• TEC Young Adult and Campus Ministry https://www.episcopalchurch.org/young-adult-and-campus-ministries
• The Young Adult Service Corps provides opportunities for overseas missionary work for young adults: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/young-adult-service-corps
• TEC’s Episcopal Service Corps provides an experience of young adults living in intentional community, serving their neighborhoods, sharing in faith formation, and discerning vocational direction, in projects across the United States: https://episcopalservicecorps.org/
• The Episcopal News Service (ENS) offers up-to-date news about the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/author/episcopal-news-service
• Advocacy: The Episcopal Public Policy Network provides advocacy activities and information about the church’s official position on a broad range of social issues: https://advocacy.episcopalchurch.org/?1
• Integrity USA: For more than four decades, Integrity USA has been working for the full equality of LGBTQ persons in every part of The Episcopal Church. For more information: http://www.integrityusa.org/
There are many resources that will support you in your spiritual journey. The most powerful one is joining a faith community which will provide companionship and encouragement along the way.
The Book of Common Prayer is the basic worship resource of the Episcopal Church. It has a wide variety of resources including the rites and rituals of the church, the Psalms, an extraordinary breadth of prayers for virtually any occasion, and a Catechism, which answers basic questions about an Episcopal understanding of questions of faith (https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/book_of_common_prayer.pdf).
The Bible is the fundamental resource of Christians who seek to understand God’s presence and action in the world from the beginnings of creation through the story of God’s chosen people, the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the spread of the early Christian movement. There are many translations of the Bible, and the Episcopal Church uses the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), because of both its scholarly and ecumenical emphasis (http://www.allsaintstupelo.com/Bible_NRSV.pdf ).
Here are some other resources that will support your prayer life and a growing intimacy with God:
The Society of St. John the Evangelist (https://www.ssje.org/). is an Episcopal monastic community located near Harvard Square in Cambridge MA. It offers retreats, day programs, internships, and a variety of other resources, including a wonderful daily meditation: https://www.ssje.org/word/.
The Center for Action and Contemplation (https://cac.org/) is directed by Richard Rohr, OFM, and offers a variety of retreats, publications and inspirational materials, including a powerful daily meditation (https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/).
The Frederick Buechner Center offers a daily quote from this famous theologian, author, and preacher: http://www.frederickbuechner.com/quote-of-the-day.
Often, we don’t turn to Jesus in these moments. We turn to shopping or chocolate or escape fantasies or Netflix. We turn to things that cost money, which is one of the reasons why wealth gets such a bad rap here — because it gives us an easy, but temporary fix for how we feel.
That’s because real love, as contrasted with romantic love, is not a feeling, but a choice. By its very nature, it’s sacrificial. It guarantees that our precious independence will be constantly interrupted by the needs of others; that we’ll be hurt and disappointed; swept into the chaos of each other’s lives, and experience that dizzying descent into losing control, into the helplessness of not being able to fix what hurts someone we love.
What if God’s love for us is so beautiful, so warming, so fulfilling, that we just can’t help but share in it as much as we can? What if it’s the kind of thing that once we first experience it, we just can’t help but getting more?
Together, these scriptures remind us that we will make mistakes and lack belief in things for which we cannot see proof. However, they also give us hope. As children of God, we turn our attention to God, believe in Christ, repent, and work toward doing what is right.
What is prayer? It’s simply whatever form of communication our relationship with God takes – physically, emotionally, spiritually, whatever. Look at it this way. If God is love, and if God’s love is the only constant we can rely upon, maybe prayer is simply recognizing the slipstream of God’s love in the world, and choosing to step on board.
