The Mission of the Church

In the Prayer Book catechism, we read “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” This is our Episcopal way of repeating what St. Paul said to the church at Corinth when he wrote, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” As I reflect on our life together, I am hopeful that this parish will continue to practice reconciliation and will seek out new ways to make reconciliation happen so that this faith community will grow into its full potential as an instrument and sign of God’s kingdom already present, and that more and more folks in our community will know the love of God for all people. Thankfully, that unity does not mean a conformity of thought or action that would impoverish rather than enrich our life together. Like the beauty of our healing garden and fountain, the beauty of our community comes from the many different varieties of people and their voices that work together in Christ. It is through baptism that we all become “in Christ” and it is through acts of reconciliation that we seek to remain “in Christ” and with each other. So whether we eat meat on Friday, raise our hands in worship, speaketh Rite I, spend our weekends feeding the poor, drink wine and eat shrimp, or not, we neither pass judgment on another nor boast in ourselves. Rather, we find our common ground in being “in Christ” and we cherish and honor the diversity of life that is a gift of God to this parish family.

This month marks one year since I arrived at Good Shepherd. Thanks be to God. For the opening hymn of my first Sunday service we sang “All are Welcome.” It’s a beauty hymn and happens to use in its title the words that are something of a motto for the Episcopal Church. Let us continue to work together toward the mission of the church, keeping in mind our common grounding “in Christ.” Let us celebrate our differences and continue to make this a place where all are welcome.

In Christ’s service,

Fr Bill+

Discipleship 101

Although I am sure God could have done it all without our help, that was not God’s plan. Instead, God went through the joyful and messy business of calling flawed folks just like us into his service for fixing the world. I am not one to think that God bothered to come down from heaven, become incarnate and do all he did, just to end up dying to make things well between us and him. Rather, I think God also came to show us how to live and how to bring others into the family of God. A big part of that is called discipleship. It is about showing the new folks and folks who have been around for a while how to live and how to die. It is about the learning of who we are and how we are. 

Early in the Gospels, we see Jesus calling ordinary people to follow him so that he could show them what he was doing and explain to them the how and the why of it all. When it came time for them to give it a try, he did not leave them to figure it out by themselves, but he gave them the challenge and stood by to help them when did not know what to do. Recall, the feeding of the masses. He told them to feed the hungry and when they could not, he told them what to do and each helped. The point is that Jesus is slowly building up their capabilities, not just handing them the keys to the church and wishing them luck. Following, watching and learning from the master, Jesus mentors his disciples. Only after following and seeing are they called to help. Then he watches as they work, like a master supervising a student. Lastly, he sends them out in pairs to try it for themselves. It is this tradition of discipleship that we see again in the Book of Acts. John-Mark mentored by Barnabas, Timothy mentored by Paul. And who knows about the stories of the women? I am sure that Mary Magdalene, Martha and Mary of Bethany, Lydia and more showed other women and men how it’s done. 

My own experiences with mentors have been invaluable. From professors who shared with me the culture of academia to clergy who showed me how to be a priest (you know, all the stuff they do not teach you in seminary), mentors helped get me where I am. As our mentors did for us, it is our responsibility to do the same for others. As someone taught you the faith, you now teach someone the faith. As someone taught you how to engage in doing social justice, you now bring someone into the work of social justice. As someone taught you the beauty of church music, you now show someone how they too can experience the beauty of music. As someone taught you how to care for the sick, you now show someone how that is done. It’s discipleship 101. Jesus did it. The early church did it. You, me, and all of us should try it too. In this 
Easter season, invite someone to learn what you have to share and consider for yourself where you might be mentored into a new area of service. I wonder how much patience Keith has for mentoring a non-musical priest?

Grace and peace,

Fr Bill+ 

Discernment and Vision

I had the privilege and blessing recently to spend time with your vestry discerning the past and present of this most wonderful parish community and to begin conversation about the vision we share for the short and long term life of our church. These discernment and visioning practices should be an on-going discipline of all areas of our faith community, from the parish as whole, to its various ministry groups and committees, and to each individual as we all seek to be faithful to and live out God’s will for our lives. 

