From The Living Church-Well over two decades later, the event is still seared in my memory — the loud, insistent music, the energy, the expectation. The bishop had imposed a eucharistic fast on the catechumens, all 220 of them, in anticipation of their reception into the Episcopal Church. For most, it had been a long and unexpected journey from a perfectly respectable Assemblies of God congregation to the no man’s land of nondenominationalism and finally to the bosom of what their pastor — not yet a priest — kept referring to as the historic Church.
As I wrote in Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory 23 years ago, Stanley J. White, the Assemblies of God minister and then a postulant for the priesthood, had pushed the envelope any number of times since succeeding his father as pastor of Evangel Assembly of God. His devotional readings had led him to the Book of Common Prayer, among other sources of spirituality, and he had already grown weary of evangelicalism’s endless quest for innovation. Some time after he initiated a liturgical procession — perhaps still the only instance in the century-long history of the Assemblies of God — some complaints alerted denominational authorities in Springfield, Missouri. White was quickly sacked, but, much to his surprise, a significant number of his congregants indicated their willingness to join him on his spiritual journey, wherever it might lead.
More here-
http://www.livingchurch.org/pentecost-matthew-fox
No comments:
Post a Comment