We are a Christian church which embraces all people who want to discover Jesus and know him personally, who want to worship the God who created us and loves us, who need our Lord to lift us from the death-spiral of our own shortcomings, and who struggle to untangle God's plan for our lives.
The word "episcopal" means we are a church led by our Bishops (who are called the "episcopate"). Our church follows the apostolic tradition. This means that each Bishop became a Bishop by having another Bishop lay their hands upon him. And that Bishop, in turn, had some other Bishop lay their hands upon him. And so on and so on, in an unbroken chain all the way back to the 12 apostles, upon whom Jesus laid his hands. So to us, our Bishop represents in a very tangible manner the presence of Christ through the ages.
This recognition of the apostolic succession puts us in the catholic tradition, along with the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. The Diocese of San Joaquin is part of the worldwide Anglican church, meaning the Church of England. (In fact, we called ourselves the Church of England until after the American Revolutionary War.) The Anglican churches are unified by the same creeds (texts of beliefs), the same understanding of the sacraments (the heavenly world's presence in our physical world), and a similar liturgy (expressions of faith) as printed in our Book of Common Prayer. There are currently some 77 million Anglicans in the world today, making it the third largest Christian church today.
Yet, we are not a church that worships texts or statues or candles. We worship a living person, Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God. Jesus’ transcendent presence in the Holy Spirit continually calls us both to worship and to action, both as a community and as individuals.
The churches in our diocese (the region of central California under the spiritual authority our own Bishop) choose to focus on discovering the eternal truth as revealed by God in the Bible. Cultural perspectives and sensibilities shift by the decade. We prefer to discern the timeless, what has been the truth and will remain the truth until the end of time, as God promised us. Then we act in this world, discovering that the Most High God, the Ancient of Days is also the God of each moment in our lives, demonstrating His love and power moment by moment, establishing His kingdom in our lives and reaching out to others as we lay those lives down to serve Him (Jesus said, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.")
All of which is to say, that people come from different backgrounds and have different styles of worship. We at St James' Anglican Cathedral rejoice that God has called together a congregation from all over the world: different races, cultures and nations and is teaching us to become one in Him. All are welcomed at St. James. All baptized Christians are invited to our altar to receive the bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus (and everyone, baptized or not, is likewise invited to receive a blessing at the altar). Our cathedral is made all the better by you, being here with us, as we pick our way through the hard parts of life together.
From the Dean
Welcome to St. James' Cathedral!
These are troubling times in the Christian world and in the Anglican/Episcopal world in particular. In the Christian world there is untold and unimaginable persecution all through the so called "third world" and in the West and especially North America there is growing and serious apostasy as many are exchanging the eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ for a kind of gospel of permissiveness that is no gospel at all, but only a stark reflection of modern misguided values.
St. James congregation stands unanimously in favor of the timeless and eternal gospel. We believe that by belief in Jesus and the teaching of the Apostles we have his power and his presence to change not only our lives but the world itself. The reason we refuse to compromise the authority of Holy Scriptures is that Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (He clearly taught that Scripture is the very Word of God and "cannot be broken" in it's authority and that his own words were "life and spirit" and would "never pass away." Since we desire him to be present with us and know that without him we "can do nothing," we are careful to honor the true and real Jesus "the same today, yesterday, yes and forever" so that we know we are his disciples. In particular, we stand with nearly the entire Christian Community and with the vast majority of Anglican Christians to oppose the direction the Episcopal Church took in the 2003 national convention by consecrating a non-celibate homosexual man to be bishop of New Hampshire and of allowing for the consecration of gay and lesbian sexual relationships and the ordination of practicing homosexuals to the priesthood.
Jesus is both "grace and truth." Therefore, we do not merely stand in the truth of Christ in such a way that we miss the grace. So we at St. James' Cathedral are learning to love. We love one another in costly ways, learning to "speak the truth in love" and to maintain honest relationships no matter what. We have discovered time and again that as we do this, Jesus softens our hearts to love one another from the heart and teach us to live in reconciliation. Trust me, it is a work in progress! Nevertheless, we are on the pilgrim's way, seeking his life and love and not our own.
The second part of being a people of grace is to love those outside our congregation even to the utter parts of the earth. We do this by:
maintaining a food pantry that gives out food boxes every week to people who live in our neighborhood (often as many as 60-80 families a week)
operating a reading program in conjunction with Reading and Beyond and Centennial Elementary School that reaches out to nearly 30 kids ages Kindergarten through third grade; this because studies have shown that reading up to grade level by the third grade is the surest indicator of later academic success.
operating a Wednesday night "youth night" specifically for neighborhood kids not a part of our congregation. Nearly a dozen St. James' volunteers reach out to over 50 kids who faithfully come to the evening of games, snacks, worship and small group studies.
feeding the homeless on Sunday nights and joining with other local churches to help them rebuild their lives and either get off the street or become a minister with us to those who are homeless
taking a Sunday service once a month to a homeless shelter that includes singing and prayers and individual contacts
sending short term "ambassadors of Christ" to Laos to help meet the needs of the peoples in the third poorest nation of the world. In cooperation with other churches in the Diocese of San Joaquin and with the Diocesan office, we are sending short term missionaries and long term missionaries to start an English language and computer school and reach out to the poorest of the people there.
offering specialized ministry and outreach to those who are confused in their gender orientation or who are struggling with addictive behavior toward pornography. We share space on our campus with New Creation Ministries, an outreach of love to those who wish to be healed of sexual brokenness and we are launching our own small group healing ministries to strugglers.
Supporting missionaries to a Muslim country who are translating the Bible into a tribal language so that people in that language can read the Word of God in their native tongue
This is just a snapshot of the ministries and the life the Lord Jesus has blessed us with. We expect that the adventure is just beginning!
As you browse this site you will see much more that the Lord is doing here through his faithful servants and, we hope, you will hear the Lord call you to "come and see" how Christ dwells among us and, if you are not already a member of another part of Jesus' church, find your place in the community he is building here. We love to welcome all whom the Lord calls here and all who come just to see.
God bless you richly today. Thanks for honoring us all by visiting this site. Feel free to ask me anything at carlos+@stjas.org.
Dean Carlos L. Raines
|
|