Live Video Streaming of Bryn Athyn Cathedral Services

The Bryn Athyn Cathedral has been streaming audio from their services for years. Now they're also offering live video streaming, using USTREAM.

You can find more information about their audio and video streaming options on the Live Services page of the Bryn Athyn Church website.

I haven't actually tried it out during a service but I have taken a look at the archives on Bryn Athyn Cathedral's USTREAM channel and I was impressed by the quality of the video. I was expecting it to be one badly positioned webcam, streaming grainy footage but, it looks like they've got at least 2 cameras that are well positioned to give pleasant shots of the service and the footage isn't too grainy, even in fullscreen mode.

Let me know if you've tried streaming a service live.

Here's a screenshot of Bryn Athyn Cathedral's USTREAM channel:

A Good Sermon about Bitter Waters

I was catching up with Rev. Coleman Glenn's blog (colemanglenn.wordpress.com) and read a sermon he preached 2 weeks ago in Toronto "Bitter Waters Made Sweet". It's a good one. Here's an excerpt:

And then you realize it: you’ve stopped focusing on the Lord. You’ve stopped focusing on your commitment. You’ve stopped taking the time to think about how to love the Lord, how to love the people around you. Maybe you’ve stopped reading the Word. Maybe you haven’t been going to church. You realize what’s been missing. And so with hope you open up the Word to your favourite passage, you attend a doctrinal class, you go to church. You recommit yourself to your goals. You’re ready to get back on the right path. You see the cool waters right in front of you, and you take a deep drink.

And there’s nothing there. The same words that in the past have inspired you fall flat. You read the Word, but it’s not joyful; it’s a chore. Your doctrinal class feels meaningless. Church is boring. The waters that looked so refreshing, so cooling, so life-giving, are bitter!

Listen to Bishop Louis King's Service Online

Bishop Louis Blair King passed into the Spiritual World on June 21st, shortly before 6am. There's going to be a resurrection service for him tomorrow, June 23rd at 7pm EST at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral.

If you want to listen to the service online, you can try going to the Listen Live page on BrynAthynChurch.org but, because they're anticipating a lot of people wanting to listen, they've also made it so that you can listen by using GoToMeeting. Click on this link to register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/795951673 and then after registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the online service.

In memory of Bishop King you might want to listen to one of the 758 recordings of him on NewChurchAudio.org. Or you might want to read the sweet, short article that Louis wrote for New Church Connection a while ago about marriage continuing after death.

My Statement of Faith and Purpose

I got inaugurated into the first degree of the priesthood a couple of Sundays ago. In the service each of the people getting inaugurated made a statement of faith and purpose. You can listen to the service online but I also wanted to post a text version of my statement of faith and purpose here.

Before I get to that I want to mention a couple of other things. One is that I thought that the sermon that Bishop Tom Kline gave after the ordinations was really good. He used the Lord's example to illustrate the principle that priests should lead people but not compel them. I also want to mention that the Sunday after I got ordained there was another ordination service for Thane Glenn and Jay Barry and after their ordinations Thane preached a good sermon about what to do when we feel spiritually hopeless.

The final thing I want to tell you is that you can find other statements of faith and purpose in New Church Life. Every time a General Church minister gets ordained he makes a statement of faith and it eventually gets published in New Church Life. This means that you can find your favorite ministers' statements of faith and purpose on HeavenlyDoctrines.org. Select "New_Church_Life" and "all of the words" and in the search box put "declaration* of faith and purpose" [minister's name]. (Don't include the [] but do include the quotation marks.) If you don't find what you're looking for you could try "statement* of faith and purpose" [minister's name]. In either case the * is important because sometimes multiple declarations or statements of faith are published together.

