From the Rector:

       Recently, I thought back to the time when I became a member of the Episcopal Church.  Actually, all of my family, including Jane, Jim 3, John and myself, became members of the Episcopal Church.  We attended a Sunday 7:30 a.m. Holy Eucharist at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham.  It was a 1928 Prayer Book Service.  At the time, I did not know the difference between 1928 and 1979 prayer books.  We were greeted warmly by the priests there.  No one rejected us.  We were uncomfortable in that we did not know the space and how it was done at that service or at that church, but we muddled through and did not feel embarrassed. 

       For some time, we were in effect dating with the Cathedral.  We had not made a decision to become members.  Only some time later did we realize that attending two churches could present a problem.  Our sons made us aware that attending two services and a Sunday School was stretching them more than they wanted.  No one at the Cathedral forced the issue until Father Jack asked us a series of questions for which we did not have an answer.   Jane and I attended a Saturday Confirmation class, but we were not ready to commit ourselves. 

       Finally, we had our questions answered more by our own searching than by having a priest answer them for us.  I had to have a series of farewell conversations with people in our former church.  All of those conversations confirmed what I thought that I knew.  We then had a family conversation and we were ready. 

       All four of our family were presented to Bishop Stough by Dean Gipson for Confirmation.  We expanded out and began to attend other services.  I realized that we were entering the Episcopal Church in a time when there was a new Book of Common Prayer and a new hymnal.  Music in our services came from both the new hymnal and the old hymnal.  This presented more of a challenge to me than for Jane. 

       Jane joined the choir.  I began to help with Children’s Chapel and the Newcomer’s Class.  We began to load up our car with neighborhood children and attend EYC.  Soon we were involved with helping with EYC.  Jane helped revitalize an ECW Guild.  I was pulled into work on Stewardship.   We joined a “Soup and Prayer Group.”  Jane and I made our first pledge to the parish though we had been contributing since our first visit.

       There was much that we did not understand.  However, we found that we were accepted and a place was made for both of us.  Though I had a Master of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology, Emory University, there was still much that I did not understand about the Episcopal Church and about Anglicanism.

       This is how we began our own journey into the Episcopal Church.  It has been a journey of discovery, growth, and stretching.  I find that these three things are continuing to happen in my own life and for Jane as well.  What is an Episcopalian?  We are people on a journey that includes growth and the discomfort of being stretched.  Jim+ September 15, 2004