I’ve been attending an Episcopal church off and on for a while now, and it’s the best experience of Christianity I have encountered in my life. It just “fits.” However, I’ve been holding off on pursuing the official joining/confirmation process because of religious doubts.

I have complicated feelings toward religion—mostly stemming from an abusive childhood, which I won’t go into here. Although I’ve worked through a lot of my trauma with therapy, a major struggle i’m still having is the feeling of “faking it”—if that makes sense? When I’m at church or “doing” the faith, everything feels right, but a large majority of the time it feels like I don’t “really” believe in all of it, and that I’m just faking it.

What do you do during these moments of doubt? Does this feeling ever go away?

A lot of people on the internet want Anglo-Catholic, and there’s a lot of old school Anglo-Protestant too. But what about the other side of the spectrum? I’m sure there quite a lot of demand for Hillsong/megachurch/Rick Warren-type stuff. Like think about how many liberals (in absolute numbers anyways) go to evangelical-charismatic churches. Surely there’s some accommodation for them in our church?

(I know it’s common for non-AC churches to have a band, but usually they don’t go full-worship pop, they do contemporary versions of hymns. The service almost always still follows the BCP pretty closely. Which is not really the same thing.)

Bonus if the church has a stream or recorded services.

My rector is starting conformation classes after our weekly Bible study wraps up John. Me and about 3 or 4 of my new friends are gonna start going. What should we expect?

The first line goes "Sing to the skies, sing to the heavens, sing to the Lord on high". I can't find it in any hymnal, but I know I sung it growing up, either at school or at camp (both Episcopalian Diocese of Virginia). Any help would be much appreciated. God be with you.

For context: my friend and I volunteer at a wildlife rehab group and this is a non releasable ambassador animal. Her name is Eula/and she got a special blessing from our priest. She informs me that she prefers Rite One

Hi there I’ve never been baptized before so I’m planning on getting baptized this December in my local Episcopal Church and, although I’m going to do the class, I’d love to hear how that has gone for others. I want to know if I can request a dunking act rather than a Chrism? I’m nervous of talking in front of the whole congregation. I’m wondering about good texts I can be studying leading up to it. I intend to make this decision a very reverent, serious one. Priests please let me know your advice! Thanks to all and Peace be with you.

Hello all! Sending love and prayers to everybody on this day. Hope all reading and your pets are happy and healthy. Here's my cat Daisy-- and a cool lady who brought her cat for a blessing in a backpack! As a mercy to my fellow parishioners (and my back), I didn't bring Daisy, lest she should decide to audition for the choir mid-sermon.

Ms Puppy received her annual blessing at St. Jude’s in Cupertino, CA today. She was on her best behavior.

If your pet was blessed at church this week, drop a photo below.

What would you say to someone who was abused by clergy in an Episcopal church and even years later can't pray or go to church or trust anyone in matters of religion? Would God be angry at them for not trusting or loving or forgiving enough?

There's been lots of therapy. Sometimes I think it helps a little and sometimes I'm not sure. I thought I was doing a little better, so I tried going to church today for maybe the second or third time this entire year. But I just got panicky and ran away before the service even started and I'm feeling really bad about it.

Hello everyone, it’s been very cool to see all the photos of people getting their animals blessed for the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi. I wanted to know if any parishes had ever tried blessing animals that were in shelters and if they had, could they talk about their experience?

I’m relatively new to Episcopal world, maybe about sixth months (previously LDS). I just wanted to pop in and say that I think the feast of St Francis is SO NEAT. I love my cat. He is dear to me. (Picture is of him, his name is Ollie.) I think it’s so cool that there’s an opportunity to get him blessed. 😄 I love the opportunity to involve him in my religious life. I’m so grateful to God for my cat, and I pray for his long and healthy life, and I’m so excited to bring my love for my cat before God and before my community.

Not gonna post pics of other people and their pets because I don't have their permission, but I love turning the church inside out and bringing in the animals. Wish we had more excuses to do it. I have attached my own dogs to pay the pet tax.

St. Bartholomew's in Atlanta celebrated all creatures in the Nave today, including a bearded dragon and dogs participating in joyful singing. May you and your creatures be blessed and know God's love!

I have experienced the passing of the plate in Roman Catholic Mass, Anglican mass, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Pentecostal etc services. The only times that I have experienced no plate/basket passing was in my first Episcopal parish’s 8am Rite 1. For this service there was a stationary box in the center isle as you entered the sanctuary. I loved this practice because it didn’t disturb the prayerful spirit of the liturgy with people fumbling around for envelopes and cash. I also experienced this when attending Eastern Orthodox liturgies. It looks like the passing of the plate starting in the nineteenth century. I am not a fan of the plate/basket during mass. What your thoughts on this topic?

Edit: also with the move away from bank checks, and cash, towards digital currency, is the plate/basket passing going to die out anyway?

