Good & Bad

I had mixed feelings about the AFP prayer conference today.  There have been better.  What was good?

• Thin Places
• Friends
• Name tag
• Music

What was bad?

• Environmentalism
• A call for an end to structure

When Bishop Barry Clarke started talking about thin places in his sermon, my ears perked up.  This is a term I know.  He invited us to think of places that we considered thin.  I hadn't really thought of making a list.  I would say graveyards, St. Paul's Stratford--especially when I'm there alone and at night, St. Gregory's Abbey, the hedged in area outside St. James' Stratford, the cathedral, and the bench across from the Tim Horton's at Knox Church.

It was great to be with the same group of friends from St. Paul's.  We've been to at least four AFP prayer conferences.  Our talks in the car there and back are as good as the actual conference.  It was also great to see Fr. Andreas again.

They didn't give me an AFP executive name tag today, and that was good; because, I shouldn't have one and didn't want one last year.  It's been years since I helped plan the conference and I have little involvement in the work that goes on, none this year.  So, I shouldn't have a AFP executive name tag.

The music was great.  It's so moving and powerful to be in the cathedral with a good crowd belting out a traditional hymn with gusto.  When that pipe organ roars and the people give 'er, it's something special.

I could have done without the Greenpeace spiel.  I think that was the topic of the last Fall gathering.  I was looking forward to a good Celtic theme, and we went back to environmentalism.  It started with the Celts being one with nature and bla bla bla and transitioned back to stewardship of the Earth.  Environmentalism is a political movement, and politics has no place in the Church.

And, again there was a call for the ACC to get rid of the old hymns and structure, liturgy and rigidity of what is to embrace what they hope will grow the Church.  I'm so sick of all these winter of their life Anglicans trying to undo everything that makes the ACC Anglican--and what they're enjoyed for decades--to replace it with what they will hope will save it when they will no longer be here to endure it.

P.S.  The problem with the Church now is that it is acting like a business rather than a Church.  In the 1950's, when it was a sellers marked with people looking for salvation, the Church could dictate the cost.  Now, in a buyers market, they have to ask the buyer what cost they're willing to pay in order to buy the product, and with what features.  As Toyota would say, the customer decides what value is.