One Foundation

One thing I love about my church is that there are very few cradle Episcopalians.

Let me explain. Lots of people have come together to my church who were raised in other churches. They bring with them other points of view and traditions.... and music. My friend, Carol, who was raised Lutheran, teaches me all the old German hymns. We find that we're singing the same hymn texts with different tunes. I teach her the Baptist versions. D-Ray keeps reminding me of how things are written in the Methodist hymnal. His wife, Gina, and I sang a song out of the Pentecostal Holiness hymnal from my husband's family's church that I had no idea she knew, and our friend, Mary Kay, another former Lutheran, said it sounded like Baptists had landed. Jim brought me music from Handel's Messiah that he wants to sing. Linda and the Esparagozas come over from the Catholic church to do music on Sunday mornings and bring all sorts of folk mass music I'd never heard until we came to King of Peace. Bill brings his dulcimer and plays along. Today he surprised everyone by playing our new piano for communion music. And of course, those who were raised Episcopalians share their hymns with me as well, although some are a little fuzzy on why we got a piano instead of an organ. We all share and are better for being part of the mix.

You see, God's love for us and our love for Him is the common root for our life in communion with each other. While we may have different views on expressing our faith, on worship, on spirituality, on what a "good Christian" looks like, we are bound together into one community by Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane - that His disciples and followers would be one, just as He and the Father were one. He knew that while He is our foundation we needed to support each other for our survival.

Holy Week is a time that liturgical churches get back to the reason we're here. We wouldn't be here if Jesus was just a Godly prophet. The Church is in existence because of Jesus' sacrifice, death, and resurrection. He is our foundation, our rock, our cornerstone.


anything but typical


P.S. Apologies to my family for my getting carried away in all the excitement over the new piano and the preparations for Holy Week services. Thank you for all your encouragement and patience. (Did you know we got a new piano?)


The Church's One Foundation by Samuel J. Stone 1866

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!