Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
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Hopefully you recall hearing about Thomas Bray last year: how he founded SPCK or The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge and how he hoped and worked to build up well-taught and well-trained clergy.
Bray started with clergy because he also desired is that all people be knowledgeable in our Faith. This included people who were seen as “less than” in his day, at time when America was still simply “The Colonies”. In other words, Bray wanted to reach out to Native Americans and African Americans in teaching the Faith.
Having well-trained clergy is still important today, not least because of the roles of our clergy. Deacons tell us who in the world needs our help as Christians. Presbyters are called to be pastors, priests, and teachers. Bishops are called to lead us all, in word and deed, in the Apostolic Tradition, the Apostolic Faith.
How much better would the church be if all us, lay and clergy alike, were knowledgeable in our Faith? That is the question Bray was seeking to answer, yet it is also the question we are still striving to ask today. To be able to live into Bray’s vision, a vision where we all know what God is asking from us and where we all intimately know how to live our life in Faith, we, as clergy, have to be open to teach and our laity also have to be open to learn what we teach.