| | | | | | | | | | | | PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The fading light of evening streaked through the stained-glass windows at St. Richard's Episcopal Church in Round Rock, Texas, as about a dozen military veterans knelt at the altar rail.
The veterans, including men who had seen combat in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, had come to the suburban Austin sanctuary that August night seeking reconciliation and healing.
The priest, a slim 41-year-old former U.S. Army chaplain, invited them to write down and offer up to God any transgressions they may have committed while in the military that now plague their consciences.
"Maybe you killed someone," the Rev. David Peters told them. "Maybe you don't know who you killed. ... Maybe you sat back when someone was suffering."
Silently, each person wrote a few words on a yellow Post-it, then deposited the note in a thurible used for incense.
"It will burn up," Peters said. "God will hear it and see it. And God will forgive you."Flames darted out from the metal censer as the pungent odor of burning paper filled the church. Slowly, the sticky notes turned into ash.
The ceremony -- a "moral injury healing service" -- is one of several ministries conducted by the Episcopal Veterans Fellowship. Founded by Peters in 2014 in Austin, the organization is a network of veterans and family members who meet twice a month to pray together and share the spiritual angst that lingers from military service. The fellowship is active in several parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, including St. Mark's Episcopal in Austin, where Peters serves as associate rector.
In an effort to heal from moral injury and build a community for struggling veterans, members participate in reconciliation services, retreats and pilgrimages. They also teach other churches about their peer-led model, the first of its kind in the Episcopal Church. And with the support of the Episcopal Church Foundation, Peters travels to parishes around the country to help them create their own veterans ministries.
Read more » |
| IDEAS THAT IMPACT: MINISTRY WITH MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES & VETERANS
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After a tour of duty in Afghanistan, an Army chaplain ponders anew the question a professor once asked: How can she be a Christian and be a part of an organization that breaks things on purpose?
Read more from Mel Baars » |
Many of the nation's veterans are in desperate need of community, and the church should welcome and help them, says a Navy chaplain.
Read more from Russ Ferguson » |
| A Christian combat veteran offers guidance for seminary professors whose students include veterans. Read more from Logan (Mehl-Laituri) Isaac » |
The Postindustrial Promise: Vital Religious Communities in the 21st Century by Anthony E. Healy
Tales of demise and decline have come to characterize news on the state of religion and congregations in America. In The Postindustrial Promise, author Anthony Healy finds that the changes in religious life and among congregations are being misunderstood.
Instead of seeing the changes as the result of the presumed aspects of postmodern life -- individualism, the collapse of social groups, and the scrapping of tradition --Healy sees what has occurred as a postindustrial transformation, in which an economy based on manufacturing has been replaced by one based on corporate and consumer services. This transformation has changed what we value and how we live, as well as how we work. It has also changed congregations and religious life, but not necessarily in the way that many people think.
Contrary to the stories of decline, Healy finds that in this time of postindustrial dislocation people are again putting down religious roots. Congregations are making it possible for people to reconnect with the stories and traditions of previous generations and have become the places in society where the reembodying of religious and cultural narratives is taking place. Different from the postmodern script, this postindustrial explanation leads us to fresh insights into the change that has occurred among religious bodies, their congregants, and their communities.
This book provides pastors, lay leaders, teachers, scholars, and seminarians with a solid grounding in the basic aspects of the postindustrial transformation and offers direction to help religious leaders develop responsive and viable places of ministry, mission, and program in this time of change. Learn more and order the book » |
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