Formation

Talking to God can be using the words of the Lord’s prayer, it can be off-the-cuff, it can be going through the Daily Office, joining Lectio Divina on Mondays, or it can be as simple as witnessing the beauty of the world. Prayer can connect us to our Creator, bring us closer to each other, and help us learn more about who we are and how to live our lives accordingly.

Taken together, these losses produce a recognizable landscape: loneliness, anxiety, depression, addiction, and an aching restlessness that many people feel but struggle to explain. It’s tempting to treat those problems as purely psychological. If the problem lives inside us, then the solution must also live inside us. Better habits. More discipline. Greater resilience. Those are all good things. But a river doesn’t rebuild its own banks because one elk develops better grazing

Preparing food for each other and eating together is such an intimate, familial experience. It is also deeply rooted in the traditions of the early church as we see it in scripture. Eucharist is not the only transcendent meal we share. With every plate we eat with one another, we are mysteriously and invisibly woven together as the body of Christ.

When it comes to women in ministry, there are hundreds of examples across Scripture of women leading, prophesying, teaching, and breaking cultural barriers in the name of God. Yet, again and again, parts of the church bypass all of that and land on the two New Testament passages that seem to restrict women — passages that, conveniently, happen to confirm what our culture already expected. This pattern itself is ancient.

When my friend Chris told me he was driving up from Dallas to tell me something, I was very confused. It was a five-hour drive. Whatever he needed to say, couldn't he just say it over the phone? But maybe there are some things that need to be said face to face. We had been friends for more than a decade. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had noticed that Chris had never had a girlfriend, never even been on a date. I assumed he was shy. By the time I hung up the phone, I was

Looking back, I can only describe it as a kind of violent mercy — because what shattered was not really my faith in God. What shattered was an idol that had been wearing God’s face.

Midwinter Retreat is coordinated and run by Emmanuel Episcopal Church through the hard work of our Youth & Family Minister Beth Canaday. We host this event each January at Jacob's Ladder Camp & Retreat Center in Chandler, Oklahoma. Midwinter allows an opportunity for youth 6th - 12th grade to grow closer to God and each other through a mini-camp experience.

The word "sanctuary" has deep roots in our faith tradition. This is why the doors to churches are traditionally, red. It was a sign of sanctuary. It means a holy place, a refuge, a space set apart. In medieval times, churches offered literal sanctuary to those fleeing persecution. Today, our calling to be sanctuary is both practical and spiritual.

Questions You've Always Had about Giving to the Church (and were maybe too afraid to ask)

he story of Jesus’ birth gives 1/2 of one sentence to the fact that there was not enough room in the expected places.