I have a love-hate relationship with Wednesdays. We start the day with Bible Exposition at 7:30 am, and end with discipleship from 4-6 pm. In between are meetings and lectures. It’s a long, but good, day.
I always give my discipleship groups a lot of latitude in whatever they want to do for the semester; I certainly don’t need to hear my voice for two (more) hours a week. In the past, they have been very creative. One semester, they wanted to revise (practice) the three burial liturgies (the Funeral Liturgy, Alternative Burial Service (for one who died without being baptized), and Order of Burial Service for One Who has Committed Suicide), which was fabulous. Not only was it an incredibly practical time for the students, it prompted quite a few excellent discussions on why we do certain things, and identified some items that need to be taken back to the liturgy committee. One semester, they wanted to practice the liturgies in Ateso, that group’s local language. Obviously, I was absolutely worthless to them in that regard, but the students had invaluable time in their liturgies, which was tremendous. Sometimes bishops complain that we are doing all our training in English, and aren’t allowing the students time to do Practicals in their local languages, so I was thrilled to facilitate this. Last semester, the group opted to discuss the Church of Uganda Constitution and Canons.
Keep in mind, they come up with these ideas on their own, which thrills me to no end.
This semester, the students want to revise the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Articles of Religion, or Articles of Faith, as they’re called in the Luganda prayer book. Again, I think this is fabulous. One of the things I am constantly highlighting to students is not just that they answer a question correctly, but that they know why they are correct. Knowing what we believe as Anglicans, and why, is essential to our faith, and quite honestly, this teaching has rather been lacking in the church as a whole.
To this end, I commended the Rt. Rev. Dr. John Rodgers’ Essential Truths for Christians to my students, and I commend it to you as well. Don’t be put off by the thickness; it is an easy read, discussing each of the Articles and explaining what it means, the heresy it was written to combat, the biblical foundation for the Article, and its application today. It’s an invaluable resource.
It was hysterical to watch my students divide up the Articles to discuss. No one wanted the one on purgatory (Article 22), so I assigned it to Milly, who had expressed concern about it. I pointed out to her that she was going to have to preach on difficult texts in the Bible, and that it is good to practice dealing with things like this now. Besides, I had already told her about Bp. Rodgers’ book! For some reason, David really wanted Article 38 (Of Christian Men’s Good, which are not common), so I’m looking forward to hear why. I was assigned Article 17 (Of Predestination and Election – “Let’s give that to the Archdeacon!” they said, rather gleefully, I might add); for some reason, the group thought this one appropriate for me.
I am so looking forward to exploring the Articles with my students this semester! To God be the Glory!
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