Anyway I hope you enjoy reading a couple statements of faith and listening to some ordination services. Here's my statement of faith and purpose:

I believe in the Lord—Jesus Christ—the Savior of the world.¹ He is my Lord and my God.² He is God with us³—the infinite and Divine made visible⁴—Jehovah and Jesus—the Word made flesh who dwelt among us.⁵

I believe that He came into the world to subdue the hells and to glorify His Human and that without this no mortal could have been saved, and all people who believe in God and live according to what He teaches are saved.⁶

I believe that the Lord teaches people most clearly and completely in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the heavenly teachings of the New Church. I believe that the first and great commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And the second is like it: to love your neighbor as yourself. And that on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.⁷ I believe that the Lord has shown us what is good and what He requires of us: to first shun evils as sins against Him⁸ that we may do judgment, love mercy, and humble ourselves to walk with our God.⁹

I believe that, of ourselves, we are poor, broken, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed. I believe that the Lord is present with each person, urging and pressing to be received.¹⁰ And that He has come to preach the gospel to the poor; to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.¹¹

I believe that good priests teach truths and lead people by means of them to the good of life and so to the Lord.¹² I pray that I may cooperate with the Lord in this work and be a good shepherd of His sheep.¹³

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¹ Arcana Coelestia 14
² John 20:28
³ Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23
⁴ True Christian Religion 787
⁵ John 1:14
⁶ True Christian Religion 2; Divine Providence 330:5-6
⁷ Matthew 22:37-40
⁸ True Christian Religion 435-438; Doctrine of Life 24, 108
⁹ Micah 6:8
¹⁰ True Christian Religion 766
¹¹ Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-2
¹² Arcana Coelestia 10794; New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 315
¹³ John 10:1-18

New Church Podcasts

Do any New Church podcasts exist? Up until today I would have guessed the answer was no. But I just found out from Rev. Dave Lindrooth (www.newchurchweblog.org) that Rev. Ethan McCardell at the Light for Life New Church (www.lightforlifenewchurch.org) has just started publishing his sermons as a podcast. You can find the podcast here.

It's free to subscribe and I recommend that you do because then the podcast will have more subscribers and, more importantly, then you'll have a couple of good sermons on your iPod when you need one. I haven't had the chance to listen to the podcast yet but I've gotten a lot out of other sermons I've heard by Ethan so I look forward to taking a listen.

On the subject of New Church podcasts, while looking at Ethan's podcast, I discovered that the Pittsburgh New Church had a podcast in 2008, though it doesn't look like it's been updated in a while. (You can find it here). And, I happen to know that another New Church podcast project is in the works so stay tuned for news about that.

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For more information about Ethan, check out his blog (www.ethanmccardell.com) and for more of an idea of the services at Light for Life New Church watch this short video that Dave Lindrooth put together.

A Great Sermon on the Prodigal Son (and the other son)

Since the fall, Rev. Grant Schnarr has been leading contemporary style services at The Lord's New Church. You can find out more about these services at inewchurch.org. I finally got around to going to one of these services yesterday but Grant wasn't preaching.

Rev. Michael Cowley was preaching about the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) and it was one of the best sermons I've heard in a while. It was heartfelt, totally relevant and applicable, and also doctrinally satisfying. Contemporary style services are sometimes accused of being fluffy, emotional, and without much substance but that wasn't the case with this service. Michael didn't quote piles of passages but he did reference a lot of relevant ideas from the Heavenly Doctrines that, for me, provided a strong frame for the rest of the message.

One thing that I particularly appreciated about this sermon was how he explained the other son in the parable—the "good" son who hasn't done anything wrong. So far in my life I've related more to this son than the prodigal son (we'll see if that changes over the course of my life) and so I didn't want to just hear about the meaning of the prodigal son but also the other son and Michael didn't disappoint. In fact, he argued that the punchline of the parable really is about that son, not the prodigal one. You'll have to listen to the sermon to find out what else Michael said about that son.

To listen to the sermon go to the Current Sermon Series page on inewchurch.org (it will probably eventually move to the sermon archive under the Mission of the Church series) and scroll down till you see "With Welcome Arms – The Prodigal Son – by Michael Cowley – February 14, 2010." If you have time, listen to the children's talk first and then the sermon.

Sermon Series for Valentines Day

At the last 2 Bryn Athyn contemporary services Rev. Mac Frazier did a 2 part series on men and women in preparation for Valentines Day. First he gave a talk "For Men" (start at 17:30 to skip the singing) and then he gave a talk "For Women" (start at 9:30 to skip the singing).

Both talks have a good combination of teachings from the Word and practical advice. They're not particularly focused on just one point but it means that there are a bunch of different useful ideas about men and women and marriage to consider.

I was especially impressed that, in preparation for his talk for women, Mac made sure to talk to as many women as he could about what to say. As a result I think both talks were balanced and useful.

