FROM CJ Meaders’ via presbyters
Please help us spread the message! Below you will find a three ways to share the Bishop’s “Lift Up Your Hearts” video which premiered at council over the weekend. The first is a youtube link which you can share with your congregation in an appropriate setting like a Sunday school class or a Wednesday dinner. In addition, I’ve included a dropbox link which allows you to download the video directly to your computer in order to play it later without an internet connection. We also ask that you would “like” and “share” the video on Facebook to spread the message there as well.
Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1GFz_9dwSM&feature=em-share_video_user
Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u9llexg6qeo122x/Intro%20Sequence_D3-2.mp4?dl=0
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/TheEpiscopalChurchinMississippi/videos/233569520865193/
More info on the Campaign
As you will recall, the Bishop shared his vision to “Lift Up Your Hearts” during his address on Friday evening of council. That will be the theme of next year’s council. In the meantime, we are calling on every parish and mission to find creative, exciting ways to tell the story of their ministries to the world. This could include videos, social media campaigns, news articles, art projects, or whatever you dream up! In addition, we will ask you to participate in some of the campaigns we create along the way. For example, one Sunday in the spring we will ask Episcopalians around the diocese to take a picture from where they sit in church regularly and use the hashtag #viewfromthepew. Another example would be the outreach videos we’ve started producing. Thanks to everyone who has already participated in that production, and we’ll have more info on it’s release in a separate email.
On a thematic level, as the Bishop says in the video, our Eucharistic prayers contain a pattern for us to follow. First, we lift up our hearts in the Sursum Corda. Of course you all know how liturgically rich the opening of the Eucharistic prayer is, and we can all default to our preferred BCP commentaries or favorite liturgical theologians to help us interpret what’s going on at this point in the liturgy. For me, I tend to borrow from Alexander Schemman to interpret lifting up your hearts as “beginning the ascent to the Feast of the Kingdom.” But that is just one example of how rich the Sursum Corda can be. However you interpret it, perhaps we can all agree there’s an elemental level of excitement implied. That’s what we are going for. Second, the next thing that happens in most if not all of our Eucharistic prayers is that they move to tell the story of Christ’s ministry of salvation. So the basic formula here is… get excited about telling the story of ministry.
That’s probably more information than you wanted. Just trying to clearly communicate the vision so you can share with your people.
Finally, the dream is that next year at annual council we will be overwhelmed by all the amazing ministry happening throughout the diocese, our hearts can be filled with love and awe for our church and it’s people, and we can be inspired to take our ministry further into a world that so desperately needs healing.
Thanks for reading. Lift up your Hearts!
