Received Yesterday

[SnowyMacie]

I thought I would share with you guys that I was officially received into the Episcopal Church yesterday by our diocese's bishop. The word that comes to mind when I talk about how I feel is "connected", I feel much more connected to the saints across the ages than I did before and the apostolic and catholic church across the ages. I grew up in Churches of Christ, and that while I was educated in church history and later in life about the more traditional styles of worship and, for lack of a better term, church organization. While I did consider church history to be my own religion and church's history, and even a continuation of that historical church, I just never quite felt connected to it, in fact, I didn't even realize that I didn't feel connected. In other words, I didn't realize what I was missing until I wasn't missing it.


Oh, and also not super important, during our class on Saturday, our rector pretty much said our little forum's title "Scripture, Tradition, Reason" almost verbatim during his final summary.

 

[Tigger45]

Congrats!

 

[seeking.IAM]

Congratulations and welcome!

 

[archer75]

This is cool, congrats. I also have a CoC background and would be interested in hearing more about how you managed this, @TX_Matt .

 

[SnowyMacie]

This is cool, congrats. I also have a CoC background and would be interested in hearing more about how you managed this, @TX_Matt .

Well, I grew up on the more progessive side of the CoC, and then went to school at ACU. While I was at ACU, I got very deep into theology and exposed to/learned about different beliefs on scripture. It was also at this same time, that my own worldview was switching from conservative to liberal, partially from what I learned from the classroom and partially from what I learned hearing friends' stories that didn't fit into my conservative worldview. I knew that this liberal worldview was not the norm in the CoC when I went back to my home church, and was really only the norm at my college church. It was also during college that I learned about the Episcopal Church, and began to explore more into it, and as I learned more about TEC and the Anglican Communion as a whole I began to feel called to it. This is also not to mention that my college church was almost an Episcopalian-CoC hybrid, looking back on it. It was where I first came to believe in the real presence of the eucharist without even realizing it, we did an entire sermon series mostly based on N.T. Wright's "Suprised by Hope.", weekly reciting the Lord's Prayer, and even practicing and participating in the season of Lent (my first Ash Wednesday service was in the CoC).

Even now, I do acknowledge there is nothing quite like a cappella worship (one of the reasons for leaving the CoC was the growing movement towards band worship), am still not sure about infant baptism, and even though there is something humbling about kneeling at the altar to receive communion, I do think passing makes God more present in the service when it's passed and in CoC worship in general.

 

[archer75]

Thanks, @TX_Matt . That sounds broadly similar to some recent changes for me.

I also like a cappella worship (and vocal music in general), though I do wish our congregation had made some effort to read music or do part-singing.

 

[kayfeather]

Congrats!

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