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If you live within driving distance of Bryn Athyn, you might want to consider attending the Caring For Marriage marriage conference that's happening tomorrow and the next day. It's not just for married people and it has some great speakers, workshops, activities, and entertainment lined up.

Sermon About Seeing the Lord in Other People

This Sunday at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral Rev. Grant Odhner gave a thought-provoking sermon about seeing the Lord in other people. The title of his sermon was "You Have Done it to Me" and was based on the parable of the goats and the sheep where the king says to the sheep, "inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:31-40). He used that text and a number of other interesting texts to explore how, without our awareness, the Lord is present with us all the time.

The text that I found most interesting, though, was a narrative account that I don't remember reading before about a conversation that Swedenborg had with some people sitting under a laurel-bush (True Christian Religion 461). They have a conversation about "how a person can do good coming from God, and yet do it exactly as if of himself." Grant wove this into the sermon as part of a broader discussion of how we can make progress in acknowledging that the Lord is the One Source of Life—in us and in other people.

What's Grant Schnarr Doing Now?

Have you been wondering what Rev. Grant Schnarr has been up to recently? One thing he's been doing is writing really interesting notes on Facebook telling the story of his life and reflecting on the ups and downs of his evangelization work. He's now started a blog (grantschnarr.wordpress.com) and put them on there too. See "To Be or Not to Be: A Swedenborgian" part one, part two, part three, and part four.

He's also been preaching around Bryn Athyn. He preached at Ivyland New Church a couple of weeks ago. He preached at the Cathedral 2 Sundays ago. And he preached this past Sunday at Bryn Athyn Contemporary service. (There isn't a recording up yet but you should be able to find it here soon.)

The sermon he preached at the Cathedral, "Lifeline", was about the internal meaning of the story of Jeremiah being thrown into cistern and then later raised out (Jeremiah 38:1-13). I've heard a number of people say that it was the best sermon they've heard in a while. I got a lot out of it. Grant is really good at expositional sermons. He goes back and forth between the literal story and the internal meaning in a seemingly effortless and usually compelling way. One of the simple things that he pointed out was that all the characters in the story are part of us, not just Jeremiah. And he talked about how certain parts of us want to push the truth out of sight but that we need to identify with those parts of us that will lift the truth back up into the light.

In that sermon and the one he preached at the contemporary service there was a refreshing, back-to-the-basics feel and focus. We don't always want the truth because the truth can be hard to deal with and because it asks us to change but it's totally worth it. Amen!

Grant is also planning something for the fall. On page 2 of the August 27 Bryn Athyn Post he's asking for help with an independent contemporary service he's going to be during the "Living Courageously" campaign at the Social Hall of the Lord's New Church.

He's also starting another blog sort of thing next Monday.

I wrote a book two years ago called Guardian Angel Diary, about a girl named Nicole who, being diagnosed with brain cancer, began writing to her guardian angel and listening hard, wrote what she heard as a reply in her head. Soon a conversation and a friendship developed which helped her to the end, or perhaps to the beginning. On Monday, September 7th, Nicole will begin her diary for all to see, at nicolebealert.wordpress.com.

A Good Sermon on Wisdom and Marriage

In mid-July I went to lay-led Sunday service at the Glendale New Church. Max Blair was the lay leader for that week and the sermon he picked for us to read was a sermon that Rev. Dan Goodenough preached in 1981 titled "The Rib of Man" (PDF).

As you might guess from the title, it's about the story from Genesis 2 of woman being created out of the rib of man. But it's not so much an exposition of that story as an exploration of some of the teachings about the importance of a husband developing wisdom in marriage.

Talking about the differences between men and women is a difficult thing to do without seeming to denigrate either sex but Goodenough does a good job of it. Here's one example:

Though [a husband's] rational wisdom can and should climb into a light in which his wife is not, she enjoys a wisdom of perception of states which is too deep for him to fathom. Both of these distinctive kinds of wisdom, together with the moral wisdom which husband and wife should share (Conjugial Love 163-168) are necessary for the growth of the church in them. A man's rational insights are no more infallible than a woman's intuitions; neither husband nor wife is in a position superior to the other, so as to instruct or dominate from above.

