Sticking to his guns: Episcopal priest denounces weapons, with Los Angeles Times' help

From Get Religion-

An Episcopal priest in Oregon inserted himself into a gun controversy – actually, created one – and then he acted shocked, shocked at the public blowback.

So did the Los Angeles Times, in an article that could have been written by public-relations professionals working for anti-gun advocates.

Rather than lengthen this intro, let's just load up and chamber the first excerpt:

The Rev. Jeremy Lucas brought an olive branch to a gun fight recently, hoping for a mellow outcome. It began when he won a semi-automatic rifle in a local raffle, then revealed his plan to destroy it and was mostly congratulated for his stand.

More here-

http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2016/8/17/sticking-to-his-guns-episcopal-priest-denounces-weapons-with-los-angeles-times-help

Oregon pastor plans to destroy AR-15 won in rifle raffle: 'This gun will never be used for a mass shooting'

From The Daily News-

An outspoken Oregon pastor known for his anti-gun stance plans to destroy an AR-15 rifle he won in a raffle conducted by a girls’ softball team.

The Rev. Jeremy Lucas, a pastor at Christ Church Episcopal Parish in Lake Oswego, Ore. spent $3,000 to purchase 150 tickets at $20 apiece to secure the winning ticket.

Lucas, in the wake of so many heinous acts committed using AR-15 style weapons, believes winning the rifle serves a greater purpose.

“This gun will never be used for a mass shooting," Lucas said in an interview with Oregon's KGW news. "This gun will never be used for any of those tragic events that we pray for, that we hold moments of silence for. No one will ever hold a moment of silence because this gun has done that thing. And that made me pretty happy."

More here-

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/oregon-pastor-plans-destroy-ar-15-won-rifle-raffle-article-1.2729872

Nonreligious are a growing section of Americans

From Oregon-

Kay Dickey decided she was atheist at age 12. Her parents were not religious and accepted her epiphany, despite living in a predominantly Mormon section of Utah.

“It felt like a cloud went off my shoulders,” Dickey said.

Her story of acceptance contrasts with those of other Central Oregon Atheists members, a group the now 64-year-old woman is organizing.

The Meetup group started in 2008 and has 409 members, ranging from teenagers to octogenarians. Less than 10 members attended the April 17 meeting in a Bend motel conference room. While Dickey is the primary organizer, there is no board or bylaws; there are weekly breakfast meetups that other Central Oregon Atheists members arrange.

While 3.1 percent of Americans identify themselves as atheists, more than 20 percent say they do not affiliate with a religion, according to a Pew Research Center study. More than 35,000 Americans over age 18 were polled for the 2014 Religious Landscape Study.
More here-

http://www.bendbulletin.com/home/4252408-151/nonreligious-are-a-growing-section-of-americans#

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church Gets Ripped Off – Would Like Lawnmowers Back

From Oregon-

The St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in SW Portland on SW Vermont is now the victim of a theft.  Somebody broke into their shed and stole two lawnmowers and a trimmer.

Father Sean Wall says he and another church staff member decided to go ahead and put up a message on their new digital sign out front asking for someone to please return them.

Father Sean says while they are keeping a sense of humor about the whole thing, they are standing by one of their core values of being the hands and feet of Christ.  He says if someone has a heart to help out the church they should offer assistance to one of their neighbors in need.
More here-

http://kxl.com/2015/08/11/st-barnabas-episcopal-church-gets-ripped-off-would-like-lawnmowers-back/

Friends remember state’s first female Episcopal priest

From Oregon-

The first woman ordained as an Episcopal priest in Oregon died last week.

The Rev. Letitia “Tish” Croom, who served in Vale and Nyssa, among other places around Oregon and Idaho, died July 29 in Boise at age 89.

She was among the first 100 women ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. Many remember Croom, who worked in both the Episcopal Diocese of Idaho and the Diocese of Eastern Oregon, with fondness and respect.

“Her life was devoted to humanity and to the church. She was fearless in bringing tough issues to the table for discussion and actions,” said the Rev. Rustin Kimsey, who was bishop of Eastern Oregon from 1980 to 2000.

