The Rev'd Canon Gene Foreman and the St. Andrew's Congregation
Less than a year ago, St. Andrew’s Charismatic Episcopal Church in Manchester, TN was down to two people–the rector and his wife. Father Gene Foreman reported that, a few days after Sunday services were “permanently” discontinued, the Lord spoke to him and said, “Think Spanish.” Although Foreman speaks Spanish, he didn’t know what to make of this directive.
The Most Rev’d David Epps, Bishop
The Cathedral of Christ the King
Third Sunday of Easter
April 18, 2010
Sermon: Is This What Jesus Would Do?
The Rev’d Canon Dan Hale
The Cathedral of Christ the King
February 7, 2010
Sermon: Lessons of Darkness
Brayden Alexander Ledford, son of Thomas Arthur Ledford and Amy Louise Procassini Ledford of Newnan, GA, received the Sacrament of Holy Baptism on Easter Sunday at the Cathedral of Christ the King, Sharpsburg, GA. Bishop David Epps officiated at the service and was assisted by Deacon Jason Epps. A number of the Ledford’s family members were also present.
Pastors get some of the most interesting questions from people they meet and people in their congregations. Here are a few that I have gotten over the years and via email for this column.
DEAR FATHER PAUL: What do you think about the recent stories of even more cases of pedophilia by Catholic priests? Dennis
DEAR DENNIS: My heart breaks for the many youngsters (who are now adults) but who were sexually abused by men they had every right to expect would never, ever abuse them in such a horrendous way. I pray that God, in his mercy, will heal these victims of their severe psychological wounds and help them to somehow forgive those who abused them.
Article by Bishop David Epps
I attended a funeral service last Saturday morning. I didn’t know the deceased or his family, although I know one of his very close friends. Robert W. Collins was eulogized, mourned, honored, and remembered at Fayetteville’s New Hope Baptist Church, possibly the only church in the county large enough to hold the massive crowd gathered for the service.
First Lieutenant Robert Collins, a 2004 graduate of Sandy Creek High School and a 2008 graduate of the United State Military Academy at West Point was killed in Iraq on April 7. Civilians, veterans, police and fire personnel, and military personnel all came to pay respects and to stand with a mom and dad, both retired military officers, and with a grieving childhood sweetheart who were all suffering intolerable grief.
There are key issues that, for me, stand in importance above all others. Certainly, especially in the last several weeks, the economy is an issue. How and when peace will be brought to and are important issues. Energy dependence on foreign sources, how immigrants are to be treated, relations with and other nations are issues to be considered. The security of the nation ranks near the top of the issues. But, for me, there is an issue that I simply cannot ignore.
In the last 25 years, some 40+ million children of American parents have had their lives snuffed out before they ever drew their first breaths. The ending of a healthy child’s life prior to birth is not a political issue. It is a moral one. The Bible clearly prohibits taking the life of an innocent person. It follows that if the developing baby is a “qualified” member of the human race, all of these scriptures apply:
Deuteronomy 27:25a – Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person. Proverbs 6:16-19 – There are six things which the LORD hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood..
The Bible consistently uses the same word for a “born” or “unborn” baby. This is because the divine Author of the Bible did not recognize a material difference between the two. In Scripture, there is not some special event when a “human being” becomes a “person”. Rather, he or she is a person from the beginning who goes through growth and development both inside and outside of the womb.
In the New Testament the Greek word “brephos” is used to describe the unborn, newborns and youth. In Luke 1:44, the word is used to mean unborn baby:
“For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy.”
In the Old Testament the Hebrew word “yeled” is used in the same way. In Exodus 21:22 it means an unborn child,
“If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely…”.
And yet, in other Old Testament usages, it means “youth” or even a teenager.
In the Bible, our worth as a human being or our “personhood” does not depend on how far along on life’s journey we have come. Instead, we are beings who are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Each person is valuable because God created him or her that way. It doesn’t matter whether a person is still in his mother’s womb, a newborn, a toddler, an adolescent, or a senior citizen. Only quite recently has the concept of “personhood” surfaced.
There are some in our society who want to find a developmental stage where they can justify that the fetus is only a collection of organs, not really a person. Carl Sagan put that fetal stage at perhaps 6 months, when the cerebral cortex is in place. Only then, he feels, should we confer “personhood” on a fetus. Such ideas are clearly subjective. It would seem that these discussions of personhood only arose from a need to justify the act of abortion. Certainly, they are not expressed in the Bible.
Quite to the contrary, the Bible story shows that “personhood”, or reaching one’s full potential, comes from knowing God. A person develops and is preserved through his communion with a personal God who reveals Himself to us in love. The Bible consistently links our “personhood” to the time we are formed (conception), or even before in God’s “mind”. According to the Bible, God knew us prior to our birth:
Psalm 139:13-16. For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
Luke 1:15. …he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.
Jeremiah 1:5. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
One politician has said that the historic Church has not had a clear stand on life and abortion. This is simply false:
“Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born” (Letter of Barnabas 19 from 74 AD).
“…And these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion” (The Apocalypse of Peter 25, 137 AD).
“You shall not procure abortion, nor destroy a newborn child” (Didache 2:1 from 150 AD).
