Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Church Publishing launches BCP ebook

Re-published from Diocesan eNews

Church Publishing Incorporated has successfully launched two new eBook editions of the Book of Common Prayer to accommodate a variety of applications and most eReader platforms, including all versions of Kindle, Apple, plus other devices and tablets.

 

"We're not the first to offer an  electronic edition of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), but we wanted to offer the best version possible in multiple formats to cover the widest range of liturgical needs," said Brother Karekin Yarian, Church Publishing's project manager - eProducts.

 

Church Publishing's eBook edition, available for all eReaders, contains the complete contents of the authorized 1979 Book of Common Prayer, is fully searchable, and features a built-in Table of Contents. This edition is designed to maximize content accessibility on mobile devices and tablets. However, because eBooks are designed to reflow the text according to the size of the screen of the mobile device, designing this edition to maintain the exact page layout and page numbers of the print edition "was neither possible nor desirable," Brother Karekin explained, "As such, the layout of the content may be different, depending on the device you are using."

 

Church Publishing also offers a PDF version of the Book of Common Prayer, which is available on the Church Publishing website. Each of these versions is hyperlinked and has bookmarking capability. 

 

"These eBooks give Episcopalians easy access to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, making it as close as your tablet or eBook reader. I'm delighted that Church Publishing is responding to the needs of the church in this way," said Ruth Meyers, Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics at Church Divinity School of the Pacific and a member of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music for the Episcopal Church.

Bible Babel - Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time

 “Kristin Swenson offers a confident, well-paced, well-informed, and accessible guide to Bible basics and biblical literacy.” — Walter Brueggemann, author of An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible

Bible Babel, from author and religious studies professor Kristin Swenson, is a lively, humorous, and very readable introduction to the Bible—what’s in it, where it comes from, and how it is used in our culture today. If you’ve ever wondered about the origin of the Christian fish symbol; the history of the Good Book; how the Bible weighs in on contemporary political issues; or even the biblical source of pop-culture references in WALL-E or Battlestar Galatica, then this is the book for you. Readers of A. J. Jacobs’s Year of Living Biblically and David Plotz’s Good Book will enjoy Bible Babel, a perfect primer for anyone interested in the Bible—secular and believing alike.

- HarperCollins Publishers

Read more reviews at amazon.com

Concluding The Great Emergence

This week, G2R, Emmanuel's Adult Christian Formation Class, concluded its study of Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence with a discussion of “Where is it going?”

Continue reading...

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Shane Claiborne was a young Methodist who grew up in the Bible Belt, became a Jesus freak, and moved to Philadelphia despite his family's misgivings, helping the homeless there. Then in his early twenties he boldly requested an internship with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. She simply responded, "Come."

Besides illuminating his own faith journey, Claiborne is insightful on the huge U.S. cultural and economic divide: the problem isn't that wealthy Christians don't care about the poor, he says, it's that they simply don't know the poor.

Read the reviews. Order the book.

Where will you be this Sunday?

The Peculiar Life of Sundays by Stephen Miller

A WSJ book review by Jay Tolson

Who, raised in or around the Christian tradition, has not experienced the ambivalent dolors of a Sunday? That is only one question -- but a central and recurrent one -- raised by "The Peculiar Life of Sundays," Stephen Miller's lively history of a day that has exercised a peculiar hold on countless human beings for the past 2,000 years.

One might think that, for the devout, this hold would be especially firm. For them, after all, the day is unquestionably holy, unquestionably the Lord's: an Easter in miniature marking their savior's resurrection. But even the faithful can feel uneasy, as Mr. Miller shows by depicting the spiritual struggles of many of his exemplary figures.

Continue reading...

An Episcopal Church Primer

"Christopher Webber's book, Welcome to the Episcopal Church, is a very good, brief introduction to the Episcopal Church in history, worship and overall faith. Often used as a study guide or textbook during confirmation and new member classes, this book provides a clear, basic, accessible and interesting narrative that is easy to follow and easy to learn." -  Fr Kurt Messick

Welcome to the Episcopal Church: An Introduction to Its History, Faith, and Worship is available from Amazon.com.

Another primer, geared toward confirmation classes, is Joseph B. Bernardin's Introduction to the Episcopal Church, also available from Amazon.com.

A Brief History of the Episcopal Church

"David L. Holmes's A Brief History of the Episcopal Church is an outstanding tour through the history of the Episcopal church, from its earliest days to the present...Holmes successfully incorporates discussions of liturgy, theology, polity, and architecture into the story, while giving attention to women and men representing a range of ethnic and social backgrounds. In so doing he relates the history of the Episcopal church to that of the larger society in a way that makes church history come alive." -  A Reader

A Brief History of the Episcopal Church is available from Amazon.com.

A Little History of the English Country Church

"Early worship by Christians was deeply spiritual, ritualistic and physical. Images of saints adorned the walls of the church, where parishioners came for all the sacraments that represented the life cycle of ordinary people. Feast days and saints' days were many, the congregation stood during services, coming and going, talking and kneeling. The building boom of elaborately beautiful churches reached its height in the 14th and 15th centuries."

Click Here to continue reading the article, "Country Churches: Bruised Survivors,"  in The Economist of September 29th.

Order the book, A Little History of the English Country Church,  from Amazon.