When Lent rolls around, everyone notices. The altar becomes bare, our priests become purple, we become penitent, and our liturgy becomes focused on sin, death, and spiritual renewal. At St. Thomas, we appreciate the penitence but like to lean heavily into the spiritual renewal piece. Lent leads us to the cross and the empty…

St. Thomas has partnered with the 501c3 non-profit, Shakespeare Opera Theater, as part of our community engagement and evangelism efforts. With each press release and review, St. Thomas is provided free promotion and is associated with positive developments in our community. By serving as a host and performance venue we are…

The Christian faith arrived in England in the latter part of the 4th Century. By the 5th century, Christianity was also established in what we now call Scotland and Ireland. Learning about these early Christians and their histories were my favorite stories when I studied Church History in seminary.   We have worked wit…

In my childhood I went to many “church camps” where we did age appropriate things, sang songs where we clapped a lot, ran around like savages, painted ourselves with mud and fought each other with sticks for who would be the leader. I know that sounds like Lord of the Flies, and it definitely was. Kids were allowed to run a…

I’m continuing to follow news from Morocco through Kristi Roberts’ Facebook page. For those of you who missed the news, Kristi, Clark and Annelise are safe in Rabat. One of our preschool teachers is a native of Morocco and she also reports that all of her family is safe.   As you probably know the damage in the most af…

Did you know that most weekdays (except for Fridays) we worship in our sanctuary at noon?   On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, we pray Noonday Prayer together. This simple service is found in the Book of Common Prayer on pages 103-107. If there is a saint’s remembrance assigned to the day, we substitute that psalm,…

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi   You may have noticed a change to my name in the service bulletin. That is because I have joined the Religious Community of Francis and Clare, and have started the journey to be a Franciscan Friar.   What is a f…

For anyone interested in exploring their faith more deeply, read on!  Education for Ministry (EfM) is a program to help laity deepen their “book learning”–in Scripture, church history, theology, and ethics–and to explore how it all relates to contemporary life through the process of theological reflection.  Participants e…

In one of my recent trips down the YouTube rabbit hole, I happened upon some clips from Dr. Aaron Higashi, a biblical scholar who is active on social media, seeking to present scholarly takes on scripture in a way that is digestible to those of us lay people who are not in academia. His videos take on many different topics…

This week, I encountered a book that was published last summer. It’s called Hope: A User’s Manual by Maryann McKibben Dana.     The book title caught my attention because I’ve been thinking a lot about hope. In many ways, I’ve struggled to feel hopeful in the last year or so. I’m worried about so many things. I fe…