In our discernment conversation, we recognized that this parish community has been from its beginning a place significantly composed of and shaped by faithful people who are not originally from this area and folks who were not originally Episcopalians. We have been and remain a faith community of newcomers, exiles and sojourners, and it is a particular gift of this community that we take seriously our welcome and hospitality to those who come here seeking a place of fellowship and refuge, and a place where they too care share in the love of Christ by loving others. It is our legacy and it is one of our hallmarks that we practice excellence in hospitality and care. To mention just some of those practices, our hospitality includes the work of our Newcomers Ministry and our Ushers, our Coffee Hour ministry, our Grazers groups and the many events led by our Parish Life committee, the work of our Communications committee, even the simple smile and hand shake you offer to each other. I am sure you can think of many more ways that we remain faithful to that legacy of welcome and hospitality. Likewise, we have been and remain a place dedicated to caring for each other, those who join us, and extending that care to our neighbors, even if at times we do so imperfectly. Our pastoral care ministries, our healing ministries, and wide ranging outreach efforts have been a blessing to this place perhaps as much as they have been to blessing to our neighbors. 

While it is true that we walk by faith, not by sight, it is also true bearing fruit is a sign of walking in the will of God. In our visioning work, we shared our thoughts on how we can not only remain faithful to God’s call upon this parish to the practices of welcome, hospitality, and care that have borne much fruit, but how we can also enhance our efforts in these areas to grow more deeply and more broadly, and indeed how we can use all our existing resources more strategically toward those ends. In short, our challenge for the next three years is to think and act more strategically toward maximizing the many gifts God has given us toward a greater realization of God’s will for Good Shepherd. Toward those ends, I have called together an Ad Hoc Space Use committee to provide the vestry with an updated narrative on how we currently use our existing space and a recommendation on how we can best use that space to enhance our practices of welcome, hospitality, and care. I have also called a Strategic Planning committee that will develop a set of growth goals and strategies for the next three years. I ask your prayers for these committees and that you also pray that a spirit of cooperation blanket this parish so that we might all work together to the greater glory of God and the blessing of all his people.

In Christ’s service, 
Fr Bill+ 

Fr. Bill Breedlove

“It is our legacy and it is one of our hallmarks that we practice excellence in hospitality and care.”

Unapologetically Episcopalian

“This is a church where the grace of God trumps the wrath of God and this is a church where God’s love has the power to redeem any and every one.”

Epiphany is a season of revelation, of revealing things unseen or as yet seen only dimly. It is a season in which our lectionary readings and worship help us once again enter into the mystery and grace of God revealed in Jesus and our common call to follow, come and see, stay with him, and invite others to do the same. As Episcopalians, and perhaps especially as Episcopalians tucked away into these surrounding mountains, we may sometimes feel like our common way of life is something unseen by the unchurched or as yet seen only dimly by our non-Episcopal neighbors. It may be helpful to those interested in creating an “Epiphany of Episcopalianism” to have some ready ideas on why many of our neighbors would find our way of life to their benefit and why some should truly come and see. So, I share the following from my former Bishop, mentor and friend who spoke unapologetically about why one should be an Episcopalian. 

“You should be an Episcopalian if you believe men and women are fundamentally equal in the sight of God and that women as well as men should be able to serve in every office in the Church. In the Episcopal Church there are women who are acolytes, women vestry members, women senior and junior wardens, women deacons, woman priests, woman bishops, and even a woman Presiding Bishop. 

You should be an Episcopalian if you believe age, race, sexual orientation, or disability shouldn’t keep anyone from having an equal place in the House of God. 

You should be an Episcopalian if you believe in the power of both the Word of God preached and in the Presence of God as revealed through the sacraments. If you find solace and strength in hearing God’s word preached with power and in receiving the Body and Blood of Christ on a regular basis, you have come to the right place. 

You should be an Episcopalian if you believe that the glory of God can be revealed through beautiful architecture, beautiful music, beautiful liturgy, beautiful art, and beautiful literature. Episcopalians believe God is fully revealed in the midst of such beauty and we seek to support and value the aesthetic in all of life. 

You should be an Episcopalian if you are serious about hearing and learning about the Word of God. If you attend Episcopal worship regularly, you will hear the largest part of the Bible read over a three-year cycle. Episcopalians hear lessons from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, as well as from the Gospels. Episcopalians also bring a scholarly mind to the study of the Bible and most Episcopalians take the Bible too seriously to take it literally. 

