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This page last updated 26 November 2018  

Letters to AO

EVERY WEEK WE PUBLISH a selection of letters we receive in response to something you've read at Anglicans Online. Stop by and have a look at what other AO readers are thinking.

Alas, we cannot publish every letter we receive. And we won't publish letters that are anonymous, hateful, illiterate, or otherwise in our judgment do not benefit the readers of Anglicans Online. We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters. We edit letters to conform with standard AO house style for punctuation, but we do not change, for example, American spelling to conform to Canadian orthography. On occasion we'll gently edit letters that are too verbose in their original form. Email addresses are included when the authors give permission to do so.

If you'd like to respond to a letter whose author does not list an email, you can send your response to Anglicans Online and we'll forward it to the writer.

Letters from the week of 19 - 25 November 2018

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters express the opinions of the writers and not Anglicans Online. We publish letters that we think will be of interest to our readers, whether we agree with them or not. If you'd like to write a letter of your own, click here.

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My experiences with lay preaching

My husband was a Presbyterian Minister and I became Episcopal after his death.

When I was asked by the Presbytery Exec to become a Lay Preacher it came as a surprise. I had to do a lot of thinking and praying before I said yes. The Exec had already gotten the ok of both my husband and the churches he served. We had five children from one to sixteen at home and one in college.

Most times I preached at a small church that did not have a full time minister, although on occasion it was at a mid-sized church whose minister was sick or had a death in their family. I rarely preached less than twice a month. I had one small advantage over those working with an Episcopal church — many small Presbyterian Churches did not use a lectionary. This freed me to reuse good sermons from the past when I first went to a church. Of course, it was always appropriate to the liturgical season. Bad weather driving 10 to 60 miles on narrow rural roads and the rare times the call came at 6am Sunday morning were the major negatives. I enjoyed studying for and crafting the sermons, the actual preaching and the contact with other congregations. All churches over 15 miles travel were expected to give me lunch which was usually in someone's home.

When we left that Presbytery we went to one with very few vacant churches and many retired clergy. I did some preaching in the winter cold and flu season and during the summer when every minister, active or retired, decided they had to go away
during the same two weeks.

Rlizabeth N Anderson
Grace Episcopal
Birmingham, Alabama, USA
19 November 2018

Picking on the Diocese of Sydney

Your news last week included the headline "Entertainment provided by Diocese of Sydney continues" . Your constant gripes re Sydney are tiresome, often ill-informed and petty. Why can't you simply disagree, but with love and grace and patience and respect?

Thanks.

Mark Calder
Anglican Church of Noosa
Noosa, QLD, Australia
mncalder@gmail.com
21 November 2018

Each of us at Anglicans Online has our own opinions about everything, but we are all in agreement that for the most part, the Diocese of Sydney is somewhere between a joke and a disgrace. If they would stop trying to persecute or punish those with whom they disagree, we might respect them more and feel the need to say less.

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All published letters are in our archives.


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