[ELD] Episcopal Life Daily

[Matthew Davies]

Episcopal Life Daily
August 5, 2008

Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.

Today's Episcopal Life Daily includes:

* WORLD REPORT - MELANESIA: Western Solomons seafarers celebrate inaugural
Sea Sunday event
* FEATURE - Congregations need to rediscover their spiritual centers
* DAYBOOK - August 6, 2008: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* CATALYST - To Be A Pilgrim: The Anglican Ethos in History

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WORLD REPORT

MELANESIA: Western Solomons seafarers celebrate inaugural Sea Sunday event
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_99807_ENG_HTM.htm

More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm

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FEATURES

Congregations need to rediscover their spiritual centers

By Celia Allison Hahn 

[Episcopal Life] "What do you need most from your church?" In one typical
survey, four out of five Episcopalians replied, "I want food for my
spiritual hunger."

Another study discovered that, although many people volunteered to serve on
their vestries hoping to enhance their spiritual growth, at the end of their
terms they frequently went away disappointed because they had experienced
only a secular "Roberts Rules of Order" mentality.

Unless such "Martha" churches can make room in their busyness for a
rediscovery of their spiritual centers, they risk losing energy and a sense
of relevance to their lives. In the Alban Institute's Congregational
Spirituality research, it became clear that not only individuals but also
churches have a spirit, often hidden, that can be uncovered.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81834_99808_ENG_HTM.htm

More Features: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/78936_ENG_HTM.htm

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DAYBOOK

On August 6, 2008, the Church calendar remembers The Transfiguration of Our
Lord Jesus Christ.

* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm

* Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm

* Today in History: On August 6, 1809, Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet
and Anglican, was born in Lincolnshire, England.

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CATALYST

"To Be A Pilgrim: The Anglican Ethos in History" from the Crossroad
Publishing Company, by Frederick Quinn, 306 pages, hardcover, c. 2001,
$24.95

[The Crossroad Publishing Company] To Be A Pilgrim is about the Anglican
ethos from a historical perspective. Neither a denominational nor a
confessional treatment, it traces the evolution of spirituality in the
English tradition from Bede and Cranmer to C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, and
Dorothy Sayers.

By describing the Anglican ethos in historical context, with its emphasis on
reason, moderation, liturgy and culture, readers can more easily see the
grounding from which this faith tradition emerges.

There are readings at the end of each chapter and excerpts throughout from
key writers. Poetry, mystery, literacy, music, art, plus social justice and
spirituality are all characteristic of the Anglican tradition.

"The study of a religious ethos does not hang on fixed dates as much as does
conventional political history with the death of a monarch or the loss of a
battle as a defining event. It is more like tracing the strands of a
tapestry through time. The spirituality of Julian of Norwich, seemingly a
product of the English Middle Ages, reappears in the twentieth century.
Lancelot Andrews, who sprung to life during the English Reformation, becomes
a pivotal figure in the Oxford Movement three centuries later. Such strands
do not exist in isolation, but are interwoven with others as anyone will
conclude who has tried to work their way through the multiple prayer book
studies tracing the origins of new liturgical rites ... The understanding of
the evolution of a religious ethos is more than a study of white hats versus
black hats in any age, more like tracing the interacting parts of a Bach
fugue." -- From the introduction

To order: Episcopal Books and Resources, online at
http://www.episcopalbookstore.org, or call 800-903-5544 -- or visit your
local Episcopal bookseller, http://www.episcopalbooksellers.org

More Catalyst: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/83842_ENG_HTM.htm