You should be an Episcopalian if you think churches should be built around the worship of God and not around the charisma of any one clergyperson. In the Episcopal Church it is God, and not the clergy, who remains the center of our focus. 

You should be an Episcopalian if you believe frightening imperfect Christians with the fiery flames of hell or with crushing, unrelenting guilt is not only un-biblical, but un-Christian. This is a church where the grace of God trumps the wrath of God and this is a church where God’s love has the power to redeem any and every one.” 

In this Epiphany season and for all of the coming year, let us rejoice in our Episcopal tradition and let us not forget to invite others to come and see. 

Fr Bill+

The Future of the Church Looks Old, and I Think that's Good

“Recovering what they believe to have been true of the earliest faith communities, these contemporary faith communities adopt and adapt those principles and practices to life in the modern world. ”

It goes by at least several different names: the Emerging Church, Emergence Christianity, the New Monasticism. Take your pick, they all are used to describe a modern and growing form of Christianity community that looks to the future largely by looking to the past. Recovering what they believe to have been true of the earliest faith communities, these contemporary faith communities adopt and adapt those principles and practices to life in the modern world. What they have recovered is the church that existed before dogma and doctrine, the church before creeds. What they have recovered is the church of relationship and caring for each other, the church that was passionate about sharing what it had with others. Luke describes it this way in the Book of Acts:

44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Meeting with people, sharing with and caring for all the people, and praising God for that privilege and all else they were given - these were the hallmarks of the first Christian communities, and people joined them in large numbers. More a movement than an institution, the earliest Christian communities were communities in the world, responding to the love of God and sharing the love of God. They were communities that fully embraced what we mean when we say “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

In their ministry to and conversion of the pagan people of Ireland, St Patrick and the Celtic monks who followed him, employed a model of evangelism that brought them into close relationship with the Irish people. They lived on the land with the Irish. They listen to their stories and came to see the world through the eyes of the Irish. They took care of the basic needs of the Irish and explained the Gospel to them in a way that made sense to the Irish world view. Like the Celtic monks, new monastics do not seek to save their souls by separating themselves from the evils of the world, but rather they live in the world and engage the people of the world.

This is the emerging church of new monastics: non-dogmatic, in the world, caring for the needs of others in response to the love of God revealed in the life and death of his son, and gathering to rejoice in the good that God is doing in and through his people.

My hope in the coming year for our Good Shepherd family is that we can begin to find our future in something that looks very old.

Fr Bill+ 

Happy Advent! Happy New Year!

With the coming of the Advent season we begin a new year in the life of God’s people. Advent, as the name suggests in its Latin meaning, is a season where we watch for the coming of God’s promised messiah Jesus. While this watching might first lead our thoughts to the baby to be born on Christmas in Bethlehem, there are other aspects of the coming of God that we also watch for with renewed hope during this season. The Greek word for Advent is parousia - a word not

referring to the first coming of Christ, but to his promised second coming in power and great glory. And so also we watch in thanksgiving for where God’s Kingdom is already being made manifest in the hearts and lives of God’s people through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

A new year allows for a new start, so it has been customary for Christians to use the Advent season as a season of reflection, repentance, and preparation. What is done is done. What is past is past. We give thanks for our many blessing, we make reconciliation where that is needed, and we now look again with a renewed hope in the coming of God who has and who will again dwell among us.

A few thoughts on your participation in a holy Advent:

Prepare for the gift of God’s son by giving the gift of yourself. Who are some people in your community who need to know and experience God’s love for them, and how can you be the bearer of that love?

As God came to us as a powerless infant, expressing great humility and emptying himself for the
sake of all, how can you experience and express your own humility? What privileges or rights, or use of resources and riches can you forgo for the sake of others during Advent as your own participation in God’s great act of humility?

Greater watchfulness requires putting away distractions during a season when sights and sounds and the call of commercialism and materialism are louder than ever. What busyness can you let go, what noise can you silence? Turn off the social media, take out the ear buds. Turn off the television and spend some time each day looking and listening - indeed, using all the senses - for signs of God’s Kingdom present and yet to come.

