This post is a response to a previous post in which I talked about the Problem of Individualism in the Church. I claimed that Individualism has hurt the church, and I stand by that position. This post is a warning of the dangers of collectivism in the church.
When mentioning to our family members and friends how we are Anglican, we get a lot of confused looks and questions. Once they hear the word “father,” they think that we’re Catholic. Also, in conversations with friends who are wives of Anglican priests, they talk about getting flack for being married to a priest–thinking that all men who wear collars must be celibate! Well, this post is a little unpacking of the tradition of calling pastors ‘father,’ the clerical collar and the allowances of the men who wear them.
Welcome to part 3 of How to Pray! If you’re interested in the background and reasons to read and pray every day using the Daily Office, check out Part 1. If you need the schedule and resource links for when and what to pray, check out Part 2.
This post is the detailed elaboration on Option 1 of the ‘Simple Plan’ with Morning, Evening and Night Prayer discussed generally in a previous post here.
Welcome to Tips & Tricks #1
CONSIDER HOME DECOR
I’m going to be coming out with weekly tips & tricks about how to make an Anglican home, so stay tuned!
Besides the outright Anglican things like the advent wreath I blogged about here before, there must be some ways to incorporate a representation of God into our daily lives. I was surfing a lovely Anglican Forum and found a mother asking for advice regarding how to bring her Anglican faith into her home. The excellent suggestions ensued, which I want to share with you!
Before I do, just a word on the purpose of these small additions to your home. These small things like colors and symbols do not take the place of our faith. They are also not empty symbols that become an act of legality. We live in a world of symbology: soldiers wear emblems, each country has a flag, each company has a logo! The emblems and flags themselves aren’t honored, but rather it’s the things they represent that are honored. The little things I’m going to suggest in creating an Anglican home are symbols of our faith to help remind us, bolster us, and encourage us toward that spiritual walk we each have with God through Christ His Son.
Before I was Anglican, I was Baptist, and the only time I’ve heard of the word “Liturgy” was at a nondenominational Christian conference seminar about the importance of liturgy. I was 16 years old and didn’t give a care to the word so I’ve forgotten everything he said about it.
After being led by my husband to consider Anglicanism, I had to learn the word! A short explanation from a previous post:
What is liturgy? What is Anglican liturgy? Liturgy is an orderly and structured form of church worship that consists of a combination of prayers, readings, songs, and sacraments. The Anglican liturgy is uniquely defined in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. It specifically contains a 3-year schedule of prayers (where you sometimes stand and sometimes sit), readings from the Bible (at least one from the Old Testament, one of the Epistles, and one from the Gospels), and the sacrament (Communion). Each year is broken down into liturgical seasons where upon a different theme is focused. This sounds boring, you may be thinking. With centuries of knowledge and time dedicated to figuring out the best chorus of verses and prayers, the liturgy is quite exciting and helps focus the soul on what’s most important: Christ. Check out this article on “Why Millennials Long for Liturgy.”
I’ve attended church my entire life, and I feel like I’ve seen all type of churches – nondenominational, pentecostal, free, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholic and Baptist. From my experience with people from each kind of church, it seemed like there were the ‘dead’ churches (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholic) and there were the ‘alive’ churches (nondenominational, pentecostal, and free). So I came to the conclusion that the ‘dead’ churches were the ones with liturgy, so the aspect of liturgy must be why those Christians don’t seem to have a faith that is alive.
This is the first year that we decided to make our very own advent wreath. First, let’s get some questions out of the way.
The Anglican Mom 