More here-

http://www.argusobserver.com/news/friends-remember-state-s-first-female-episcopal-priest/article_9b935f64-1d87-11e4-ad00-001a4bcf887a.html

Churches searching in wake of same-sex marriage

From Oregon-

It’s been two months since Oregon has joined other states in allowing same-sex marriage. While the state has made its decision, local churches are all over the board on this controversial issue.

Some stand firm in their traditional views of marriage, some know what they believe but are trying to figure out how to respond, some are entering new waters in their denominations and some have been waiting a long time and are cheering the ability to marry homosexual couples.

“We have had phones flying off the hook, and couples in our congregation who have been ‘married’ for years are getting a reaffirmation in their own church, state and home,” said Associate Pastor Emily Goodnow of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Salem. She can think of six same-sex weddings coming up in the next few months. “It’s been really fun. Our church has been overjoyed.”

More here-

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/life/faith/2014/07/26/churches-searching-wake-sex-marriage/13201159/

Burned Bend church cleared to reopen

From Oregon-

Ten months after arson fires tore through Trinity Episcopal Church near downtown Bend, the congregation is set to move back in to its fully repaired church.

The March 6 fires torched both the historic church building on Wall Street and St. Helens Hall, a former Lutheran church located next door that Trinity Episcopal purchased in 2004.

Since then, the church has held services off site, primarily at the St. Francis of Assisi Historic Catholic Church on Franklin Avenue. On Jan. 19, the congregation will hold its first services at a rebuilt St. Helens Hall.

The city did its final inspection of the building Tuesday morning, and within hours church members had arrived to start moving a truck full of new chairs inside.

Though the renovation looks complete at first glance, Senior Warden Pete Lovering said there’s still a lot of small projects that need to be completed before the 19th, including fine-tuning the sound system, installing kickplates on doors, and swapping out the white light switch covers for an almond shade. Later this week, the organ and altar will arrive.

More here-

http://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/1661442-151/burned-bend-church-cleared-to-reopen#

On Easter and all year long, Tillamook churches work toward unity

From Oregon-

On Sunday in Tillamook, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists and members of the United Church of Christ are worshiping together. Not because it's Easter, when ecumenical services aren't that unusual, but because it's the fifth Sunday of the month.
For two years, these Christian congregations have taken to heart one of Jesus' last earthly wishes: that his followers would be "as one."

"I have to be honest with you," says the Rev. Jerry Jefferies,  who pastors three of The Four Churches, as they're known in Tillamook. "This began as a matter of survival."

In recent years, St. Peter Lutheran Church, St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Tillamook United Methodist Church  and St. John's United Church of Christ have faced the same obstacles confounding mainline congregations in many towns and cities: declining attendance and rising costs.

St. Peter had dwindled from about 75  members to 35. St. Alban's had shrunk from 318  to 159.  Methodists, who had numbered about 208, were reduced to perhaps 105. St. John's averaged 40  people at a Sunday service.

More here-

http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2013/03/on_easter_and_all_year_long_ti_1.html

Episcopal Church Courts Latinos

From Oregon-

In Oregon, the number of Latino Episcopalians has increased more than five-fold over the past decade. Church leaders say the influx is, in part, because the denomination's worship services look and sound familiar to Hispanics raised in the Catholic Church. But Northwest Episcopal Churches are luring Latinos with a focused marketing campaign.

The 10 o'clock high mass at Saints Peter and Paul Episcopal Church in Portland, Oregon probably sounds a lot like it did when the congregation was founded nearly a century ago.

Father Kurt Neilson leads the liturgy, as he has for the past 17 years. He says attendance at the two morning services has been relatively flat. The real growth is in the afternoon.

A few years ago Saints Peter and Paul added a weekly Spanish language mass, or misa. The English-speaking members of the congregation wanted to reach out to the growing number of Latinos in this working class neighborhood. Neilson says the new service took off quickly.

"These are folks who are very unselfconscious about inviting one another to church," he says.

More here-

http://www.kuow.org/northwestnews.php?storyID=158535358

Ex-diplomat installed as rector of Trinity Episcopal in Ashland

From Oregon-

Fresh from 25 years as a U.S. diplomat — most of it on the front lines of international political and cultural interactions in China — the Rev. Anthony Hutchinson was installed Thursday as rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Ashland.