“There are some women among you who by drinking special potions extinguish the life of the future human in their very bowels, thus committing murder before they even give birth.” (Mark Felix, Christian Lawyer, Octavius chap. 30 from 170 AD).
“The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion (see Ex. 21:22) Tertullian, 210 AD.
“Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does” (Tertullian, Apology 27 from 210 AD).
“Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses.” (First Canonical Letter from 374 AD).
“The law, moreover enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing humankind.” (The Works of Josephus, Flavius Josephus Against Apion, Book II, 25).
“Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder” (Jerome, Letters 22:13 from 396 AD).
Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green Party, or Independent, I cannot cast a vote for a leader that does not recognize the sacredness of life, however weak and powerless that life may be. I cannot, will not, vote for those who condone the abortion of children. The stakes are too high—we reap what we sow—all others issues are secondary.
Bishop David Epps serves as a bishop to Georgia and Tennessee. He is also the founding pastor of Christ the King Church, 4881 Hwy 34 E., Sharpsburg, GA 30277 between Peachtree City and Newnan. Services are held Sundays at 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. Bp Epps is also the Mission Pastor of Christ the King Church in Champaign, IL. He may be contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org. The church has a website at www.ctkcec.org. Much of this article was drawn from www.abortionfacts.com.
The new Parish Life Center at Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church will be dedicated on Sunday afternoon, October 26 at 4:00 p.m. The new 5,000 square foot structure will house the church’s fellowship hall, two nurseries, three classrooms, rest rooms, and a fully equipped industrial kitchen. With tables, the fellowship hall can seat around 165 people.
David Fjeran, the project manager for the building, recently reported that the church had received a certificate of occupancy and had come in 2 ½ months ahead of schedule and $30,000 under budget. The facility will be furnished with new furniture in all areas.
Christ the King, which was begun September 1996 in a living room with 19 people, worshipped for over six years in the chapel of Carmichael-Hemperley Funeral Home in Peachtree City, GA before occupying a new sanctuary on 11.5 acres in November of 2002. Christ the King was the first church in the Southeast, and the second in the United States, to form a new congregation, buy land, and build a sanctuary that was specifically designed to serve as a CEC church. The first church in the U.S. to accomplish that task no longer exists as a CEC congregation.
The new facility is built to complement the sanctuary and is connected to that building by a covered walkway which gives a slightly “monastic” feel to the campus.
The guest speaker for the dedication service will be The Most Rev’d Douglas S. Woodall, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of the Armed Forces. Dr. Woodall, of St. Augustine, FL, was the first bishop to visit Christ the King in December 1996.
The service will consist of a praise celebration, the archbishop’s message, the congregation processing from the sanctuary to the new facility, the dedication of the Parish Life Center, and a covered dish dinner in the new fellowship hall.
Bishop David Epps, founding pastor of the church said, “This congregation, with the Lord’s blessing, has accomplished some amazing things for a smaller congregation in its short history.” The church has planted three other mission churches since its founding.
The community is invited to attend the service which will be held at the church’s property at 4881 Hwy. 34 East, Sharpsburg, GA between Peachtree City and Newnan.
Deacon Justin Allen was born in St. Louis, MO and moved to Cherokee County as an adolescent. He is a graduate of Sequoyah High School, and is currently working on his undergraduate degree at St. Michael’s Seminary. Justin, who serves at Christ the Redeemer CEC in Canton, GA, has been a leader in the Transformation Series, the Alpha Course (www.alphacourse.org), the Living Waters program (www.desertstreams.org), and Elijah House Ministries (www.elijahhouse.org). He has completed the Living Waters Leadership Training Course, receiving credit as a certified instructor for the program. He and his wife, Luanne are co-teaching a class called “Embracing Life with Passion”. In 2001, he was licensed as a Lay Liturgical Minister in the Charismatic Episcopal Church, and was ordained as a deacon by the Most Reverend Bishop John Holloway on April 18, 2004. Deacon Justin served as the Acolyte Master from 2001 through 2004, and is currently serving in that capacity. He assists Father Stephen with the Catechism course, and is currently the church liturgist, responsible for the preparation of the liturgy for each service. Justin currently works part time as a floral delivery driver and as a full time stay-at-home Dad.
Justin married Luanne Hilburn, a member of the Christ the Redeemer family, in February of 2003, and they live in Woodstock. Luanne is employed by Datatrac Corporation where she is the Implementation Manager. She is a graduate of Georgia State University with a Bachelor’s of Business Administration, and holds an MBA from Campbell University. Luanne is also an active part of the church family, serving in the Praise Team, Children’s Ministries and Women’s Activities. They are the proud parents of two children, Madelyn, age 3 and Seth age 1.
An incorrect phone number was posted for registering for the upcoming Purity Seminar to be held on Saturday, November 8th. In addition to correcting the original post, we wanted to post the correct contact information here as well. The correct email address address and phone number are as follows: purityseminar@midsouthdiocese.org and 770-929-8816. The contact persons for this event are David and Sharon Holland.
If you have not already contacted the Hollands to register, please do so today.
For more information on this event, go to: Purity Seminar: Sex, Love, and Relationships
