Jesus Loves Me: This I Know!

This is the theme for the upcoming Province IV Women's Conference at Kanuga, and we're getting excited!

This year's conference, which will be held June 6-8, 2005, will feature one of the world's leading evangelists, Canon Dr. Michael Green and his wife, Rosemary. Currently Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford and Advisor in Evangelism to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, he travels worldwide on speaking and preaching engagements and is the best-selling author of over forty books. He and his wife Rosemary have been married for more than 40 years, and have four grown children.

The Rev. Marc Boutan, associate rector at St. Philip's Church in Charleston, will be the conference chaplain. Joanna Macmurphy will be returning to lead music, along with Georgia Bell and others. Workshops are "in the works" -- encourage the ladies in your diocese to come to the mountains for refreshment and renewal this June.

This is a conference you won't want to miss! Registration information is now available at www.kanuga.org . For more information, contact the conference coordinator, Lydia Evans at 843-722-7116 or lydiaevans@comcast.net .

Mark your calendar!

Here are a few Province IV dates to make a note of:

• June 5-7, 2005 is the Altar Guild Conference at Kanuga
• June 6-8, 2005 is the ECW Conference at Kanuga with Michael Green
• In 2006, the ECW Conference is earlier due to convention -- April 24-26
• Don't forget that General Convention 2006 will be June 12-21 in Columbus!

SC Meeting to feature Lauren Winner

Lauren Winner is the featured speaker for the Annual Meeting of the Episcopal Church Women in the Diocese of South Carolina. This year's gathering will be held on Saturday, April 23rd at St. Luke's Church on Hilton Head Island, home parish of current SC president Ferebee Ruffalo.

Lauren Winner is the author of the acclaimed memoir, Girl Meets God, along with Mudhouse Sabbath, and an about-to-be-released book on chastity. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, and Christianity Today. She and her husband live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is currently working on a doctorate in the history of American religion from Columbia University.

Here are a few words about her first book, Girl Meets God. "Like most of us, Lauren Winner wants something to believe in. The child of a reform Jewish father and a lapsed Southern Baptist mother, she chose to become an Orthodox Jew. But as she faithfully observes the Sabbath rituals and studies Jewish laws, she finds herself increasingly drawn to Christianity. Taking a courageous step, she leaves behind what she loves and converts. Now the even harder part: How does one reinvent a religious self? How does one embrace the new without abandoning the old? How does a convert become spiritually whole?"

"In Girl Meets God, this appealingly honest young woman takes us through a year in her search for a religious identity. Despite her conversion, she finds that her world is still shaped by her Jewish experiences. Even as she rejoices in the holy days of the Christian calendar, she mourns the Jewish rituals she still holds dear. Attempting to reconcile the two sides of her religious self, Winner applies the lessons of Judaism to the teachings of the New Testament, hosts a Christian seder, and struggles to fit her Orthodox friends into her new religious life. Ultimately she learns that faith takes practice and belief is an ongoing challenge."

"Winner's journey to Christendom is bumpy, but it is the rocky path itself that makes her a perfect guide to exploring spirituality in today's complicated world. Her engaging approach to religion in the twenty-first century is illuminating, thought-provoking, and most certainly controversial."

A Letter from the Father

My Child...
You may not know me, but I know everything about you ...Psalm 139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up ...Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all your ways ...Psalm 139:3
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered ...Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image ...Genesis 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being ...Acts 17:28
For you are my offspring ...Acts 17:28
I knew you even before you were conceived ...Jeremiah 1:4-5
I chose you when I planned creation ...Ephesians 1:11-12
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book ...Psalm 139:15-16
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live ...Acts 17:26
You are fearfully and wonderfully made ...Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother's womb ...Psalm 139:13
And brought you forth on the day you were born ...Psalm 71:6
I have been misrepresented by those who don't know me ...John 8:41-44
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love ...1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you ...1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child and I am your father ...1 John 3:1
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could ...Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father ...Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand ...James 1:17
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs ...Matthew 6:31-33
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope ...Jeremiah 29:11
Because I love you with an everlasting love ...Jeremiah 31:3
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore ...Psalms 139:17-18
And I rejoice over you with singing ...Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you ...Jeremiah 32:40
For you are my treasured possession ...Exodus 19:5
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul ...Jeremiah 32:41
And I want to show you great and marvelous things ...Jeremiah 33:3
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me ...Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart ...Psalm 37:4
For it is I who gave you those desires ...Philippians 2:13
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine ...Ephesians 3:20
For I am your greatest encourager ...2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles ...2 Corinthians 1:3-4
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you ...Psalm 34:18
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart ...Isaiah 40:11
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes ...Revelation 21:3-4
And I'll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth ...Revelation 21:3-4
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus ...John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed ...John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being ...Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you ...Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins ...2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled ...2 Corinthians 5:18-19
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you ...1 John 4:10
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love ...Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me ...1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again ...Romans 8:38-39
Come home and I'll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen ...Luke 15:7
I have always been Father, and will always be Father ...Ephesians 3:14-15
My question is...Will you be my child? ...John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you ...Luke 15:11-32

Love, Your Dad.

Almighty God

One Solitary Life

“He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in still another village, where he worked in a carpenters shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He did not go to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness.

He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he remains the central figure of the human race, and the leader of mankind’s progress. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this planet so much as that one solitary life.”

--- writer unknown