Hutchinson, 58, who was ordained in the Hong Kong Anglican Church in 2008, took the Ashland post on Jan. 1. He says he brings a church tradition rooted in thoughtfulness and faith, not "bumper-sticker slogans."

"I bring an international Anglican breadth to the church, a sacramental view," he says, noting the Episcopal Church is rooted in Protestant and Catholic traditions. "It's a prayer made manifest."

From 2009 to 2011, Hutchinson served as assisting pastor and minister of music at the Congregation of the Good Shepherd in Beijing, where his parishioners hailed from a wide spectrum of Christian faiths. He also had served as chaplain at St. John's Cathedral, and taught biblical languages and literature at Minghua Theological Seminary in Hong Kong.

In the Foreign Service, he specialized in public diplomacy in China and also served in Africa. In China, Hutchinson was a right-hand man for ambassadors, sometimes providing the prayers for the embassy's solemn occasions, including on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

More here-

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120420/NEWS/204200335

Downtown Portland church inspired by North Portland college students rescues Northeast Portland tradition

From Oregon-

When Sue Rossiter read a recent Oregonian story about University of Portland college students saving a Northeast Portland tradition, she had a few thoughts.

One, wouldn't the endangered monthly breakfast for seniors at the Hollywood Senior Center be a wonderful extension of her church's feeding ministry?

And two, wasn't the effort by the college students similar to her son's desire to feed people some years ago?

Rossiter, who is known as "the breakfast lady" at St. Stephen's Episcopal Parish, downtown at 1432 S.W. 13th Ave., said her church's volunteers will take over the senior breakfast when the University of Portland students depart for summer.

That's good news for Amber-Kern Johnson, executive director of the Hollywood Senior Center, who said center visitors appreciate the chance to socialize and enjoy a healthy and economical meal.

More here-

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/04/southwest_portland_church_insp.html

Memories Of An Old Priest Still Illuminate Our Time

From Oregon-

The Rev. John Roberts was our family priest from 1883 until his death in 1949. In a cheering change of pace, we white people were something of an afterthought to him compared to the Shoshone and Arapaho Indians who were his enthusiastic focus.

A Welshman, Roberts was 30 when he arrived on the Wind River Indian Reservation. This was a few years after President Ulysses S. Grant in effect “gave” the Shoshones to the Episcopal Church in an early version of modern-day faith-based initiatives designed to enlist religious denominations in aiding needy citizens.

Father Roberts became friends with both Chief Washakie and his fellow old soldier, my great-great-grandfather Sgt. Ed Alton. Washakie’s legend still shines radiantly from that bedarkened time. In “Son of the Morning Star,” a masterpiece about Custer and the Little Big Horn, author Evan Connell paints this lush picture of a preliminary June 17, 1876 battle: “embarrassing scenes alternated with moments of intense beauty. Chief Washakie, the great Shoshone, rode naked to the waist, wearing a bonnet with so many feathers that they swept the earth.”

More here-

http://news.opb.org//article/memories_of_an_old_priest_still_illuminate_our_time/

MARRIED PRIEST An Episcopal clergyman makes the conversion to Catholicism

From Oregon-

Two things set Father Bryce McProud apart from most newly ordained Roman Catholic priests: He once tried out for the Metropolitan Opera and placed highly enough to consider it a career option. And he’s married.

The opera part is easy to understand. About 40 years ago, about the same time he was considering a calling to the ministry, he “sang quite a lot,” and apparently very well. “At that point, I had to choose between opera and the church,” McProud said. “I prayed about it a lot and decided to go with the church.”

As for being married, McProud, a longtime minister in the Episcopal church and now parochial vicar at St. Mary Catholic Church in Eugene, received a dispensation from Pope Benedict XVI that allowed him to make the switch and, as an already married priest, to bring his wife along.

Since July 1, after a few weeks of volunteering in local parishes following his ordination on June 4, he has been a full-time member of the St. Mary clergy, celebrating Mass, officiating at funerals and hearing confessions of parishioners in the old brick church at 11th Avenue and Charnelton Street.

