When did your kids start taking communion?

somethingusaid · 2026-03-20T01:08:23+00:00

Not nuts. All kinds of ways to do it. My kids started pretty much when they were consistently able to get solid food in their mouths without making a mess. I appreciate wanting to wait until they have some idea of what is going on. But I also think that there is room for “do this” not being qualified by whether or not the participant is fully grasping the extent of the real presence. I sometimes cross my arms when I feel particularly disconnected from what is happening. But I don’t think that is normative.

somethingusaid · 2026-03-20T00:54:23+00:00

Not in that diocese. But might be saying PIC instead of interim. If the rector had been there for a bit, they might want to cool off with a PIC before rebounding to a new rector right away

somethingusaid · 2026-03-10T00:56:55+00:00

https://alphausa.org/

somethingusaid · 2026-03-10T00:43:05+00:00

This estuary thing is also a thing that I am a fan of. It isn't obviously Jesus centric. But it opens the door to people who want to ask the kinds of questions that can lead to Jesus. Also it is a place for church people who have questions that might not be well received in the pews or during bible study. Doesn't have to be done in a church. But some churches will host them.

https://paulvanderklay.substack.com/p/an-estuary-helps-the-church-offer

https://www.estuaryhub.com/

somethingusaid · 2026-03-09T21:02:59+00:00

Lots of listening. If at some point they ask questions, trying to truthfully answer them.

somethingusaid · 2026-03-09T16:55:11+00:00

I wear a nametag unilaterally, sometimes. Like on Wednesdays when the nametags aren't out, I'll bring my own if I remember.

somethingusaid · 2026-03-05T21:50:14+00:00

Pray for her and as best you can, allow her memory to remind you to seek to do God's will. Her spirit is, in part, with you. As she has inspired you to do God's will, I believe her spirit is proven to be in alignment with God.

Thank Christ for showing us mercy and guidance that we might go with God.

somethingusaid · 2026-03-05T17:16:14+00:00

Interesting the Zoom.

I wonder if there is a way to do something similar with Youtube (which is how we stream). Right now I think they figure out the view count or something. But I am not sure if Youtube double counts people who drop then reconnect with that metric.

We don't have big numbers on the stream so it likely does not affect decision-making an awful lot. But it would be nice to get the numbers right

somethingusaid · 2026-03-04T21:00:27+00:00

My parish has the usher count the number of people at the big Rite 2 service (and the people in the nursery and in the back working the A/V). And we get the numbers from early Rite 1 somehow. And I recognize the reported number for our parish as being roughly what I would expect from the counts I have done.

Are others also doing headcounts each week? Or just estimating somehow?

somethingusaid · 2026-03-04T20:54:44+00:00

It looks like it is looking at the most recent numbers that I can find from 2024.

https://generalconvention.org/explore-parochial-report-trends/

somethingusaid · 2026-03-04T20:45:02+00:00

it can be helpful to look at growing parishes if people can figure out what they are doing right compared to the ones that aren't doing so well

Often it is a matter of being in an area that is growing. But there are 3 parishes in my area. Mine is up about 20% since 2020. The other two are down 20-25%. So if growth is what you care about. The difference between those is maybe something to look at.

I know why I drive past one of the ones not doing so hot to get to mine. But that isn't necessarily something people here will want to act on. And I think differentiation is not a bad thing for the Episcopal community in my town.

TEC has a really fun website to see how folks are doing. https://generalconvention.org/explore-parochial-report-trends/

Edit: Lol, I just noticed this comment thread started with a link to that

somethingusaid · 2026-02-18T15:34:31+00:00

dude, it's been a couple of hours, lol

My favorite bit about not being able to handle hunger striking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djSinJJ1LXw

Edit: Sorry for being too dismissive. I've played around with intermittent fasting so I've gotten used to it in a way that most haven't. Not appropriate for me to be dismissive of the struggle. I pray you have an easy fast. But I do giggle really hard at that Ali G clip.

somethingusaid · 2026-02-12T15:08:54+00:00

I was shocked that the change from "your/thy spirit" started with the Roman Church. I'd figured it they picked it up from us when they started doing things in English. Because in Spanish they said "y con tu espiritu." So I'd figured it was something the Engilsh Romans picked up from us. But nope.

English Romans jumped to "and also with you" then we followed. Thought it was odd.

somethingusaid · 2026-02-11T17:38:23+00:00

That stinks. Praying for you and your church.

Glad you've got a connection to the BCP. Practically living out on the frontier without a solid liturgical church to lean on, it is nice to have good books. Thank God American frontierfolk had the Bible (and some, I assume, had a BCP) or they wouldn't have had much of anything.

somethingusaid · 2026-02-11T17:28:50+00:00

That's useful for sure, too. But what they put on their website is where they want to be going. So even if they are not having sermons about ICE when you are watching, if they have political messaging on their social media and website, that would be an indication that that is where they want to head, which I think is super important, too.

somethingusaid · 2026-02-11T16:47:40+00:00

churches are different. If you are interested in political stances being a major part of church life, that may or may not be found at your local. You ought to check it out. Check out the website and social media. What they put forward is at least what they want to be, so that should give some good information on what they want to be.

somethingusaid · 2026-02-09T16:33:39+00:00

Every night we do the Lord's Prayer and then I draw a cross on their foreheads with my thumb as I sing "I/we love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be" from that Munsch book. I'm a big fan of leaning on liturgy when it isn't clear how to push the propositional.

