St. George's Episcopal Church

06/03/2026

Support the Ark, Have-A-Burger!

Save the Date for our HaveABURGER fundraiser on June 9th!🍔🍟🥗🥤

06/03/2026

A Word From the Rector

Dear friends in Christ,

This Sunday, June 7, St. George's will celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi at the 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. services of Holy Eucharist.

The Church observes Corpus Christi (Latin for "the Body of Christ") as a celebration of the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. We celebrate the fact that Jesus himself, at the Last Supper, did not only institute a memorial meal, or only command a symbolic reenactment - though it may also be both of those things - but promised nothing less than himself, in his fullness, to his people. We call it the "gift" of the Eucharist: the divine Christ giving himself to us mortals in the mundane forms of bread and wine.

The renewal of this celebration of the presence of Christ was what spurred the creation of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in the Church of England in 1862. As part of a general recovery of the catholic traditions and practices of the Church, the Confraternity formed "wards" in local parishes. Associates in these parishes would form an intercessory prayer group that prayed for the Church, for the world, and for the specific needs of each parish. In our case, the intercessions that we offer each Sunday in our prayer list are repeated by an associate of the Confraternity on the weekdays that follow, in addition to other cycles of intercessions.

I hope you will join us for this special day when we celebrate that the gifts of God have been given to the people of God. We take them in remembrance that Christ died for us, and we feed on him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.

Yours in Christ,
Fr. Joel

06/03/2026

Corpus Christi service, upcoming food drive, a grocery bag collection, and Crusader's Music Camp being planned now!

05/31/2026

Sunday 5-24-2026

05/27/2026

A Word From the Rector

Dear friends in Christ,

People need people more than people need robots. Because people are more annoying.

This weekend, Leo XIV, The Delco Pope, released his first papal encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, "on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence." I haven't finished reading the entire thing, but I saw that he does mention one of the things I find most potentially problematic about personal use of AI.

Anyone who has used one of the AI bots has encountered the way they tend to be very, very affirming of whatever you have to say. "That's a great point," ChatGPT says, all the time. "That's very insightful." These products are extremely agreeable.*

And of course they're agreeable! The way to increase the usage of any product is to make it as frictionless to use as possible. One touch, one tap, one click. Plug and play. If there is friction, or if usage of the product is difficult, that leads to less usage. And you make a product for people to use.

But when it comes to social relationships, friction is a good thing. Putting up with other people, even when they're annoying, is part of how we grow as human beings. Learning how to forgive and be forgiven, how to see another's point of view and make your own understandable, how to share space with others who have their own needs and preferences - these are all part of human maturation and development.

It can also be exhausting.

For most of human history, we put up with the exhaustion of dealing with other people because there were other benefits to human interaction, from the commercial to the emotional to the physical to the, um, procreational, that could only be obtained through dealing with actual humans. One of the things that makes AI different is that it seems so very close to supplying approximations of both emotional and physical needs. Not the real thing, but perhaps close enough to scratch that itch. Rosie isn't Jane Jetson - and Rosie can't make a Judy or Elroy - but at a sufficiently high level of technological sophistication, perhaps the balance of tradeoffs seems to lean toward the robotic.

Leo XIV wrote that the risk of forming personal bonds with AI "is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections." That's the thing.

That is what I see as riskiest: that we have the ability to escape into a virtual world of our own devising - one that is smooth, frictionless, unchallenging - and not have to deal with the messiness of other human lives. AI didn't invent this situation but, combined with smartphones and ubiquitous internet access, it does supercharge it. After a while, it's just easier to avoid humans altogether.

But saints are rarely formed in isolation. Moses was tending sheep in Midian, on the far side of the mountain. He was by himself. God spoke to him out of the burning bush: "Go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go." Do the hard thing. Deal with other people, both the Egyptians and the Hebrews. Enter into their messiness.

Moses did it. He led them out of Egypt.

