Episcopal Life Online Newslink October 10, 2007
Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.
Today's ELO Newslink includes:
* TOP STORY - Churches Uniting in Christ recommits to goal of racial justice * TOP STORY - New video multicast to air October 11 * DIOCESAN DIGEST - COLORADO: Convention emphasizes growing health of diocese * WORLD REPORT - Archbishop of Canterbury - children 'not expendable' * SPIRITUAL REFLECTION - Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 23) - Year C [RCL]
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TOP STORIES
Churches Uniting in Christ recommits to goal of racial justice
[CUIC/ENS] At a special three-day gathering of the Coordinating Council of Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC), representatives of 10 communions committed themselves to "keep racial justice at the top of its agenda" as together they seek to build "God's Beloved Community."
Some twenty-five members of CUIC's Coordinating Council and members of its Racial Justice Task Force met at the Conference Center of the Maritime Institute in the Baltimore--Washington corridor October 4-6, 2007.
The meeting focused on CUIC "reclaiming the central, guiding vision of 'seeking to be God's beloved community,'" organizers report, adding that the gathering affirmed that "racial justice and reconciliation are fundamental to the calling of the church's unity, and that this will require a new orientation by the churches to return to the core Christian experiences of confession, repentance and forgiveness."
Two consultants from the Minnesota-based Anti-Racism Study-Dialogue Circle assisted the Council in addressing concerns raised by the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) communities in recent months.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_90887_ENG_HTM.htm
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New video multicast to air October 11
'Episcopal Life Focus' covers churchwide news; program also offered for local cable TV placement
[Episcopal News Service] The October edition of "Episcopal Life Focus" -- a half-hour video "multicast" featuring church mission, ministries and news -- will be posted for online viewing October 11 by 8 p.m. Eastern time.
The program will remain available for on-demand viewing at Episcopal Life Online.
Produced by Episcopal Life Media, the program will feature coverage of the House of Bishops September meeting in New Orleans, the Archbishop of Canterbury's visit there, and the hands-on post-hurricane rebuilding and pastoral work offered by the bishops and spouses along the Gulf Coast.
Also featured is a profile of New Orleans Episcopalian Diana Meyers, who leads the Mobile Healthcare Ministry for St. Anna's Church, a historic parish in the city's Treme section.
The program covers the opening of the new Desmond Tutu Center for Reconciliation at New York's General Theological Seminary. The Focus program will conclude with a pastoral reflection.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_90888_ENG_HTM.htm
More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife
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DIOCESAN DIGEST
COLORADO: Convention emphasizes growing health of diocese http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_90885_ENG_HTM.htm
More Diocesan news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_ENG_HTM.htm
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WORLD REPORT
Archbishop of Canterbury - children 'not expendable' http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_90886_ENG_HTM.htm
More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm
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SPIRITUAL REFLECTION
Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 23) - Year C [RCL]
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 or 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Psalm 66:1-12 or Psalm 111; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19
By Anthony F.M. Clavier
[Sermons That Work] Do you sometimes get turned off by "religion talk"? Or do you think that the vocabulary and jargon used by many Christians somehow makes an ordinary idea so religious that it doesn't apply in day-to-day living?
Such a word is "grace." It sounds so pious and out of reach. So when a prayer, one of those lovely compact "collect" prayers, talks of God's grace going in front of us and behind us, we sort of shrug, say "fine" but really don't think it means very much at all.
The prayer - collect - today is a reminder of the story about God's glory in visible form, as a great light, which went in front of and behind the children of Israel as they escaped Egypt and went in search of the Promised Land. Yet escaping from Egypt and looking for a Promised Land seem so very far from our experiences at work, or at home, even in church. Surely, sometimes we would love to run away. Maybe we pray that one day we will go to heaven. After all, why else would we be in church today, singing those hymns and saying these prayers? God seems to like that sort of thing for some unknown reason, so we do them. Perhaps we get some comfort and some hope. But as to the practicality of all this, perhaps some of us or most of us reserve judgment.
Full reflection: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_90748_ENG_HTM.htm
More Spiritual Reflections:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm