Priest hiking across U.S. reaches Dodge City

From Kansas-

Peter Munson speaks softly and carries a big stick.

The 61-year-old Episcopal priest hiked into Dodge City on Friday, marking a halfway point on a 3,676-mile journey across the United States to raise money for four charities close to his heart. Munson said his momentum is fueled by a call from God.

Locals can meet him Sunday at St. Cornelius Episcopal Church, 200 W. Spruce St., for 10 a.m. 

services, where he will talk the talk about being faithful, helping children and pursuing dreams. There he will also invite anyone to walk the walk with him.

In Munson’s dream, he raises $1 for children with every bend of the knee — 6 million steps in total — that will take him from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

This is now a full-time job for Munson, who has walked eight hours a day, six days a week since March.

More here-

https://www.dodgeglobe.com/news/20190719/first-dental-good-news-priest-hiking-across-us-reaches-dodge-city

Reverend finds niche with Episcopal church

From Kansas-

Sometimes it takes more than one attempt to get it perfect, an idea the Rev. Jon Hullinger of Trinity Episcopal Church in Atchison, Kansas, knows firsthand.

“My path to here has been kind of a long, winding journey,” the Rev. Hullinger says.

After following a path through several religions and churches in Kansas, the Rev. Hullinger recently began as a priest-in-charge at Trinity Episcopal Church, where he eventually hopes to become a rector. After spending years studying philosophy and other religions, he is finally comfortable in what he calls “the middle of the road,” the Rev. Hullinger says.

More here-

http://www.newspressnow.com/life/religion/article_834912a2-f1fb-536e-9b9d-3bab6067eb17.html

Episcopal Bishops Rebuke Kansas Anti-Gay House Bill 2453 With Religious Righteousness

From Huffington-

On Wednesday, Kansas' Republican-dominated House passed Bill 2453, which makes it legal for individuals, groups, and businesses to refuse services for same-sex couples if they believe it goes against their religious beliefs to do so.

Though the bill claims that it "protects the rights of religious people," some people of faith are against it, explaining that legalizing discrimination doesn't protect religious freedom at all.

Two bishops of the Episcopal Church, the Right Reverend Dean E. Wolfe and the Right Reverend Michael P. Milliken, urged the rejection of Bill 2453 in a joint statement sent to all members of the Kansas Senate:

More here-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/14/episcopal-bishops-kansas-house-bill-2453_n_4790890.html?ir=Religion

Refugees from Myanmar settle in for first Christmas in Wichita

From Kansas-

Waking up with his wife and baby in south Wichita, Saw Moe can feel time passing and the worry nibbling at him under all his good fortune. Soon it will be Christmas, and he is a Christian and an ethnic Karen refugee from Myanmar, also known as Burma, and mentions God in daily life.

“With love there is no burden,” he says. “And God is love.”

The Episcopal Wichita Area Refugee Ministry is settling him and his family into Wichita. They plan to make sure there is a Christmas stocking stuffed for them before Christmas.

He has found no work yet. He is 32; his wife, Naw, is 29. They have a new country and a new baby and they want to do right by both; they want to work, save, pay taxes, help the community.

He and Naw greet visitors with hot jasmine tea and small bowls of beans, cabbage, olive oil, tea leaf, sesame seed, chile, tomato salad and tangy spices. “Yu-zan-al-ephet,” he calls it. A bean snack.
Read more here:

http://www.kansas.com/2012/12/22/2613535/refugees-from-myanmar-settle-in.html#storylink=cpy

Green Leaf Cafe’s menu includes jobs

From Kansas-

Scott Barnes arrives at the Finney State Office Building at 7:15 a.m., nearly two hours before training starts. He stays until 5:30 p.m., more than two hours after the others finish.

He chops vegetables and washes dishes for six hours a day at the new Green Leaf Cafe, learning the nuances of restaurant work.

Soon, he said, he hopes to support his family — his wife, Rachel, and nearly 2-year-old son, Kayden — on his own.

“I hope it helps me find work,” Barnes said. “I’m really not having any luck finding a job anywhere else.”

Green Leaf Cafe, a recent partnership between the Department for Children and Families and Episcopal Social Services, is giving low-income, unemployed Kansans like Barnes a chance to learn new skills and get back to work.

Read more here:

http://www.kansas.com/2012/08/20/2457058/green-leaf-cafes-menu-includes.html#storylink=cpy

In response to the Wall Street Journal

From Bishop Wolfe of Kansas-

The Wall Street Journal, like every newspaper, has a bias. But this bias has never been so pronounced as in its coverage of The Episcopal Church. Perhaps the Journal dislikes Roman Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans and Methodists equally, but it appears to have saved its deepest animosity for Episcopalians. Our church, centered on knowing God and making God known, increasingly has found itself in the newspaper’s cross hairs.

Following an unflattering broadside last October, the Wall Street Journal has doubled down on its diatribe against The Episcopal Church by substituting informed and unbiased coverage of the recently completed 77th General Convention with a snide and inaccurate hit piece by Jay Akasie. Even commentary needs to find its basis in fact, and if the writer at the WSJ was uninformed, his fact checker apparently was nonexistent.

I find it ironic that a writer for the Wall Street Journal would comment on the choice of dining establishments made by those attending General Convention. Most deputies used their vacation time to spend eight long days in Indianapolis, where temperatures regularly exceeded 100 degrees, and many meals featured plastic cutlery and paper plates. On rare occasions they and the bishops might have found time for a proper dinner. Ostentatious it was not.

How could anyone attend General Convention, where soaring worship, beautiful music and uplifting preaching marked daily worship, and note only the size of the Presiding Bishop’s crozier? And to pick two pieces of legislation out of more than 400 pieces presented (and then to mischaracterize one of them) is grossly unfair.

More here-

http://www.episcopal-ks.org/bishop/WSJ-response.php

Bishop of Kansas finds true calling helping to lead Episcopal Church

From Kansas-

On the Rev. Dean Elliott Wolfe’s hand sits a gold ring with a large, purple stone.

Once at a youth soccer game in Lawrence, that ring caught the eye and imagination of a little boy. The boy was quickly disappointed when he learned the ring was worn by the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, not a Super Bowl champion.

Most Episcopal bishops have similar stories of humbleness, Wolfe said.

At a coffee shop near Coffeyville, a waitress inquired about a large gold cross hanging from Wolfe’s neck. Wolfe had just moved from Texas, where apparently even a pectoral cross is bigger.

“Now that is some kind of cross,” the waitress said, to which Wolfe responded he was the Episcopal bishop of Kansas.

More here-

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/dec/03/dean-elliott-wolfe/

Groups to aid refugee settlement in Wichita

From Kansas-

Two groups that help rescue foreigners from war and oppression say they are arranging what they say will be the most significant refugee resettlement in Wichita since hundreds were resettled here from southeast Asia 30 years ago.
The Episcopal Wichita Area Refugee Ministry and the Wichita office of the International Rescue Committee say that refugees from Myanmar — also called Burma — Somalia, Bhutan, Iraq, Eritrea and other nations will begin arriving in the next few weeks.

The groups say as many as 180 refugees a year could come in for several years; the first few individuals and families will arrive in the next few weeks. The Episcopal group says it will bring in as many as 35 Burmese a year; the International Rescue Committee says it could bring in as many as 150 from other countries.

Officials from the rescue groups point out that the United States — though many of its citizens vigorously debate illegal immigration — has had a long-standing policy of inviting in tens of thousands of legal immigrants every year, including refugees in danger of death.
Bill Gress, a past director of immigration and refugee services for Catholic Charities in Wichita, said the refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos worked hard from the moment they arrived here, getting jobs, establishing businesses, learning English, doubling up in housing and saving money in other ways. They enriched our community and tax base, he said.

Read more:

http://www.kansas.com/2011/10/30/2083120/groups-to-aid-refugee-settlement.html#ixzz1cGNTOmiD

The kingdom of God is bigger than my idolatry

From Kansas-

More and more, we live in a world of extremes. It is a place where one faction of people will oftentimes rebuke and reject another faction because they don’t hold the same position and social views. This has created a toxic culture with an all or nothing approach to many things. It is a culture that if left unchecked, will ultimately lead to the downfall of our society.

When Christians engage in such behavior it becomes a form of idolatry because it makes a political or theological agenda the thing that decides whether or not another group is worthy to be seen with us. It is an idolatry that assumes that because a church takes a contrary position on a complex issue from the one my church takes, then they obviously do not understand the will of God and are therefore not Christian. It is a position that rebukes one community of Christians’ form of offering of worship and prayer to God because it is not like my own church’s worship and prayer. The idolatry of factionalism in the church leaves no room for the Holy Spirit to move among God’s people and open new possibilities for an in breaking of the Kingdom of God among us. It leaves no room for the grace and generosity of God.

When Christians engage in such factionalism against other Christians, not only do they engage in idolatry, but they reject Jesus’ most earnest prayer that they all may be one in him. Most tragic of all is that we become a sad example to the world of a people who have rejected God’s invitation to the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ for the same idolatrous factionalism that is part of the kingdoms of this world. When our four churches gathered this week, we may not have changed the world in any significant way. But we did proclaim to each other and to anyone else who may have witnessed us that God’s Kingdom is bigger than any of our denominations, political agendas or doctrines.

More here-

http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2011/jul/29/kingdom-god-bigger-my-idolatry/

N.C. bishop to speak

From Kansas-

The first black bishop to lead a southern diocese in the Episcopal Church USA will be the special guest at this week's 151st annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, which will take place on Friday and Saturday in Topeka.

The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, 57, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, will speak at an opening worship service at 9 a.m. Friday at Grace Episcopal Cathedral, 701 S.W. 8th.

Kansas Bishop Dean E. Wolfe's annual address will begin the convention at 1 p.m. Friday at Maner Conference Center at the Kansas Expocentre, near S.W. 17th and Western.

Bishop Curry will address the convention at 9:10 a.m. Saturday, and business is scheduled to conclude by early afternoon.

Convention delegates will consider a proposed 2011 diocesan budget, called the mission plan, of just under $1.9 million. They also will elect people to a variety of offices, including the Council of Trustees, which governs the diocese between conventions, and deputies to the triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church in July 2012 in Indianapolis.

More here-

http://cjonline.com/news/local/2010-10-21/nc_bishop_to_speak

Vigil starts Week Without Violence

From Kansas-

Sunday evening's "Vigil for Victims of Domestic Violence" was set in the soothing confines of the Grace Episcopal Cathedral chapel, 701 S.W. 8th, giving the approximate 50 attendees a sense of togetherness as they gathered in quiet support of those who have been abused in what authorities said is a largely underreported crime.

A row of glass-encased candles at the front of the chapel helped set the mood for what organizers said was perhaps the only somber event of the 16th annual YWCA Week Without Violence, which during the next few days is designed to help raise awareness of the problem of domestic violence in the Topeka community and to let victims know they aren't alone.

Eileen Doran, program director of the YWCA Center for Safety and Empowerment, formerly known as the YWCA Battered Women Task Force, said the vigil — which included prayer, music and Scripture readings — offered a chance for survivors of domestic violence to share their stories in front of a small audience.

"It's really to honor and remember victims who have survived and those who have not survived," Doran said. "In the state of Kansas, we've had a number of domestic violence-related homicides in the past year."

More here-

http://cjonline.com/news/local/2010-10-17/vigil_starts_week_without_violence

KANSAS: Newest congregation moves into new Spring Hill home; membership triples

From ELO-

The newest congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas has moved into a new home in the town of Spring Hill, and that move already has helped membership more than triple, from nine to 29 active congregants.
St. Clare's Episcopal Church welcomed the public for worship on Pentecost, May 23, to its new location in the town's historic downtown area. It is leasing space on Sundays in a recently renovated building.

Before the move, worshippers had met in the living room of the congregation's vicar, the Rev. Philip Hubbard, and his family in Overland Park, several miles north. Hubbard was hired by the diocese in 2008 to start a new congregation in Johnson County, part of the greater Kansas City area and the largest population center in the diocese. The county is home to five other Episcopal churches.

The decision to give St. Clare's a permanent home in Spring Hill, a town of 6,500 that straddles the Johnson and Miami county line, came earlier this year, based on its potential for growth in the area. The city has grown 40 percent in the past decade, and it's close to a cluster of larger-sized cities, all without an Episcopal church.

Hubbard said about half of the 39 people at the Pentecost service were attending St. Clare's for the first time.

Patti Stites and her husband, Art Canright, had met Hubbard at the local Farmer's Market and, struck by his enthusiasm, decided to visit that day. They'd never been to an Episcopal church for worship before, but Canright called it "fun" and Stites said Hubbard's conversation-style sermon was "very enjoyable."

Susan and Don Traub met Hubbard at the Farmer's Market just the day before and as longtime Episcopalians were delighted to learn they could attend an Episcopal church without leaving Spring Hill. Former members of St. John's in Abilene, on the western edge of the diocese, the couple had been driving to Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, for church.

More here-

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_123560_ENG_HTM.htm

Episcopal church to celebrate 125 years

From Texas not Kansas- (the picture is still from the other)

When Scott Wooten arrived in Wichita Falls in 2004 to take over as rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, there was a lot of history to look back on — 119 years to be exact. Now it is six years later and his church will celebrate its 125th year as a vital part of the downtown Wichita Falls community.

The celebration will begin May 23 at the 10:30 a.m. service.

“We’ll start with a prayer from an early prayer book and then walk through the 125 years of the church,” Wooten said. An all-church picnic will be held after the service.

Wooten has been a part of six or seven churches, but places Good Shepherd at the top of the “busiest church” list.

“This is probably one of the more active and busy churches I’ve been a part of,” he said. “The church acts as a family through good times and bad — just like a real family.”

When those members of the church family look back over 125 years, they are proud of their heritage: providing a spiritual home for families stationed at Sheppard Field during World War II; helping form Interfaith Ministries after the 1979 tornado under the direction of Alanson Brown; starting the long-running Episcopal School (now known as Christ Academy); and adding magnificent stained glass windows in the sanctuary.

More Here-

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2010/may/17/episcopal-church-to-celebrate-125-years/

Church looking to give more to feed kids

From Kansas-

Volunteers and USD-379 officials want to include more kids in the Back Snacks program and the Episcopal Church wants to feed more kids over the summer in the Kids Cafe, Episcopal Church volunteer Donna Long said. Both programs are supported by Episcopal Church volunteers and Harvesters Food Bank of Kansas City.

"There has been a lot of interest in it, (Back Snacks) has been very well received, and that's great," Long said.

Back Snacks provides individual servings of shelf-safe food for kids to take home to eat over the weekend.

The church is hoping next year to increase the allocation of kid-friendly food to give to kids to take home. This year they've received as much as last year, but see a great need there, Long said.

More than 50 percent of kids at Lincoln Elementary are on free or reduced lunches, according to school district, and Garfield Elementary also has a significant number of kids eligible for free and reduced lunches.

While being on free or reduced lunches is not the sole criteria for receiving Back Snacks - teachers can give them to kids who aren't on free or reduced lunches if they see a need - the large number of kids on free or reduced lunches illustrates a large need there.

More here-

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20411401&BRD=1160&PAG=461&dept_id=190958&rfi=6

Bishops support death penalty repeal

From that other "Pittsburg"-

A measure being considered by the Kansas Senate Judiciary Committee to repeal the state’s death penalty picked up eight supporters on Friday.

In a letter to the Kansas Legislature, eight bishops of the Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church and United Methodist Church in Kansas signed a letter asking for reconsideration and repeal of the Kansas death penalty.

Signing the letter, dated Jan. 28, were Bishops James M. Adams Jr., Episcopal Diocese of Western Kansas; Paul S. Coakley, Catholic Diocese of Salina; Ronald M. Gilmore, Catholic Diocese of Dodge City; Michael O. Jackels, Catholic Diocese of Wichita; Scott J. Jones, Kansas Area United Methodist Church; Gerald L. Mansholt, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Joseph F. Naumann, Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City; and Dean Wolfe, Episcopal Diocese of Kansas.
“As bishops leading the Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church and United Methodist Church in Kansas, we write to share our deep concern about the continuing practice of condemning persons to death in Kansas,” the letter said.

Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee opened four days of hearings on the bill.
The state passed the death penalty law in 1994, making death by lethal injection the possible penalty for some murders. However, the state has not executed anyone under the provision since it was enacted.

“We had it last year and we had it for a day and it went to the floor,” said committee chairman Tim Owens, R-Overland Park. “There were so many questions then, I asked the President of the Senate to send it back to committee.”

Owens said that there has been additional information received since it was on the Senate floor during last session.

More here-

http://www.morningsun.net/news/x1090830274/Bishops-support-death-penalty-repeal

Group Of Park Students Will Serve Lunch To Poor On MLK Day

From Kansas-

About 20 students, faculty and staff from Park University will help prepare lunch at the Kansas City Community Kitchen on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, Jan. 18.

The group will volunteer as part of a service day, said event organizer Caroline Heckman, coordinator for student leadership and engagement, at Park University.

"I think it is important for our students to spend at least part of our holiday honoring Martin Luther King," she said. "Being a servant to others is big part of Dr. King's message, and as students, faculty and staff at Park University, we want to honor that message with the giving of our time."

Located at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral at 13th and Broadway, the Community Kitchen has been serving noon-time meals at no cost to people who are hungry and homeless for the last 25 years. The cornerstone of the Episcopal Hunger Relief Network, the kitchen has a volunteer base of 400 people who come from area Episcopal and other congregations, civic groups and businesses. Each day dozens help with food preparation, serving and clean up.

http://news.park.edu/pub/news_001521.shtml

UPDATE: Baby Jesus returned to city Nativity scene

From Kansas-

Just before 1 p.m. today, the Rev. Kelley Lackey of St. Andrews Episcopal Church left for lunch and found baby Jesus returned to his manger in the Nativity scene.

"Apparently the person(s) who took baby Jesus had a change of heart," Lackey wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette. "The better angel prevail!"

•••

Lackey had run into disappointment this morning when he found that the baby Jesus in the city’s Nativity scene had been stolen.

The baby Jesus was a new one, bought to replace the last baby Jesus that was stolen. This is the first year the Nativity scene has been displayed since it was refurbished by members of Messiah Lutheran Church after having been in storage for three years.

The scene will be displayed through Epiphany on Jan. 6, but now it will lack the central figure of the story.

“Of course our wise men and our camels are frozen in place, so we'll assume they’ll thaw out and we can move them closer,” Lackey said. “But in the meantime I guess we’ll put a call out for doll babies.”

Lackey doesn’t intend to file a police report for the stolen baby, he said. The baby Jesus is a regular target for pranksters.

More here-

http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2009/dec/31/baby_jesus_stolen_city_nativity_scene/

Good Stuff in TEC: Kansas

Episcopal Church expands food giveaway project

St. Paul's Episcopal Church volunteers will provide perishable food to area families free of charge each week beginning next week, Aug. 19.


The program is a continuation of the church's mission of providing food where needed in the community.

The Rural Mobile Food Pantry will provide food from Harvesters, a Kansas City Food Bank and distributed here in Clay County by church volunteers from the Church on the third Wednesday of each month starting Aug. 19, at the Pamida parking lot from 1:30 until 3 p.m.

The food will be distributed from a refrigerated truck that will hold a variety of perishable foods. The food is provided free of charge on a first come, first served basis, to persons based on the number of people in the family. For example, a one person family will receive a bag of food, whereas a four person family would receive a box of food.

"We are so pleased to be able to offer this opportunity to individuals and families in Clay County to supplement their family's monthly groceries with healthy fruits and vegetables, and other perishable products," said Donna Long, the volunteer coordinator for the Clay Center Mobile Food Pantry.

If persons are shut-ins, or do not have transportation to the site at the time of the distribution, they can contact St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 632-3200, and a written authorization form will be mailed to them. The form needs to be completed and returned to the Church prior to the time for distribution, and then volunteers from the Church will deliver the food that day to the person or family's home.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20359848&BRD=1160&PAG=461&dept_id=190958&rfi=6

Non-Debate Between Godless Humanists and Religious Kooks

From an Episcopal Priest in Kansas-

This week, National Public Radio has been doing a series of stories about “the Science of Spirituality.” The stories focus on the ways that our brains work in regard to such things as spiritual visions, near-death experiences and the impact of prayer on health and well-being. Emphasis is put on the fact that our brains are electro-chemical organs that are the very basis of human experience. But the stories have been intentional about not dismissing the real possibility of God. Instead, the journalists present the idea that perhaps the electro-chemical processes are what make it possible for us to comprehend and connect to something more than ourselves.

As an Episcopal priest, I find such stories interesting because they address issues that I deal with directly within my vocation. They also appeal to me because as an Episcopalian, I come from the Anglican branch of Christianity that buried Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton front and center within the confines of one of our most sacred shrines, Westminster Abbey. I appreciate such an approach because my religious belief is based upon the notion of balancing Scripture, Tradition and Reason, especially when it may force me from my own comfort zones and into a deeper encounter with God.

But recently I have come to appreciate such an approach to science and religion because of the mostly non-fruitful and downright derogatory ways that a few scientists and religious apologists have carried on in the public forum. Unfortunately, where science and religion are concerned, real dialogue is usually bypassed in favor of posted agendas.

All too often scientific method is used to justify an academic skepticism that degrades into a belittlement of all things having to do with faith and spirituality. While in the other camp, religion is often used in both silly and tragic ways to justify forms of ignorance about, and prejudice towards, the reality of the human condition and the cosmos as a whole.

More here-

http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2009/may/22/nondebate_between_godless_humanists_and_religious_/

Church’s rebuilding progresses

From Topeka Kansas-

Destroyed by a $3 million intentionally set fire more than two years ago, the worship space of St. David’s Episcopal Church at 3916 S.W. 17th is steadily rising from the ashes.

The latest sign of progress will be evident around 7:30 a.m. today when construction crews begin installing a new tower that will stand approximately 50 feet tall near the southwest corner of the church, where the new worship space will be located.

The Rev. Don Davidson, rector of the 500-member church, said the new tower won’t have a carillon but will be topped by a cross.

“For us, it’s a pretty big deal,” Davidson said. “It’s a pretty big step as far as getting the building rehabbed and ready to go.”

Davidson said work continues to progress on the church, portions of which were destroyed and other parts of which sustained extensive damage in an arson early Nov. 10, 2006.

Fire officials said the blaze started in the chapel, which was located on the southeast side of the church near S.W. 17th and Gage.

Though rewards totaling $15,000 have been offered, no arrests have been made.

Church members opted to rebuild at the original location, then met for more than a year in other houses of worship, including Temple Beth Sholom, as work was done on fire-damaged portions of the building.

More here-

http://cjonline.com/news/local/2009-05-14/church’s_rebuilding_progresses