"We have met the enemy..."

This blog is in response to an article by Canon Neal Michell, an Episcopal Priest who works for the Bishop of Dallas. In his article, he discusses the current state of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States and the cause of its decline in membership.

http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/27546/

I also reference an excellent article written in response to Neal's article by Tim Fountain about the problem in the Episcopal Church. You should read these articles even if you are not Episcopalian. They apply to many denominations.

http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/tim_fountain_in_response_to_neal_michell_no_urgency_or_too_many_urgencies/

And my thoughts (angry, I admit) on the matter:

There are some truths here, but we Episcopalians (or Anglicans) need to beware: “We have found the enemy and it is us.” I agree that the leadership of tEC is completely out of touch with what is important to most Christians and are off tilting at the social justice, environmentalism, and peace windmills. But in our parishes and at the Diocesan level, we have to take the blame as well.

Tim Fountain’s response is right on: Most of our parishes are oriented to the stick-in-the-mud older generation. They don’t care about the next generations; instead they are focused on themselves and the way they remember the Episcopal Church of their youth. Their emphasis is on the status quo: maintain the beautiful churches their ancestors built, maintain the liturgy, and make sure the “right kind” of people are in the pews on Sunday. That way, they will be buried in the same church that is as beautiful as it was when their father or grandmother was buried there. Fountain refers to this as the church hospice.

I am a younger Episcopalian (44) with small children and I witnessed this attitude first hand at my previous church where I was a vestryman, very active in children’s and youth ministry, and a junior warden. I was often frustrated with our worship of the physical plant idol, often to the detriment or exclusion of mission and evangelism. The stalwarts said they wanted growth, but I found out only on their terms. We spent over $400,000 refurbishing our beautiful sanctuary (which I voted for while on the vestry). When we were done, the young in the church felt it was time to focus on missions and evangelism. Now we hear complaints that we don’t need a full-time youth minister because we don’t have that many youth in the church. And there is carping about spending money providing supper for youth group on Sunday night “for kids who don’t come to church here.” Kids who are members of the parish account for less than 1/3 of the kids at youth group. That sounds like evangelism to me.

Many, many times, I have regretted my commitment to this parish along with the massive amounts of time, energy, and money my wife and I put into it. It would have been so much better to find a school or community center to meet in and start an Episcopal church from a green field with no baggage.

I often asked my parish priest, who is no longer there and who I believe was frustrated with the same issues, if planting a church with no plans to ever build and own a building was antithetical to the Episcopalian way. Can you imagine the freedom a parish would have with no physical plant to maintain, care for, or grow comfortable and complacent in? Imagine being able to up and move to a larger facility or one that is more convenient for parishioners and leave the old building behind. I have a good friend who is a church planter (Evangelical Free Church) in Colorado. We had lunch over a year ago and I asked him if they ever planned to move out of the school where they meet now. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Not if I can help it.” The mortgage on a building would take money away from his church’s ministries and evangelism. Incidentally, this church which he planted 7 years ago, has twice the members and attendance as our 125 year old parish did. I should have sent my pledges to him.

Dioceses in the Episcopal Church need to have that attitude, although I’m skeptical we can elect bishops with that philosophy. Dioceses need to be focusing on young church planters who really want to evangelize and build a body of communicants, not a physically impressive building that will be three-quarters-empty in 50 years. That may mean that we let some parishes slowly dwindle away - will the last person who dies please turn out the lights and turn off the air conditioner?

Is there anger in my words? Certainly. But I am most angry at myself because I feel like I wasted 6 prime years of my life trying to force a parish to become what it didn’t want to be. And when I and others moved away or were driven away, the parish quickly returned to what it was before I joined, almost as if my family had never been there.

And that’s what we need to remember - we can’t just be angry at the Presiding Bishop for the state of the church, we also need to be mad at our Diocesan staff, our parish, and ourselves. Remember, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

Something I Learned at the Gun Show

I want to share something I learned at the Los Alamos Gun Show last weekend. I've been tempted to buy at least one semi-automatic rifle in a caliber like 9mm, 7.62mm or .223 that is common, fairly inexpensive, and easy to get. I fully expect that the Obama administration will attempt to ban what the gun-haters call "assault weapons", which is really any semi-automatic long gun.

The major barrier for me has been the idea of spending over $1000 for a good rifle. Since President Obama's election the price of an AR-15, the civilian equivalent of an M-16, has skyrocketed.

So I parked the kids and the dog at a table with a snack and talked to a local dealer about his AR-15 models. He told me something most of you probably already know: You can buy an AR-15 in steps. Only the lower receiver is actually considered a firearm. And one can purchase an AR-15 receiver for as little as $150.

The photo shows a stripped lower receiver (image courtesy of Rock River Arms, www.rockriverarms.com ). Once you have this part, which you can store in a safe or in a box under your bed, you can buy the other parts to the AR-15 with little or no problem, even via mail order. There is no background check required on the parts except when one purchases the stripped lower receiver, which the law defines as the actual firearm.

And perhaps most important of all, even when there was a ban on "assault weapons" the ban did not include parts other than the lower receiver (the actual firearm), because those parts are not considered firearms.

The other advantage is that many receivers are caliber independent. Therefore, you could later purchase a 9mm upper if .223 ammo becomes scarce.

So if you have any inkling that you may need one of these weapons at some time, then you should buy one (or several) lower receivers and tuck them away for a rainy day.