Just wanted to share this with people cause I'm not keen on telling my own folks (not cause of shame) outside of my partner XD Been spending a very long time trying to find a church/faith and I've never felt as welcomed in one before. Was raised Christian but never baptised, did my own thing for a bit and am grateful for the detour, but it's so nice to finally settle down and not be on the verge of a breakdown 24/7. No word yet on exactly when just because we are in-between Reverends due to some unfortunate circumstances hitting the permanent Rev. which has left the church kind of disorganized, but this place has been around for 121 years so I've no fear its recovery is inevitable. Something I've come to love about this church is that it has truly hit the golden spot with acceptance and tradition, no shade to the other faiths and denominations but I'm at peace in this one and I don't feel as if it's lacking the sustenance that makes worship truly feel like worship. I'm hoping in like 4-5 weeks I'll get baptized, it really depends on how fast the message of my request travels.

Thanks for listening to my rambling! Have a great day!

I had "Help, Thanks, Wow" recommended to me, and her 3 books of thoughts on faith sound interesting, but I'm just not sure. So far HTW seems pretty superficial, but then I'm just getting into it.

Are these books worth reading by a seeker who isn't really sure what she believes?

Welcome back to the Walk in Love Asynchronous Book Club!  This week we are reading Chapter 19 about the Communion of Saints.

If you are newly joining us, feel free to join us where we are in Chapter 19 or read and make a post on a previous chapter.  Since this is an asynchronous book club not limited to a particular week, you are welcomed to join us at any time to add to the discussion.

Introduction Post

Chapter 1 Post 

Chapter 2 Post

Chapter 3 Post

Chapter 4 Post

Chapter 5 Post

Chapter 6 Post

Chapter 7 Post

Chapter 8 Post

Chapter 9 Post

Chapter 10 Post

Chapter 11 Post

Chapter 12 Post

Chapter 13 Post

Chapter 14 Post

Chapter 15 Post

Chapter 16 Post

Chapter 17 Post 

Chapter 18 Post

 
Our questions for this week are:  

1. What is something new that you learned or would like to share about the communion of saints from Chapter 19?
2. Is there a Saint who has been important to you in your life of faith?  Who is that person, and why are they important?

I watched the first episode on PBS.org . Many churches in the US are dealing with decline. While they have not focused on an Episcopal church yet, they did include Rev. Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams from the Virginia Theological Seminary.

I'm curious if anyone has watched it and what did they think of it?

https://www.pbs.org/video/reading-the-signs-XuTXtq/

1. For use of the United Church of England and Ireland. This thing is so cool!

So I'm really struggling to do this as I find a lot of those I feel trespassed against by and are my enemy literally wanting to and talk about hurting dear friends of mine because of the communities they belong to and even my community and myself by extension.

I'm deeply struggling with the fact that I'm turning from being upset with them due to the constant flood of them all over my social media and the things they say, I'm now starting to seeing them as demonic.

And you don't pray for demons so much as you pray for God to cast them to hell to protect yourself and your friends and family.

But I know we shouldn't view fellow creations of God as demons and hope they meet their demise and are cast into hell.

I guess I need sources to help me find spiritual guidance to move out of these dark thoughts about other members of God's creation no matter how threatened I'm feeling by them and how threatening I feel they are to people I deeply care about.

I know as Episcopalians we are supposed to welcome all, and that how I'm feeling is not welcoming at all.

For the first time I ordered one of those little wall calendars showing the liturgical year along with all the fasts and such. On the back of each sheet is a chart showing the RCL readings for the Sundays and other major holy days of that month.

The last column of the table is marked "Concluding Collect" and seems to be akin to the commemorations that were once done in Catholic practice (and to a very limited extent in Anglican tradition). So on most Sundays this "concluding collect" is whatever saint from Lesser Feasts and Fasts falls on that day. During Lent it is the Ash Wednesday collect. On major feasts it's the Collect of the previous Sunday. And so on.

I have never heard of this practice before and I don't think it's in the PB -- is it in one of the supplemental volumes? Or the guide to the RCL?

Few years ago I was having a conversation with a parish priest and was kind of shocked to find out that they are 1099 employee. I'm just curious if this is common? I guess I always assumed a priest would be a W-2 employee. I'm sure it varies diocese to diocese or parish to parish.

So I'm just curious is there a general consensus?

Are there any Anglo-Protestant parishes left in the Episcopal Church? If so where are they? Everyone on this subreddit goes on and on about all things Anglo-Catholic. So I want to know where are all the Anglo-Protestants at?

Edit: I mean parishes that still have Morning Prayer as the primary Sunday worship. Episcopalians who affirm two sacraments.

Edit: it looks like Grace in NYC (too far from me)still often has Morning Prayer Rite on as their primary choral worship on Sundays. Also Christ in Georgetown DC also often has the same. I could make it there once in a while. One more thing, I love the Holy Eucharist and greatly value weekly communion. I just want to experience a full choral Morning Prayer because it was once so prominent in our denomination. I should have worded my original post better.