Here are a couple of other things I like about this sermon:

• It has a good discussion of what real wisdom is and what it isn't.
• It doesn't forget about unmarried people, as many sermons about marriage do.
• It has a funny analogy about waiting for a man's wisdom.
• It talks about the use of arguing.
• And I really like the point he ends on.

The Road to Emmaus and Church Growth

A couple of Sundays ago I heard Rev. Stephen Cole preach at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral. His sermon, "Burning Hearts," was about the story of the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35)—particularly the part where the disciples say to each other, "Did not our heart burn within us, while He spoke to us in the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?" (Luke 24:32). (To skip the music click on "Lessons & Sermon Only" and then click the play button.)

He talked about how the disciples were so excited that they walked all the way back to Jerusalem and said,

This kind of infectious enthusiasm fired up the early converts to Christianity and spread the gospel of the Lord’s Advent. This kind of infectious enthusiasm can inspire us as well in spreading the gospel of the Lord’s Second Coming.

He tied this story in with the teachings about why the New Church will only be with a few people at first in Apocalypse Explained 732.

Why I liked this sermon:

• I feel like there's a perception out there that conservative ministers aren't interested in the church growing but here's Stephen Cole, a conservative minister, talking about how the church will grow.
• He makes an interesting point about how to understand Apocalypse Explained 732. You'll have to listen to the sermon, though, if you want to know what it is. :P
• I also liked his explanation of what it is to have our hearts burn within us and what we can do to make progress in having that experience.
  

You can read a summary of the sermon on page 9 of the July 2nd Bryn Athyn Post (PDF).

See May Our Hearts Burn Within Us for another great recent sermon on the road to Emmaus.

A Prayer Challenge

Rev. Mac Frazier started a Facebook group called "A Holy Conversation" with this description:

John Burke of Gateway Church came up with an idea: pause to connect with God every 60 waking minutes for 60 days. It's been bouncing around in my head to try this, and this past week I decided to just jump in. ... I'm trying to make prayer in my life less like a ritual and more like a conversation. I want to get to know the Lord, the Divine Human, in a way I don't feel I currently do. In Secrets of Heaven it says that prayer is speech with God. I want to start having a conversation. ...

Here's how it works: Create reminders for yourself--sticky notes, pop-up reminders on your computer, hourly beeps on your watch, alarms on your cell phone, or whatever works for you--so that you are regularly... reminded to pray.

Now, the way I'm doing it, I'm not necessarily praying FOR anything, and I'm not "saying a prayer". Every hour, what I do is say silently to myself, "The Lord is always with me," and then taking a second to reflect on my current thoughts, feelings and behavior. I share with the Lord whatever's going on with me, no matter how silly, embarrassing, painful, wonderful--whatever--it is. And then I LISTEN. I still my mind and wait a bit.

That's how I'm doing it. You can do it any way you like! AND, if you like, you can use this FaceBook group to share reflections, experiences, joys, discoveries, etc., with others who are doing this experiment.

Mac talked about this at contemporary service yesterday. I decided to take the challenge after that.

UPDATE: Mac's talk is now available online. You can listen to it here. Jump to 13:46 for the talk itself.

Also, I've discovered that you don't have to have a Facebook account to view Facebook groups so I added a link to the group. Click on "A Holy Conversation" here or above.

A Good Explanation of the Reason for Having a Priesthood

At the ordination service this past Sunday, Rev. Andy Dibb, dean of the Academy of the New Church Theological School, gave a great sermon about the priesthood. Why are priests necessary? What can they do? What can they not do?

I really liked the readings he chose from Malachi 2, Matthew 10, and Divine Providence 154 and 171. And, in the sermon, I thought he did a good job of explaining the background information necessary for understanding why priests are needed.

Listen to the sermon, "The Salvation of Souls", online at the new New Church Audio web site or download it from there and listen to it on your MP3 player.

New Web Site for the Sunday Night Thing

The Sunday Night Thing now has a web site, sundaynightthing.org. What is the Sunday Night Thing? Ah, well you can now read about it on the About page. The most exciting thing, though, is that you can also listen to some past services now on the Audio page.

