This website is an outgrowth of my May 2000 CREDO (Clergy Reflection Education Discernment Opportunity) experience. Below is a personal statement about what called me to develop the Deep Church concept and now this website. Please follow the links to learn more about Deep Church.

 

Deep Church Blog - Online as of June 20, 2008

I have started a blog (click here to access) to invite collaboration as I develop my Doctor of Ministry thesis: "A rector (Episcopal church terminology for the senior pastor) is more effective when modeling a leadership identity that embraces collaboration grounded in humility.” A key aspect of the project is a study of how the prayer offered by the rector during the Celebration of a New Ministry is understood as a foundation for mutual ministry by the rector and the congregation.

New Resource Added - February 24, 2008

First Intentional Communion teaching program designed to prepare second grade age children to more deeply understand Holy Communion. (Click HERE to learn more)

Personal Statement

"Be in a position of leadership in order to influence parish systems toward positive, loving, and caring relationships (with God and each other)" and "My passion is to teach!" [Objective #1 from my CREDO I Plan]. For almost ten years I have been reflecting on a concept called "Deep Church" that expresses my understanding of how positive, loving, and caring relationships can be lived, shared, and proclaimed. For me Deep Church is a group of people who gather with a willing expectation to share intimately the love of God. Deep Church is the outward model of accepting and sharing "Shalom," a word that means "the fullness of all that God has to offer" rather than simply "Peace." Deep Church is an attitude that shares the Great Commandment, proclaims the Great Commission, and reminds all that the call to ministry begins with Holy Baptism. Consequently, Deep Church encompasses polity models such as High, Low, Broad, Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical and puts the sociological models of Family, Pastoral, Program, and Corporate in proper perspective. Deep Church is also a way of expressing the possibilities of a church that experiences relationships on an "organic" model rather than a highly structured "hierarchical" model. Structure is necessary to live out a healthy relationship but should not so bind the relationship that it suffocates. For me, Deep Church is my way of recognizing that all that we have comes from God and all that we need is present if we simply pay attention to God’s continuing call to us in Holy Scripture, our comprehensive Anglican Tradition, and God’s gift of discernment through our ability to reason.

The term "Deep Church"

The descriptive term Deep Church has been embedded for over ten years in my conscious and unconscious understanding of what it means to be what I describe in the above personal statement (Click HERE to learn more). I discovered recently a whole Deep Church movement base in the United Kingdom. Evidently, C.S. Lewis actually coined the term Deep Church in a letter written in 1952. At the very least, there is strong evidence that Lewis' Mere Christianity is an exposition of Deep Church. Ray Schneider, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Bridgewater College, Bridgewater, Virginia has written a paper entitled C.S. Lewis, Church Unity, and the Dynamics of the Hallway (Click HERE to find the paper) in which he explores the contention. Jason Clark has established a Deep Church website in the United Kingdom (Click HERE to be sent to Jason's website) that offers a great entry to the scholarship that the term Deep Church has brought forth in Europe.