Joint Anglican Orthodox Worship Workshop?

This past Sunday, I became involved in a discussion about the frustrations of some local young men who have aspirations for the Holy Orders in a local AMIA church I used to attend.

According to a source at my home parish who has a family member who is an AMIA communicant, some of these young men want to go deeper into Liturgy and reverent worship but are being stymied.

At this point, an idea came to me.

As an Eastern Orthodox Christian in the Western Rite, and with a new conference center at Tallahassee Creek in Fremont County, we have an opportunity to address this need.

We could host a worship conference where we train these Anglicans in how we worship in the Western Rite. We could also expand the conference to be a men's retreat.

The new basilica at Tallahassee Creek can be used in this way because it is not strictly an Orthodox building.

We couldn't pull this kind of thing off at our own parish church because our Eastern Orthodox canons wouldn't allow non-Orthodox Christians behind our altar.

At Saint Laurence, however, a full Western-Rite service with Anglicans could easily be pulled off. The Orthodox wouldn't be able to commune with the Anglicans, but could help them through all the steps of the Liturgy.

Establishing friendly ties with the local Anglicans in our area is a good idea. After all, not too many years back, most of us were together in Episcopalian parishes before the final apostasy of the Episcopal Church.

If we teach young men like these deeper ways of worshipping God, it will lead the AMIA in our area closer to Orthodox norms while truly bettering Anglican parish life.

And some Anglicans will be drawn to convert to Holy Orthodoxy.

We get the best of both worlds. Anglicans who are more Orthodox and new Orthodox Christians who decide to come all the way home.

And here's an absolutely crazy dream, while I'm at it.

Wouldn't it be a hoot to invite John Eldredge to speak at any "Men's Conference" portion of such a weekend?

I would love to see John exposed to the way we worship. He attended an Episcopal Church in the Springs for a period of time according to his own writings.

Pulling all of this off would be a huge coup for the new retreat center and I think would bear lasting fruit.

Blessings in the Holy Trinity, One God