Christ Church Episcopal: Weaving the spiritual and social fabric of the community for 200 years

From Greenville S.C.-

“They found it! They found it!” Rector Harrison McLeod rushes into his office at Christ Church Episcopal. “The cornerstone looks like every piece of vertical granite, so it was hiding in plain sight,” he says. “We’re going to dig it up this afternoon for Sunday’s celebration.”

Work crews had located the sacred cornerstone just in time to kick off the first of the church’s bicentennial celebrations that will run through 2020.

To thumb through the archives of Christ Church is to hold South Carolina history in your hands. Diplomat Joel Poinsett, businessman and benefactor Vardry McBee, U.S. Sen. Joseph Earle all have ties to the oldest church in the city of Greenville. For centuries, promises and programs presented from the religious center’s pulpit have canvassed the community, casting a hue upon all that has been as colorful as the nave’s great Ascension window.

More here-

https://greenvillejournal.com/news/christ-church-episcopal-weaving-the-spiritual-and-social-fabric-of-the-community-for-200-years/

The leap of faith': Trinity Episcopal embarks on restoration project

From Upper South Carolina-

Restoration is a go for the historic Trinity Episcopal Church, thanks to groups joining forces and more than $700,000 to begin the project.

To jump start things, the independent nonprofit, Friends of Trinity, is granting $43,000 of money it has raised to Preservation South Carolina, according to Ann Waigand of Camden, Maine, whose mother has been a longtime historian for the church.

That announcement was made at a community meeting at the Abbeville Chamber of Commerce Thursday night, along with other details of the collaboration to restore the house of worship.

Waigand, who was baptized at the church, along with her children, said Friends of Trinity started in 1995.

More here-

http://www.indexjournal.com/news/the-leap-of-faith-trinity-episcopal-embarks-on-restoration-project/article_7d719ab7-66f1-5f0a-9706-8337b4c69e15.html

 

Politics, Evangelicals, and Gun Violence

From South Carolina-

This week’s election news regarding the shift in control of the House of Representatives from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party was overshadowed by still more gun violence, first with a mass shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and second with a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. Following a campus shooting here in South Carolina, the Rt. Rev. Andrew Waldo, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina, provided a “pastoral letter” about our out-of-control gun violence. Here is an extract from that letter:

“Through an Episcopal consortium known as Bishops United Against Gun Violence, I came into contact and have become friends with Pastor Rob Schenck, a conservative evangelical and former president of the Evangelical Church Alliance International. This group represents as many as 1,200 evangelical churches. In a documentary movie, The Armor of Light, produced and directed by Abigail Disney and available on Netflix, his spiritual and theological journey on the question of gun violence offers a challenge to all Christians. For me, his most jarring spiritual challenge in the documentary comes as he is addressing a conference of conservative evangelical pastors and leaders. In reference to spiritual authority, he says,

More here-

http://www.edgefieldadvertiser.com/2018/11/politics-evangelicals-and-gun-violence/

Partners in Agriculture plans new facility, continues fight against hunger in Haiti

From Upper South Carolina-

For 18 years, Greenville’s Gillaine and Charles Warne have grown food and taught sustainable agriculture in Haiti to eliminate malnutrition. Now they’re feeding thousands with three farms, a family security program, and a vocational school.

In 1999, Gillaine Warne made her first trip to Haiti’s Central Plateau through Christ Episcopal Church after Father Fritz Lafontant, a Haitian Episcopal priest, asked her to teach English in the small rural village of Cange.

During her visit, Warne witnessed the extent of malnutrition. “I felt as if each of my senses had been assaulted,” Warne says. “Children were dying, and mothers were walking barefoot across mountains for days to find help. It was even more astonishing to see that nobody was growing anything.”

More here-

https://greenvillejournal.com/2017/04/26/partners-agriculture-plans-new-facility-continues-fight-hunger-haiti/