youth Are Asking.\u201d It has been a good service and their questions have been thought provoking.\u00a0 One of the most recent questions was, \u201cWhat does it mean to be an Episcopalian?\u201d<\/p>\n