Tom Tom, Fearless Hunter

As many of you probably know, my family recently moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico from Texas. Los Alamos is high desert. The altitude where we live is 7300 feet.


When we moved, we brought our pets: Buddy, our beagle mix, whom you've met in a previous post, and our four cats - Bitty (short for Bitty Kitty), Polly (short for Polly Molly Rosie Blue-Eye Winter), Meow-Meow, and Tom Tom.


Tom Tom is a big (15 lbs) yellow former tomcat. He loves to be outside and since it's still warm in Los Alamos, we leave a kitchen window open most of the time so he and the other cats can come and go as they please.


From Tom Tom's perspective, Los Alamos is a target-rich environment, to borrow from the military lexicon. When we moved in, our yard hadn't been cared for in over a year, so we had a major gopher infestation. There are also a lot of chipmunks, mice, and other rodents, as well as a plethora of birds.


I was sitting on our back patio one day about six weeks ago reading. Tom Tom was stalking some birds that had come to feed at one of our bird feeders. Much to my surprise, he managed to catch a small bird. I was surprised because you wouldn't think a bright-orange, 15-pound tomcat would be particularly stealthy. But he is patient and I guess our birds aren't very bright.


After he caught the bird, he strolled back to his hidey-hole under the house, uttering a loud "MEEOOW, MEEOOW", all the way, even with a mouthful of feathers. It was a guttural, primitive sound and the purpose seems to be to advertise what a mighty, fearless hunter he is.


I started finding presents on our back patio. For a couple of mornings it was a dead gopher. Again, I was surprised and impressed because I saw the gopher mounds, but had never seen a gopher above ground. Another morning it was a dead mouse. I have really enjoyed sitting in a chair and watching Tom Tom hunt. He would find the active gopher holes and very patiently sit beside the hole waiting for some action. Sure enough, at some point, the gopher would think it was safe to peer out and Tom-Tom would snag him with a sharp claw.


One night not long ago, I woke up to the sound of a loud "MEEOOW, MEEOOW" coming up the stairs. I thought, "Uh-oh, I recognize that sound!" Sure enough in a few minutes, I heard the padding of paws coming into our bedroom. If you've ever had a cat, you know that cats don't simply kill and eat their prey. They have to enjoy it first, which usually involves 15 to 20 minutes of playing with whatever they've caught. So, I fell asleep to the sound of "Pounce...skitter, skitter, skitter, Pounce...skitter, skitter, skitter...".


After I got up the next morning, got the kids out the door for school, and finished my first cup of coffee, I remembered the events of the previous early morning. I went upstairs to see if I needed to dispose of a body. Sure enough, there was a dead gopher lying on the floor below the bed, directly under where my head is while I sleep. Good job, Tom Tom.

The Gun Show, part Buddy

Los Alamos is having a Gun Show this weekend. I'm a bit of a firearms nut and decided to take a look. MDW (My Darling Wife), Michelle, was taking my middle child, Charlotte, to a birthday party, so I had my eight-year old son Malcolm, four-year old daughter Sasha, AND our one-year old beagle mix dog Buddy.

I wasn't sure about the dog and we almost left him in the Suburban while we looked around. But he so wanted to go and I relented. Buddy is pretty well behaved, especially for his age, and is particularly attached to the kids. So leash in one hand with Sasha's hand in the other, we headed in. I wasn't sure how Buddy would be received at the gun show, but the guy taking money at the door said it was fine.

If I had thought more about it, I should have realized what you probably are already thinking - people who like guns absolutely love dogs, almost without exception. Even if a gun lover doesn't particularly like dogs, they are certainly ready to tolerate them, since they are definitely a live-and-let-live people.

Buddy was a hit, even though he wasn't particularly well behaved. There was a snack bar and people were walking around the gym eating nachos and bratwursts while looking at pistols, AR-15s, bayonets, knives, all manner of scabbards and holsters, and of course turquoise jewelry (it is New Mexico). The result of all this snacking was quite a few crumbs and tidbits on the gym floor which Buddy was determined to clean up. So there was quite a bit of pulling on the tether and wrapping his leash around exhibit table and chair legs. Luckily we made it through the aisles without spilling a tableful of .223 and 9mm ammunition.

Buddy also likes to greet everyone, especially if they show any appreciation for him at all. I'll warn you-if you ever meet Buddy and don't want to be licked and jumped on, it's best to avoid eye contact and for God's sake, make sure you aren't carrying a hot dog.

So Buddy has a propensity for placing his front paws on the tables and greeting the exhibitors. At least I think that's what he was doing. It could be that he was simply inspecting the merchandise, looking for the perfect home defense weapon.

I heard several, "That's a good-lookin' dawg!" and "What a nice dog!" and "That dog looks like he could be a coon dog." I had a few offers to take Buddy in trade for various guns I was looking at (I am looking for a reasonably-priced AR-15, an oxymoron if there ever was one). It was tempting, but Buddy came home with us.

The Gun Show with 1 Beagle and 2 Kids

Made a mistake yesterday - I took my 8-year-old son, 4-year old daughter, and our 1-year old Beagle-mix "Buddy" to a Gun Show. More on that later when I have more time.

Here's the recap according to the 4-year old:

Mommy: Sasha, did you like the gun show?
Sasha: It was boring. No one shooted guns.