God bless you with a holy Advent,

Fr Bill+ 

The Family of All the Faithful Departed

Growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina meant that I grew up with friends and neighbors like myself - people who also were not natives of that community and who had no nearby kin. There were some exceptions, but it was rare to find extended families living together in that community. Rather, because of their connections with the military, most people I knew were from somewhere else. The familiar southern question “You any kin to ...?” just did not make sense in that community. 

Things changed when I moved to a small town in South Carolina. As a newcomer, many people wanted to know who I was “kin to.” That connection to family was apparently vital for establishing your place in the existing order of outsiders and natives, the honorable and the disreputable, trust and suspicion. The importance of those family ties extended not just among the living but also to the dead who remained in the memories of the living. This was brought to my attention in a delightful way when I moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Someone shared with me the observation that Charlestonian are a lot like the Chinese. They eat a lot of rice and they worship their dead ancestors. 

For members of Good Shepherd, our faith community plays something of a similar role. It helps define who we are as Episcopalians. We have our Episcopal family history and our Episcopal traditions. We practice and celebrate those, and they make us distinct. And like other family systems, we also recall those who have gone before us when reckoning our kin-ties. We remember the martyrs and official saints of the church on All Saints day and other appointed days, but we also remember those departed with whom we lived more closely. These are, for many of us, the true saints of the church and the ones who helped define who we are more than those officially recognized on any church calendar. At 5:00 pm on November 3, we will gather to remember and celebrate the lives of all these faithful departed. It is a time for us to give thanks for the lives of those now departed, yet who still make us family. 

In Christ’s service, 

Fr Bill+

Good to be Home

Deacon Turner

For the past three months I, your deacon, have been on sabbatical. As you might know the word and idea of sabbatical comes from the Biblical Hebrew word ‘sabbath’, literally a "ceasing" , a rest from work, or a break, often lasting from two months to a year. While I have continued to labor in my work as the psychologist in our schools, I have ceased, for a time, to function visibly as your deacon at Good Shepherd. I say visibly, because I have continued, throughout the summer to meet weekly, off campus, with our young men’s Brotherhood of the Fire. I have also made stealthy and clandestine visits to our parish to check my mail and to pray in the solitude of our sanctuary.  

Though this sabbatical was mandatory as part of the diocese guidelines for deacons when a new rector comes to a parish, I endeavored to use the time to reflect, by comparison, on our unique Episcopal form of worship. 

Each Sunday, during the past three months, I visited a different Christian denomination within our communities. The diversity was radically broad, the sense of welcome was warm and universal, and the presence of God was constant. 

After living forty years in our community, and helping raise and teach thousands of children, it came as no surprise that I knew someone in each church. While I generally attempted to be inconspicuous in my visits, sitting in the back, limiting my conversation, etc., inevitably I would be gathered under someone’s wing and introduced to the worshipers gathered. I was asked to sing, to pray, to lay hands upon, and to come again. The warmth and welcome was real and heartfelt. I declined the solo singing, prayed a reluctant dismissal blessing, and held my hands out in healing prayer. 

Baptist, Methodist, Church of God, Anglican, Episcopal, non-denominational, Roman Catholic, Missionary Baptist, Church of Christ, and Camp Henry worship. 

I witnessed ecstatic prayer and resting in the Spirit, Biblical scholarship and study, two hour sermons, five minute sermons, fine completely acapella singing, a deep sense of community, and no matter which form of worship, a powerful blessing to God. 

We are blessed to live in a unique corner of the world where our God is honored, proclaimed, and worshiped by many people. Sure there are many people in our community who do not worship, do not know Jesus, and to whom we need to reach out and invite to worship with us. But it is good to know that there is a pervasive holiness here in our mountains where all are welcome. 

I am so very glad to be home now. Warmed by the return welcome that I have received from so many of you. So very grateful to be working with Fr. Bill and back to serving in our wonderful church. I am grateful for what I have experienced during this sabbatical …….but……there is no place like home. 

Under His Wing, 

Deacon Turner

Welcoming Church, Inviting Church

May God put on your lips the words “Follow me.” 

