Monday, November 09, 2009

The Episcopal Church Welcomes You

So I'm having a crabby day.

My cell phone died. My office computer has a black-screen-of-death with words like "corrupt system disk" on it and I'm reduced to trying to get SOMETHING done on someone else's computer while I wait for the IT-angels to come fix mine. Grrr!

So -- doing research for a Veteran's Day piece, I went to the episcopalchurch.org website -- and while I was being crabby about having to wait for the spalsh page to download before I got to what I went there for, I read what was ON the slash page:


As Episcopalians, we are followers of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Episcopal Church has members in the United States, as well as in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Haiti, Honduras, Micronesia, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Venezuela, and the Virgin Islands.

We strive to love our neighbors as ourselves and respect the dignity of every person.

The Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and traces its heritage to the beginnings of Christianity.

Our liturgy retains ancient structure and traditions, and is celebrated in many languages.

We welcome men and women, married or celibate, to be ordained as bishops, priests, and deacons.

We believe in amendment of life, the forgiveness of sin, and life everlasting.

Lay people exercise a vital role in the governance and ministry of our Church.

Holy Communion may be received by all baptized Christians, not only members of the Episcopal Church.

We uphold the Bible and worship with the Book of Common Prayer.

We affirm that committed relationships are lifelong and monogamous. Episcopalians also recognize that there is grace after divorce and do not deny the sacraments to those who have been divorced.

We affirm that issues such as birth control are matters of personal informed conscience.

We celebrate our unity in Christ while honoring our differences, always putting the work of love before uniformity of opinion.

All are welcome to find a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church.


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Wow. I'm less crabby now. Going across the quad to celebrate Noon:10 Eucharist and then back to hope for progress in the technology front ... but deeply grateful to be able to say, "Yep, I AM an Episcopalian!"

2 comments:

Theodora May said...

I am having a simular day myself. As ususual, you brighten my day. This is wonderful.

The Pensacola Hippie said...

Hi Susan...Thansk for this post. I've had a pretty lousy day, too & am now watching *my* team play & blogging.

Am also proud to be an Episcopalian.