He and his wife, Deanna McProud, have been married “almost 41 years,” he said. “We have a son, and we have two wonderful grandchildren.”

Upward of 100 Episcopal priests in the United States have sought to become Catholic in recent years, reflecting schisms that have arisen within their ranks — originally an offshoot of the Church of England — over issues) such as same-sex marriage, ordination of women, abortion rights and updating of the Book of Common Prayer, the Episcopal church’s equivalent of the Catholic missal.

More here-

http://www.registerguard.com/web/livinglifestyles/26644763-41/catholic-church-mcproud-episcopal-married.html.csp

Remembering those rides

From Oregon-

To see the affable, pink-cheeked Gil Avery at his house on the Oakway Golf Course on a drizzly day in Eugene, it’s hard to imagine him as a young, slim cleric in the heat of Jackson, Miss., in fall 1961 — about to get arrested for the offense of trying to eat lunch with fellow priests, some of whom were black.

But 50 years ago, that’s one of several incidents that formed and shaped Avery, who then spent a career working for the poor as the director of large social service agencies in Boston and Philadelphia, before retiring to Eugene in 1991.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, which is being observed in communities across the United States, explored in a Public Broadcasting Service documentary and recounted by those who participated.

Avery was one of 430 “Freedom Riders” who in 1961 traveled from all corners of the United States to the Deep South to ride with blacks and whites, shoulder-to-shoulder, to challenge segregation laws that were still standing despite having been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times in the previous 13 years.

Avery was a rector at the time at a racially mixed congregation at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Roxbury, Mass. He also belonged to a group of mostly young priests called the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, which was pushing the church to integrate its schools and other institutions in the South.

More here-

http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/26303432-41/freedom-avery-priests-riders-bus.html.csp

Group collects shoes for people in need

From Oregon-

When Pat Phillips read a story about a church participating in the Soles4Souls program, where people donate new or lightly used shoes for those who are otherwise shoeless, it caught her attention.

"I thought it would be something we small groups could handle," says Phillips, who pitched the idea to her church, St. Luke's Episcopal in Lakeview.

The idea quickly spread. Six churches in Lakeview and Bly, along with the Lakeview Eagles Lodge, Lake District Hospital and the Forest Service-Bureau of Land Management Interagency Office in Lakeview, are now pitching in by accepting shoes until April 15 through the national Soles4Souls program.

The churches accept shoes only on Sundays but the three other Lakeview locations will take donations during weekday open hours.

http://www.heraldandnews.com/news/article_74a0c906-51f6-11e0-aea1-001cc4c03286.html

Episcopal church collecting gently used shoes for people in need

From Portland Oregon-

A Northwest Portland church is collecting gently used shoes to donate to people living in poverty and those recovering from natural disasters.

During the month of March, St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church, 17435 N.W. West Union Rd., will be collecting footwear and monetary donations to give to Soles4Souls Inc., a nonprofit organization that gives shoes to people across the globe who are in need.

Since 2005, Soles4Souls Inc. has distributed more than 13 million pairs of shoes to people in need. The organization has pledged to collect and distribute 11 million shoes in 2011. Every donation to St. Gabriel's will go toward the organization's goal.

Bring gently worn shoes to St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church until March 31. Donations are also accepted through the Soles4Souls website.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/03/northwest_portland_episcopal_c.html

Priest brings unconventional approach

From Oregon-

Nearly 60 years ago, a young boy from Salt Lake City moved to the mirage-inducing heat of southern Florida streets.

He learned much from segregated fountains and two influential women in Miami, and now the Rev. Dan Lediard has arrived in Hermiston and become the priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Lediard, a former insurance salesman who was ordained four years ago, said his upbringing in the Florida city — especially coming from the mostly singular skin shades of Utah — quickly made him notice the way people of color were treated.

“It didn’t make any sense,” Lediard said, adding that he was grateful for influences from level-headed folks in his home.

A family maid named Mabel treated everyone with “profound kindred and love” and became a sort of surrogate mother, according to Lediard.