Just this morning I put up recordings of Rev. Eric Carswell's talk about different responses we can have to evil and Rev. Lou Synnestvedt's talk about worry. Eric talked about trying to integrate statements like "I will fear no evil; for You are with me...." (Psalm 23), on the one hand, and teachings like "Everyone is regenerated by abstaining from sinful evils, and shunning them as anyone would on seeing the hordes of hell seeking with torches in their hands to attack him and to throw him upon a pyre" (True Christian Religion 510), on the other. And Lou talked about understanding feelings of worry as the influence of the spirits that are with us and dealing with worry by working on believing in the visible God (see True Christian Religion 339:3). Good stuff.

A Great Mother's Day Sermon

Rev. John Odhner gave a really interesting and useful sermon yesterday on "The Wisdom of Woman". He talked about Jehovah's words to Abraham, "Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice..." (Genesis 21:12) and about the teachings from Conjugial Love about how the wisdom of women exceeds that of men (e.g. Conjugial Love 208), and about how contempt destroys relationships.

It was "choir Sunday" so there's lots of singing in the recording of the service. If you want to just listen to the lessons and sermon, jump to 24:48 for the lessons and 40:31 for the sermon.

May Our Hearts Burn Within Us

I didn't make it to the adult service at the Cathedral on Sunday but I heard from at least 3 people that Rev. George McCurdy gave a great sermon. I listened to it this afternoon and it was well worth the time.

The title of the sermon is "May Our Hearts Burn Within Us", which is a reference to the story of the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). In the story, "beginning at Moses and all the Prophets" the Lord "expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (27), and, in the sermon, McCurdy suggested some of the scriptures that the Lord might have talked about with the disciples. George McCurdy is well known for his great study guides to the minor prophets (which are all available for free at dovepress.org) and many of the scriptures he talked about were from the minor prophets. You can hear his knowledge and love for these lesser known scriptures in his explanation of them.

In the sermon he also talked about the importance of reflection (read a previous post about reflection) and he wrapped it up in a way that I found really hopeful and inspiring. I'll stop describing it now and let you just listen to it.

Rev. Grant Odhner on Discouragement

Last night at the Sunday Night Thing Rev. Grant Odhner gave a talk about discouragement. He focused on the story of the bronze serpent from Numbers 21:4-9 and talked about how when we're discouraged it's often because we no longer feel delights in higher things (the people loathe the manna) and so we try to make up for it by finding other things to make us feel good (the Lord sends fiery serpents that bite the people). Maybe that doesn't sound all that compelling the way I put it but it really resonated with my experience of discouragement and I really liked Grant's explanation of how the Lord healed the people from the serpents' bites. If you want to know what it is you'll just have to listen to the talk.

During the talk Grant brought in selections from Arcana Coelestia 995 and 997 and John 3:1-17, where Jesus refers to the story from Numbers.

Thane Glenn on Compassion

Last Sunday Thane Glenn gave a talk on compassion at the Sunday Night Thing. I missed it because I was out of town but someone recorded it so I just listened to it this afternoon and it was really useful to me.

The main passage he was working from was Arcana Coelestia 6737, which is just a great passage. Thane really brought it to life by touching on lots of cool examples of compassion from the Old and New Testaments. He suggested a useful approach to trying to be more compassionate but what I particularly appreciated was how, at the end, he talked about the Lord's compassion and mercy.

Listen to Rev. Mac Frazier on Doubt

Last night Rev. Mac Frazier gave a great talk about doubt at the Sunday Night Thing. It was part of the current series, "Feelings: What the heck? - Emotions and Spirituality." His main text was Arcana Coelestia 1820, which is a great passage about how the evil spirits attack what we love.

The exciting thing is that I finally remembered to bring my digital recorder to the service so, if you missed it, you can listen to Mac's talk online. At the Sunday Night Thing the readings are done by people in the congregation so if you're having trouble hearing those you can read along with them by clicking on the link to the Arcana Coelestia passage above.

A Great Sermon on Loneliness and Use

Rev. Grant Odhner's sermon on Sunday was exactly what I look for in a sermon. It was based on a story from the Word, it had great passages from the Heavenly Doctrines and from the Old and New Testaments, it had stuff to apply to life, it didn't offer simple, pat answers, it brought me down to the point of acknowledging that everything good is from the Lord and then lifted me up to want to strive to be the Lord's good and faithful servant.

It was “choir Sunday” so you'll have to fast forward a bit if you want to just listen to the sermon.