"Convention reminded me in this beautiful way of what Jesus said, 'They will know you are my disciples if you love one another.' It was a glorious thing, evident in the gathering itself, in the worship that was part of that gathering, and in the interaction between the people at Convention—it was a real reminder to me of the grace of the Lord. The evidence of the grace of the Lord was in our midst. It was an incredibly encouraging day for me and for many other people."
"We are surrounded by witnesses. We are upheld and reminded of the goodness of God by these great witnesses of the faith throughout the centuries. The feast day of All Saints matters because the church is established by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It matters because it is an incredible reminder that we are not alone. We are surrounded by the church throughout the world and throughout time. And it reminds us that people have walked this path before us, whose example we can follow."
"It is absolutely true that our circumstances are not always things that would fill us with joy. Sometimes days are hard, weeks are hard. Sometimes years and months are hard. But the Lord never changes. We are always in the love and the grace of the Lord. We have been reconciled to God in Christ Jesus. We are at home with the Father because of the work of Jesus. That never changes—our circumstances might, but we still have a place to come home to."
"Hardness of heart keeps us from the reality of the gospel—not only in our relationship with God, but ultimately in our relationship with others. It is so important for us to remember that Jesus came that we might be reconciled. Reconciled to God and indeed reconciled to one another."
This week's message from Bishop Alex reminds us of the importance of forgiveness to our relationships with God and one another.
"One of the central messages of the book of Revelation—spoken to a people who were struggling with persecution, war, famine, and pestilence—is that there are interludes throughout where we see the worship of the saints and the angels in heaven. There is a consistent picture that in spite of all the chaos that the world seems to be devolving into, we see the worship of God in heaven. There is a sense in which it is a reminder to us that God remains on his throne and sovereign—that God will gather all things up unto himself.
"When we are together, we see something larger—we see the reality of God in our midst. It is fundamentally an encouraging experience to be together. The church will eternally, always be together in glory with the Lord."
"We as Pittsburgh Anglicans (or Nashville Anglicans, or wherever you are) have Christian foreign perspectives that are quite different from the culture around us. What we need to do to become good missionaries is to develop the kind of curiosity that missionaries have for the culture they're going to.... Understanding others who are not of our own mindset helps us to understand how the gospel intersects with that reality. Jesus is indeed the hope of the nations. Jesus is the answer to everybody's deepest longings. But sometimes we don't understand what those longings are.
"Often in those contexts where we step out of the ordinary, what we're doing every day, we have an opportunity for God to break into our busyness and hyper focus and for us to hear God afresh."
As we prepare for the upcoming diocesan clergy retreat, Bishop Alex reflects on the importance of intentionally taking time away and creating space for the Holy Spirit to lead us in reassessing our path and priorities.
"As we walk into Labor Day, it is important to remember that work is part of who we are. There is something fundamentally dignifying about work. There is something about the image of God in work, which also suggests to us that whatever our work is, we should do it well, because working well is part of our witness.
Bishop Alex shares his thoughts on how our labor (and our rest!) is a reflection of God's work, and encourages us to view our work as a gift, attached to our identity in bearing the image of God.
"How do we make decisions about what we should be doing as a congregation? At the heart of it, we really need to know what we're about. What is our congregational mission? What are we here to do? Unless we have a good sense of that, there are a million good ideas. And the hardest decisions, of course, are not between this good thing and this bad thing, but between this good thing and this good thing."
