Sister Michelle & Brother Robert
2011 Order of the Ascension retreat, Tybee Island
We offer “Bits & Pieces” whenever there is a surge in subscriptions. Each “Bits & Pieces” is about orienting you to “A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery.”
How to make best use of “A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery”
Looking at the articles on the Substack website is probably the most enjoyable way. It’s also the place where errors that appear in the email version get corrected and sometimes additions made. An easy way to get to the website is to click on the title of the emailed article. There’s also an app available for your phone.
Top articles
Four monastic practicesTo teach congregations about how to be in, but not of the world.
The Threefold Rule of Prayer"the work of a people who have been doing this a long time" (Amy B. Hunter)
The American Church ConflictBeing salt and light
Free and Paid
A Wonderful & Sacred Mystery is set up to be free for everyone. Our intention is to keep things that way. We have noticed that a number of you have committed yourselves to pay for your subscription. We love seeing that. Very affirming. You really don’t have to do that. Really! But it’s possible that at some point we’ll turn on the part of the system that allows for both free and paid subscriptions.
However, it seems fair to say how we’ll use all that cash. So, here’s the story.
For the last 20 years Sister Michelle and Brother Robert have gotten together around 4:00 pm on Wednesday. We have a drink and some food, take a walk, catch up (i.e., vent, complain, and plan the reconstruction of all things), and then we go to Mass or say Evening Prayer. So, if we begin to allow you to pay for our efforts here at A Wonderful & Sacred Mystery, we’ll use the money for our Wednesday drink and food. If ever the total sum became greater than the cost of our refreshments, we’d give the additional money away. Probably to the Order of the Ascension. Now that you know your money will be used in drinking and merriment – feel free to withdraw your pledge to pay and return to a Free Subscription.
Shaping the Parish
Shaping the Parish (STP) is a two-year Zoom based program that has recently graduated its first class. New registrations are being accepted for the Saint Benedict Cycle which begins on October 10. The program fee for the two years is $100/person or $300 for parish teams of up to six people. Books used in the course cost $125 to 225 depending on whether they are digital or paperback. The program involves 30 hours of class time each year (15 sessions, two hours each) with participants engaging readings and application assignments in between sessions. Most of each session is spend working with clergy and lay leaders from other churches applying the material to their own context. MORE News release on ENS
Benedictine Spirituality
The Benedictine Promise: “A binding by which freedom might be found"
The Order of the Ascension: To seek the presence of Jesus Christ in the people, things and circumstances of life through stability, obedience and conversion of life
Four monastic practices: To teach congregations about how to be in, but not of the world
Benedict and the Christian Membrane: A promise of stability, obedience and conversion of life
Assessing with the Benedictine Promise: Stability, obedience and conversion of life.
Benedictine Balance and Social Ethics: In you we live and move and have our being
Our books
The two of us have written a number of books on parish development. They are available on Amazon in the Shaping the Parish Series. If you look at each book you can read the table of contents and a short segment.
Shaping the Parish Resources
On the Order of the Ascension website there is a section - Shaping the Parish Resources - that offers you hundreds of resources for parish development: core models and theories, group development, assessment forms, PDFs of several Ascension Press books, and processes and methods you can use in your parish,
The History of Parish Development
Understanding from Within: Working with Religious Systems
The History of Parish Development in the Episcopal Church (as of March 2023)
History of OD chart
Myths and Norms in Parish Life: A Guide to Parish pathology - written in the 1979s by Loren Mean, then director of Project Test Pattern. A mix of humor and wisdom
When he knocked at the outer gate, a maid named Rhoda came to answer. On recognizing Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the gate, she ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, “You are out of your mind!” But she insisted that it was so. They said, “It is his angel.” Meanwhile Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the gate, they saw him and were amazed. He motioned to them with his hand to be silent, and described for them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he added, “Tell this to James and to the believers.” Then he left and went to another place. (Reading from Morning Prayer today)
This abides,
Sister Michelle, OA & Brother Robert, OA