And the people he led proved to be some of the most annoying people recorded in all of literature. They were truly awful; read Exodus. They were petty, selfish, resentful, ignorant, unappreciative, sullen. No Israelite ever said to Moses, "That's a great point!" or "You're very insightful!" They were the opposite of affirming or agreeable.

Moses wasn't perfect either. He was arrogant, vindictive, hot-headed, distrustful.

But that journey, with those people, made Moses who he became. Centuries later, to the absolute shock of three witnesses, Moses stood on a mountain with Jesus Christ, having a conversation. The trial of dealing with the Israelites, combined with being confronted by his own weaknesses, trained him and formed him. Perhaps that trial was what prepared him to have that special relationship with the incarnate Jesus in that later and unexpected time and place.

People need people, more than people need robots. People are annoying. So are we. And somehow putting up with annoying people, and other people putting up with us, is how we grow into the full stature of Christ.

Yours in Christ,
Fr. Joel

* It's also possible to program them to be less agreeable. That's fine, but the principle is the same: the agent you're interacting with is behaving according to the structures and processes that you define. "Be agreeable" and "be disagreeable" are just two different ways of the user dictating the actions of the agent. There is still no challenge, no vulnerability, no growth.

Image attribution: https://goto.now/wvL0e

05/27/2026

Dumpster Day Saturday, upcoming food drive, a grocery bag collection, and Crusader's Music Camp being planned now!

05/20/2026

A Word From the Rector

Dear friends in Christ,

If one desires revival within the Christian Church - a new dynamism, evangelistic enthusiasm, a sense of vitality - history suggests that one of the most effective means of achieving it is a renewed and intensified engagement with Scripture.

In our Anglican heritage, one of the most consequential renewal movements of the last two centuries was the Oxford Movement in nineteenth-century England. Its leaders, Oxbridge dons and clergy, urged the Church of England to reclaim the catholic tradition, especially a robust sacramental theology and continuity with the apostolic Church. The movement’s influence remains evident throughout twenty-first-century Episcopal worship, from weekly Eucharist and vested choirs to candles, Marian devotion, and liturgies shaped by ancient patterns.

One striking feature of the movement is that its leaders were themselves deeply formed by Scripture. Edward Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, wrote a major commentary on the Minor Prophets that united textual analysis, patristic interpretation, doctrinal reflection, and pastoral application. John Keble left academic life for parish ministry, where preaching and the daily rhythm of Morning and Evening Prayer immersed him in Scripture’s richness.

Renewed study of Scripture does determine the shape of church revival; rather, it is one of its prerequisites, even when it produces very different ecclesial instincts. Nineteenth-century Anglicanism witnessed not only the Oxford Movement, but also a revival of Evangelical Anglicanism, likewise marked by intensive engagement with Scripture from a different theological and pastoral perspective. Despite their differences, both movements contributed to the renewal of a relatively lethargic Anglican parochial culture, and their influence continues to resonate today.

I mention nineteenth-century Anglicanism because it is our own heritage, but the same pattern appears throughout Christian history, not least in the Reformation itself. The point is that a precondition of Christian renewal is not merely an appeal to Scripture, but a deeper and sustained immersion in it. Whatever the form of a renewal movement, what remains constant is the primacy of engagement with the Bible.

In our present moment, as the Church faces declining participation, weakened catechesis, and diminished confidence, the historical evidence suggests a clear direction: the recovery of a deep, disciplined, and communal engagement with Scripture. Not Scripture merely as a proof text or reference point for some other agenda, but as a shaping presence in the common life of the Church and her members.

Every historical example we possess indicates that the Bible is a living source of ecclesial vitality - a fount of many blessings. To drink of it deeply and reverentially is to quicken the life of the Church, forming her members more faithfully into the life of Christ, so that we may know him more truly and make him known more clearly to others.

Yours in Christ,
Fr. Joel

05/20/2026

Church tour season begins, Dumpster Day coming soon, a grocery bag collection, and Crusader's Music Camp being planned now!

05/17/2026

Sunday 5-17-2026