He had to provide care to his severely asthmatic birth mother since he was young, and about 10 years ago, Lediard brought lessons he learned from both those women to a frequently ignored population: inmates at Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

Lediard began sitting in with therapy groups in that institution after a friend asked for help.
When he first arrived at the penitentiary, he could sense a “current” flowing throughout the inmates.

“I immediately became aware of the presence of God,” Lediard said.

More here-

http://www.hermistonherald.com/news/article_6d95ff1e-0318-11e0-a78c-001cc4c03286.html

In a hungry time, a meal to be thankful for

From Oregon-

This week, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral is expecting 700 people for Thanksgiving.

Of course, you also have to leave room for drop-ins.

Especially in this economy.

Every Wednesday -- this week, Thursday -- Trinity Episcopal, in Northwest Portland, hosts a free lunch, with three courses, real plates, table service and the curious belief that hungry people are not just mouths to feed. Every day, the church offers a small bag of food, mostly canned, for anybody who walks in, and the people leaving lunch on Wednesdays rarely forget to pick one up.

There's a lot of that going around.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released new hunger statistics that might be called hair-raising, especially in Oregon. In 2009, according to the USDA, more than 50 million Americans, including 17 million children, lived in what it calls "low food security" households. (For a department that oversees hog slaughtering, the USDA keeps its language very delicate.)

Worse, the category the USDA calls "very low food security" -- meaning family members were actually missing meals because they couldn't afford to buy food -- rose to 17.7 million, more than double what it was in 2009.

More here-

chttp://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/david_sarasohn/index.ssf/2010/11/in_a_hungry_time_a_meal_to_be.html

Oregon-Idaho conference of United Methodist Church sues Ontario congregation

From The North West (Apparently this Ontario is in Oregon)

The Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church filed a lawsuit last week against an Ontario congregation that left the denomination this past summer.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Malheur County Circuit Court, alleges that members of the independent Ontario Community Church Inc. -- formerly Ontario Community United Methodist Church -- took property, funds and documents that the United Methodist Church says were held in trust for its mission and ministry.

Leaders of the Ontario congregation said last week that their attorney, Drew Martin, had advised them not to comment on the dispute. Martin said Thursday that he hadn't seen the lawsuit, and he did not respond to later requests for comment.

Congregations in California and Alabama have left the denomination in recent years, sparking legal battles over the United Methodist Church's trust clause, which holds that local congregations own property in trust for the entire denomination. Greg Nelson, a spokesman for the Oregon-Idaho conference, said the national church does not keep track of how many churches have left the denomination. But, he added, in most legal disputes, the trust clause has been upheld.

Similar issues are at stake in the Episcopal Church of the United States as congregations leave the national denomination. Disagreements over biblical interpretation, same-sex marriage and ordination of gay clergy are reasons congregations often cite for leaving their denominations.

More here-

http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2010/11/oregon-idaho_united_methodist.html

The Episcopal example: Courage, cohesion and church schisms

From Oregon-

Five years ago this spring, Eugene-based Episcopal priest Ted Berktold was in the middle of a mess. Gene Robinson, an openly gay Episcopal priest, had been elected bishop of New Hampshire, and the ripple effects were coursing through Berktold's parish of St. Mary's. Several people were threatening to leave.

Back then, Berktold's goal was to keep parishioners together and moving forward in the debate over equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) individuals. The reactions Berktold faced to Robinson's election were significant for several reasons: The national Episcopal Church often serves as a bellwether of broader social change, and Robinson's election seemed to be a statement of principle by American bishops. Those bishops faced a threat of schism from the international Anglican Communion, and they were taking a stand.

I profiled Berktold at that time in 2005 for a regional magazine because I thought him a great lens through which to examine the debates within the national church. Berktold is the smart, humble son of Minnesota farmers, and he studied in the 1960s under renowned theologians at both the Episcopal Divinity and Harvard Divinity schools after leaving Catholic seminary over a growing desire to marry and objections to bias against women. He then became an Episcopal priest, married and spent three decades leading parishes in Minnesota and Oregon.

This spring, Berktold retired from St. Mary's, having successfully avoided schism within his parish, and he handed the church to a 28-year-old priest named Bingham Powell.

More here-

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/05/the_episcopal_example_courage.html