Seen in the comments section of “Father Jake Stops The World:”

It is a truism that 20% of the membership does 80% of the work of a parish. If this is so, even roughly speaking, then it stands to reason that the key statistic is not how many show up on Sunday, but how many are active. “The ministers of the church,” the Catechism says, “are laypeople, bishops, priests and deacons” (ECUSA BCP [1979], p. 855). This simple statement makes it clear that the work of the church belongs to the laity. The clergy are there to help the laity do that work.

What this means is that the primary function of a parish is to be a community of ministering people. It starts with offering worship on Sunday, “the work of the people,” which is what “liturgy” means. The ability to offer regular Sunday worship is the sine qua non of every church. This is so fundamental that we often overlook it. New missions, and the tiny churches that dot the nation, however, understand it well.

But the work of the people is much more than that. Each one of us has a speaking part in God’s drama of salvation. The meaning of a Christian’s life is to discover that role, accept it, and learn to employ the specific gifts of the Holy Spirit in accomplishing that work. This means of course being part of the ministry of the local congregation.

Each congregation is therefore a seedbed?a “seminary”?for the individual ministries of each member. Those congregations that claim this as their primary role will succeed in helping birth the vocations of their members. The consequences of this will be enormous. First of all, the negativity of being a static or declining church will disappear, as well as the “category envy” (“we wanna be a corporate parish!”) that all too often infest the thinking of parochial leadership. The higher the percentage of members who have claimed their ministry, the more joy a congregation will experience being who they are, rather than wishing they were another bigger, richer parish (Eph. 4:16). – Anglicans Online Essays | The True Measure of a Successful Parish, by Pierre W. Whalon

This enlarges on themes and topics that are being kicked around in our diocese, and adds new food for thought as well.

Pentecost, Sunday May 15th, will be a special day – but we need your help!

We need people to read the Gospel for that day in as many languages as possible. We’ve had a few volunteer that they have a working knowledge of Spanish, German, Italian, French, and even Greek and Latin. We could use some more readers, especially native speakers. This would be a great opportunity to invite someone to come with you that day, so if you know someone who speaks a language other than English, please offer them the opportunity.

This is the Gospel that Father Ted will read:

John 14:8-17

Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

There are a lot of language resources online, but this website yielded th biggest variety of languages, in a highly readable format.

So far, I’ve gathered readings in Spanish, German, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Norwegian, Swedish, Tagalog, Modern Hebrew, and Thai. There are several African languages available, along with Maori, Chinese, and even Esperanto.

Please email me, Ginny Gibbs, if you’re interested in being a reader.

The readings for Sunday May 1, the Sixth Sunday of Easter.

There are several options for readings, but this one from Acts is especially welcome in a time when people of different faiths are in conflict, and indeed when people of the same faith are in conflict:

Acts 17:22-31
Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, `To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him– though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For `In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

`For we too are his offspring.’

Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Rather than criticising the Athenians as idolators and rejecting their beliefs out of hand. Paul “looked carefully at [their] objects of worship” and found the altar to “an uknown God” could be a point of convergence between their religious views and his own. His persuasive and logical argument could not fail to intrigue them and inspire them to learn more about this unknown God and the Man He appointed as judge.

It’s probably the worlds’ first example of ecumenicalism in action.