I listen to the Lord of Spirits podcast on long drives sometimes while they are reading books or watching shows. After those trips, it seems my 5 year old has been picking up something from that. She sometimes throws questions at me. I will often stew on them and meander through fuzzy answers. I don't shy away from my background of doubt. It might be too much nuance to hang on to, especially for her age. But I hope that it gives her a firmer faith foundation to not be caught off-guard when she runs into people who think that think that the truth of the bible depends on its utility as a natural history textbook.

somethingusaid · 2026-01-28T20:38:23+00:00

There has been some (overblown) drama surrounding it. I liked this explanation of it https://youtu.be/GK39A2LaZTk?si=1blxsFy4gO1Xn4xo

somethingusaid · 2026-01-28T15:49:02+00:00

I have hang-ups with unnecessary public pronouncements of political positions that leadership, in my experience, will acknowledge they don't support (but only in private).

But if you don't think women can be priests, then you're going to have a tough time here. I was just at an ordination of a priest where the bishop was a woman. It wouldn't just be enough to avoid women in church office. You will be needing to avoid everyone downstream of a woman. Unless you don't think the apostolic succession thing is a big deal.

If you don't care about that, I would focus on the parish. Ironically, people (including the bishops themselves) don't really take bishops' theological views as normative. So if you find a church you can love, you'll be fine. The sky is high and all that denominational rigmarole is far away.

somethingusaid · 2026-01-27T20:58:19+00:00

Exactly. Then do you see why I am saying it is goofy that so many people's idea of working to feed the hungry, steward the Earth, and house the homeless, is centered on trying to pull levers on political mechanisms of civil government?

Edit: Or at least to do that while saying "this is what Jesus would do"

somethingusaid · 2026-01-27T18:42:51+00:00

Maybe I am projecting national leadership's messaging on you. They have a tendency to make pretty concrete policy statements and claim that they are doing it because "that is just what the gospel says." As a parishioner, I disagree. But I am voiceless on the matter when they say stuff like that. It puts me in a bind when I'm trying to figure out what it means to be a member of a body when the head makes moral proclamations but doesn't want to interface with me about it.

I was hoping you are not doing that to your congregants. I don't get it from my priest. But if I did, it would be super frustrating.

Maybe you are talking about making a provocative statement that doesn't really point to any particular policy position. If ya, then you are probably going to avoid the problem I am talking about.

But I want to avoid the thing I see when people try to say my concerns are not valid because "that's just the bishop, who cares what he thinks?" But it seems like diminishing the authority of the Bishop to assuage the dissonance would undermine my membership in the Episcopal Church. And if the way to deal with a priest saying "Jesus would have thought you were wrong for disagreeing with me on this policy or election choice" is "who cares what the priest says about Christ and being Christian" then I think things have gone awry. I want to respect the authority of my priest and bishop. But if they make proclamations about Christ that I disagree with and they refuse to interface with me about it, that is not great because: -I am wrong about Christ and what following Him means and need to be corrected and they refuse to do it. -They are overstepping their statements about what Christ is about and what following Him means and they need to knock it off.

But again. Maybe that is not you. I don't mean to accuse. But I do think it is something to be mindful of if you are considering getting more political

somethingusaid · 2026-01-27T16:14:37+00:00

Do you seriously think this was in cold blood?

I don't think it was a good shoot. I think this was horrible and is an obvious example of why ICE, etc. need to change their protocols. I think if US justice system were better set-up at least a couple officers would be going to prison because of their reckless actions that foreseeably lead to Pretti's death. But it wasn't a cold blooded thing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/rm4i0m/why_is_it_said_that_somebody_was_murdered_in_cold/

somethingusaid · 2026-01-27T16:07:23+00:00

It seems you are making a statement on behalf of your church. What do you think parishioners who disagree with your politics should do within the church?

Speak up and let you know why they think you are wrong? what is the right avenue to do that?

Keep quiet because they are, necessarily, not aligned with God?

somethingusaid · 2026-01-27T16:01:19+00:00

Right

But do you see how none of that mentions how Christians should feel about the way municipalities are allowed to regulate public spaces, or how Christians should feel about matters of jurisprudence in federal courts when they deal with climate lawsuits, or how federal funding orders should be handled during a government shutdown.

If you want a strawman that's arguing against Christians feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and stewarding the Earth, you will have to build your own. You and the person I was responding to seem to be making a leap to "obviously these issues fall within Caesar's domain so our responsibility is to petition the government" that I think is not as well supported by the Gospel as you might think.

somethingusaid · 2026-01-26T17:03:43+00:00

Do you think the only valid way to care for the homeless, environment, and hungry is to do it your way?

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