episcopal

I grew up at St. John's Episcopal Church, Silsbee, TX. Participation in the Episcopal Church my whole life has made me who I am. Of course there are other factors that have shaped me, but a big chunk of my evolving world view comes from my participation in the Episcopal Church. I don't mean one specific location of the Episcopal Church. I have been an active participant of St. John's, Silsbee; Camp Allen; St. Mark's, San Marcos; Camp Capers; Christ Church Cathedral, Houston; St. Patrick's, D.C.; St. Mary's, Cypress, St. Mark's, Houston; and of course St. Mark's Between-the-Bayous. Those are specific expressions of the Episcopal Church, and I include Camps Allen and Capers because they were both important parts of my formation. One of the best parts of the Episcopal Church is that I can list that many different churches, and still be talking about the same church.

The word episcopal comes from the Greek word (episkopos) for "overseer." As language goes, the Anglo-Saxons "corrupted" the word and came up with "bishop." All that to say, we are a church that is governed by bishops or literally "overseers." So, while St. Mark's Between-the-Bayous meets as a small community of 10-30 each week, we are connected to the people gathered in worship at St. Mark's "Beside-the-Bellaire," and to the my parents who still worship at St. John's, Silsbee, and to the people at Christ Church Cathedral.

I got a real sense of that larger-church connection growing up with a small youth group at St. John's. I had those church friends, but I also had friends across the state who were Episcopalian. I met them at Camp Allen, or at other youth events. The beautiful thing about all of that is that, in our own little way, we have a practice of being in community with folks we may not know, and with folks we may know and even folks with whom we disagree on things. It is a way of practicing kinship within God's family. Our Bishop, Andy Doyle "oversees" the larger community as we all meet in our particular locations across the state. His oversight unifies us in our corner of the Episcopal Church. But, of course, it is larger than that; we also have a Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori, and she connects us nationally to my friends at St. Patrick's, DC. Then to bump it up one more level, we are in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. That means we are connected even to my friends at St. Phillips, Grahamstown, South Africa.

When we worship as Episcopalians or as Anglicans, as we are called in other parts of the world, we are joining with people around the globe in that worship. It's a big family, and that makes for challenging relationships with time, but what family doesn't have it's challenging relationships? Working through those challenges, working for the reconciliation that is central to our identity makes us all better people, a little closer to the people God has made us to be.