A guest post!

This is an email from my dad that I received today, one day before a General Conference of our church when all 15 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the opportunity to hear from the living prophet and his apostles and other general leadership of the church.  It is always an inspiring weekend filled with encouraging words, beautiful music and inspiring prophetic counsel.

I asked his permission to post his email here and he agreed.  Let me know if you find it as inspiring as I did.

As I prepare for General Conference, I have another story for you.

Kind of long -- but believe me, I have abridged it down to the bone.

{I can already hear grandkids saying, "He sure talks a lot about himself !" }

Back on July 18, 2014 I sent you an email that said, in part:

"Every day I study and ponder apostolic authority.  Why?  Simply because God nudged me to do it.  {That's another story.}"

So, here's the story -- about apostolic authority -- in preparation of General Conference.

Background:

As you already know, in the spring of this year, when Jackie and I decided to start re-attending The Episcopal Church (TEC)I had already accepted Jesus as the Christ and Redeemer of the world, and I was ready to partake of the sacramental emblems of the Last Supper.  {FYI:  Pretty much anybody can receive Holy Communion in TEC.}

And although Jackie has always been a "cultural" episcopalian I wanted more than friendship or culture from the body of Christ with whom I worshipped.  So, I began to do a lot of studying about TEC, and I began to listen very closely to the sermons -- some sermons given by our resident priest, and other sermons given by visiting priests.  Please understand that Episcopal priests are highly trained -- in both theology and church management -- and that their sermons are carefully (and often beautifully) worded.

But I noticed what I would call a "slight movement" toward mythologizing the scriptures.

You might remember in a previous email, I wrote:  

"I told him {the priest} how much I appreciated him as an Episcopal vicar --  even though he did change the Gospel reading from "... for fear of the Jews"  to  "for fear of others"  -- an inside joke between us how Episcopalians flow to and fro with cultural pressures."

But it was actually not a joke when the priest did it, and after services I talked to him about it.  {FYI, Jackie was always afraid of the questions I asked.  She said Episcopalians don't ask a lot of questions -- they just go with the flow.} The priest explained that it was a way to make up for all the anti-semitism the scriptures had caused over the millennia.  I will only report two of the many questions I asked him:  

"And will you next remove any reference to the Jews who stoned Stephen?"

"Or any reference to the Jews who cried, 'Crucify him!'?"

Visiting and presiding at this same service was an episcopal canon (above a priest, but below a bishop} that I also spoke with about the issue of changing the words of Holy Writ.  She (correct pronoun) confirmed that the bishop of the diocese approved the change of wording.

Now, changing/adding/correcting Holy Writ is not hard for me to accept,  BUT it awakened in me the desire to understand HOW the Episcopalian leadership makes such decisions.

In addition, I repeat that I wanted more than friendship or culture from the body of Christ with whom I worshiped.  I wanted to commit myself to communion with this body of Christ, to sanctification with this body of Christ.  I actually started to study the process of confirmation to dig deeper into what it meant to become a full-fledged Episcopalian.

So, I read a few hundred thousand words (or more) from lots of good sources -- all of which lead me to one great question:

DID I TRUST THE LEADERSHIP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH?

And the unambiguous answer was .... No.

So, I expanded my reading to study the worldwide Anglican Communion (AC) leadership.

And the unambiguous answer was .... No.

And I expanded my reading to study various evangelical Christian groups and denominations.

And the unambiguous answer was .... No.

And I even expanded my reading to study Catholicism.

And the unambiguous answer was .... No.

Then on to the next great question:

"WHY didn't I TRUST them?"

And the unambiguous answer is/was:

"Look to the living prophets."

Which I did, and then the answer was .... Yes.

So, as I prepare for the blessing of being able to listen to God's chosen leaders at this moment when I am alive, I am filled with gratitude and anticipation.

Love to My Wonderful Family,

GranDad Chad