A Letter to Good Shepherd (not Sioux Falls) and more...

If you are trying to boil down the issues to get the Anglican crisis across to apathetic church people, this letter by a parish priest is pretty darn good.

Of course many Episcopalians are trained to keep our heads in the sand, as evidenced by the silence of many dioceses about what's really going on.

And the activists who've made it their business to wreck the church are planning and fund raising to do more. A gay/lesbian advocacy group just gave them $30,000 to push the church further over the edge. And, even though member dues are down, the resources of the Episcopal homosexual lobby are way up...somebody besides their members is funneling big bucks their way.

Meanwhile, at the other Good Shepherd (Sioux Falls), there are

• folks who are fired up about the Biblical message (and therefore fed up with the Episcopal Church's leadership);
• folks who say, "Problem? We never heard about any problem," despite sermons, letters, newsletters, websites, forums and guest speakers all about the problem;
• folks who say, "We've heard too much about the problem. Stop talking about it."

Same congregation. Same folks in the same pews getting the same information.

It is not a new problem or just an Episcopalian problem (although we are probably the poster children for it right now). Churches must choose and choose again to see themselves as missionary outposts for Jesus Christ, rather than cozy lounges for their members.

The disintegration of the Episcopal Church and maybe the whole Anglican Communion will be remembered two ways:

• a very small group of activists got control of the wheel and drove the church off a cliff;
• the vast majority of church members chose to doze in the backseat while it happened.