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Father Bill

“Follow me.” Simple words spoken by Jesus to a number of people in scripture. Tax collector, fishermen and those who would be fishers of men, someone whose father had died, and likely many more not recorded in the Gospel narratives. To all who would be his sheep - to the good, the bad, and the ugly - he said, “Follow me.” They are his words of invitation into a new life, and they should be ours also.

I have been impressed by the enthusiasm I see at Good Shepherd in our welcoming of new and returning folks. We are blessed with some fine and friendly greeters and ushers who are doing a great job on Sunday mornings making people feel welcome. There is also a real friendliness here that we extend not just to those we already know but to folks who are new. We have prepared a beautiful prayer garden for their approach, an attractive church exterior, a comfortable worship space and excellent fellowship hall for gathering after the service. Well done good and faithful servants of Good Shepherd! Well done in creating a welcoming church! 

Now I ask that you think in perhaps a subtle but significantly different way about what we are called to be as a faith community. Jesus said “Follow me.” As much as Good Shepherd is a welcoming faith community, we must also be an inviting faith community. “Follow me” must also be words that we speak. When we speak those words, they might sound like “I see that your back hurts, come to our healing service on Tuesday night and let us pray for you.” “You appear unhappy and hurt by what you have experienced in church, come to Good Shepherd and rest in God’s love for you.” “You have a real gift for gardening, we could use that gift at our church, I would like to show you our gardens.” We are richly blessed at Good Shepherd with so many possibilities for inviting people into this faith community. Think of all that we have been given to share with others. Those are all opportunities for invitation. 

Coming up next month, we have a couple of major all-parish gatherings that I ask you use as opportunities for inviting friends. First, on Saturday the 21st at 4:00 pm we are having Low County Boil. Then, on Sunday the 29th at 4:00 pm the Bishop will be with us for Confirmation and a Celebration of New Ministry with a big reception to follow. I hope that you plan to attend these fun and festive occasions, and that you invite a friend or two. May God put on your lips the words “Follow me.”

Fr Bill+ 

Reaching Across the Divide

A scene from Michelangelo’s famous painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling shows God reaching out his hand to give the gift of life to Adam. The figure of God is stretched out, body, arm and index finger extended, suggesting that God is yearning to bridge the gap between us and bless us with the gift of life. Yet, when we look at the image of Adam we see a figure relaxed and almost indifferent, reclining away from God with arm rested on knee and hand lithely offered. God yearns to bridge the gap between us, to be in contact with us, but we seem to not participate with the same yearning and we seem not to want the blessing. The outstretched hand of peace and new life is not accepted. That reluctance is too often mirrored in our relationships with each other as well. When we look around ourselves in this faith community, in our families, and the world at large, where do we see the hand of peace either not extended or not accepted? Where are the opportunities for us to again extend the hand of peace and where are the opportunities to receive the hand that has been offered?

As those who have been baptized in Christ and as those who are bearers of the Spirit of God, it is our holy calling to be people who strive to reach out to others with the offer of peace and new life. God’s yearnings are to be our yearnings. God’s leaning into those separated from Him, is to be our orientation as well. God’s hand is to be our hand. Catholic priest and spiritual writer Henri Nouwen describes the consequences of not extending the hand of peace. Those are consequences we see too often. He writes: “As long as there is distance between us and we cannot look in each other’s eyes, all sorts of false ideas and images arise. We give them names, make jokes about them, cover them with our prejudices, and avoid direct contact. We think of them as enemies. We forget that they love as we love, care for their children as we care for ours, become sick and die as we do. We forget that they are our brothers and sisters and treat them as objects that can be destroyed at will. Only when we have the courage to cross the street and look in one another’s eyes can we see there that we are children of the same God and members of the same human family."

Nouwen’s words remind us that we are called by our Lord bridge the gap that divides us and to be bridge builders for peace. Just as Jesus reached out and across the gap to those outside acceptable society ‐ the Samaritan, the leper, the demon possessed, and such ‐ we are called to reach out to others, especially those different from ourselves and those beyond the pale. To do so may be costly to our reputations and our lives, just as it was costly to Jesus.

I am grateful for all the bridges of peace that exist in this parish. Let us be prayerful and faithful in seeking new ways in which we can create new bridges so that the fullness of God’s vision of peace and new life for His people can become ever more manifest in this parish, in our lives, and in the larger world around us.

Fr Bill+