St. Andrew & St. George Anglican Church
1347 Pine Avenue, Trail, BC V1R 4E7
Phone (250)
368-
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Bible Verse of the Day:
Why We Are
A church isn't just a social club, or a habit, or even a social service agency. Ultimately, Jesus Christ is the "why" behind all that we are as a church.
"We tend to forget that the Church is not the building but rather the community which
gathers in Christ's name, to exist not for our own sake, but for the sake of the
world." (Rev. Elizabeth Bretzlaff, in "The First 100 Years, 1896-
As church, our whole point is to show Christ to the world. We need to mirror what Jesus says are the two greatest commandments:
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And
the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Mat. 22:37-
(From the Archbishop of Canterbury's enthronement sermon, 27 February 2003):
"Today is a time to reflect with you all about the character of the ministry that
I'm taking on; but as I try to do this, I find it's not possible to think how I can
minister the living bread of Christ unless I first seek to become clearer about what
I long to see in the Church in which I shall be ministering. After all, it is God
in the midst of God's people who will enable me to minister -
"Confidence; courage; an imagination set on fire by the vision of God the Holy Trinity; thankfulness. The Church of the future, I believe, will do both its prophetic and its pastoral work effectively only if it is concerned first with gratitude and joy; orthodoxy flows from this, not the other way around, and we don't solve our deepest problems just by better discipline but by better discipleship, a fuller entry into the intimate joy of Jesus's life. When we have become more honest about our hunger and our loss, we shall have a fuller awareness of what that joy is; and as that joy matures, we shall have a fuller sense of the depth of our need. And so it goes on, the spiral of discovery, moving deeper into the radiant mystery of Christ."
"About twelve years ago, I was visiting an Orthodox monastery, and was taken to see one of the smaller and older chapels. It was a place intensely full of the memory and reality of prayer. The monk showing me around pulled the curtain from in front of the sanctuary, and there inside was a plain altar and one simple picture of Jesus, darkened and rather undistinguished. But for some reason at that moment it was as if the veil of the temple was torn in two: I saw as I had never seen the simple fact of Jesus at the heart of all our words and worship, behind the curtain of our anxieties and our theories, our struggles and our suspicion. Simply there; nothing anyone can do about it, there he is as he has promised to be till the world's end. And nothing of value happens in the Church that does not start from seeing him simply there in our midst, suffering and transforming our human disaster."
Read the complete text of the sermon.
Find out more about the worldwide Anglican Communion at www.anglicancommunion.org.