In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes that the preaching of the word of God is not about personal gain or profit, but rather a call to labor and suffer for the sake of the gospel and the kingdom. The speaker highlights the importance of relying on the word of God, experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit in daily ministry. The sermon also discusses the process of ordination and how it should be based on recognizing the fruitfulness and gifts of individuals rather than ordaining them first and then seeing if they have any fruit. The speaker references the story of Aaron and the test of the staffs in Numbers chapter 17 as an example of God's chosen and ordained leaders.

Alright, so this is the last teaching in our Anglicanism course. Obviously, I have been in Anglicanism for 20 years, I still don't know everything. So this course is not meant to be all exhaustive. There are still a lot, there are fancy names for everything, and I don't think we made an attempt to try to teach all the fancy names for everything. But, as we go along, you'll learn different things depending on how long you're, and how high church the service you normally attend is. Whether during special days, the ordained clergy wear special garments or not, every special garment has a name. Some are kind of silly, like there's a garment that looks like a cape that a bishop will wear, sometimes a priest, and it's called a coat, right? It's like, that's not too fancy. It's helpful to, it's easy to remember, because it sounds like cape. But some people who are low church cannot cope with the coat. So, with our understanding of ordination, one of the things that we felt like was really helpful is, particularly in a greenhouse environment, there are so many questions that people have about ordination, and hardly anyone is coming from another Anglican or Episcopal experience. So there's a lot of unfamiliarity with ordination, and I wanna help, yeah? This, you're recording? Am I? Just wanna make sure. Yeah. I wanna help bring some clarity, because we can also say things that are a little offensive or hurtful by mistake, just accidentally. Like, when people say to one preacher, there are several preachers at this church, but you're my favorite. That's actually hurtful to that preacher, because he wants to be a part of a team, and he doesn't wanna be a favorite. He wants to be part of a team, or she. And so we accidentally say things about ordination, like, when are you gonna get ordained and do real ministry? And that's offensive, because it says that only the ordained do real ministry, and the rest of us don't, and so. So this is an attempt at helping that. In our understanding of holy orders, sounds like somebody's making, yay, Marcy! We missed you! We're so glad to see you. So glad to, I miss everybody. Come on over here, Ashley, so we're closer. I need a mask for my class, I'm late. Yay, welcome, welcome! Thank you. How have you been? I got ordinance, so I don't feel a thing. I don't feel a thing. And I got in the car, too, by myself. Praise the Lord, that's wonderful. Wonderful. So, today is the last teaching in our Anglicanism class, and it's on our understanding of ordination, and it's picking up where Danny left off when he talked in his teaching on sacraments and sacramentals, is that the name of it? Sacramental rites. Sacramental rites. He mentioned briefly a little bit about the three orders of ordination within the church, deacon, priest, and bishop. And so this is to really take that and expound on it, and then at the end of the teaching, I will tell you where you can find this online, but I have no handout for you. So if you want to take notes, we have some worship sheets that you can write on just for note-taking sake. So, I think we're all good, it's just if Marcy wants one or not. So, one of the challenges that we have faced in the last 50 years, I am, is the way in which we have seen the church begin to abandon the tradition that's been handed down. And part of that struggle, as we've watched churches abandon the authority of scripture, the resurrection of Jesus, the virgin birth, other things that we consider essential to Christian theology and doctrine. One of the problems that we've identified is the process in which we prepare people to be ordained. And so that process has been completely reworked and rethought, and the way that it looked and still does for many people is, if you want to be a pastor, you go to a seminary, and you study there for three years, and the seminary then, as an extension of the church, ordains you at the end of your graduation. And then you go wherever you're called or back to where you came from to try to get a job, because now you're credentialed to be a clergy person or an ordained person, but it means that your experience is predominantly academic, not necessarily pastoral or leadership-wise. And so, as the church has started its main decline in America with most of the mainline denominations, the process for preparing people to be ordained is now being looked at very critically. And so it's led to the questions of what does it mean to be ordained and how do we prepare people to be ordained? And so in Greenhouse Movement, we've obviously shared a little bit about how we've taken a lot of what we've done from the East African revival and from seasons in the history of the church when the church multiplied. And because we're Anglicans, we're deeply blessed by the tradition of the church and the tradition of how people have been ordained in the church since the very, I think, second century, as things began to become more formalized in the church. So it's a value that's marked Greenhouse. And the predominant value that you're gonna see emphasized most is the emphasis on everyone who is baptized is a minister. That's the emphasis you're gonna see. It says that everyone who is baptized as a believer is a minister. That there is not a separation of those who minister and those who don't. That all Christians are by their baptism given the authority to be ministers one to another. And that at one point in our bulletin, it used to say in the bulletin where we list the staff members, ministers of the church, colon, the congregation. All the members of the congregation were the ministers of the church. And that was one of the values that we want to continue to stress. And it's why you will see less ordained individuals in our churches and more leaders who are not ordained because we believe in the authority given to every baptized Christian to be a minister. Does that make sense? Great. And that's got to undergird what we think about ordination. In tandem with this value is another clear biblical priority, the ancient call to set aside some for the work of spiritual service and leadership in full-time or bivocational capacities for the church and for the structures of the church and the spiritual leadership of the church. The Levitical and priestly roles in the Old Testament gave way in the New Testament to the ministries of the deacon, the presbyter and the bishop. These are the words that are used in the New Testament, diakonos and presbyteros and episkopos. Are the three words that in the great tradition of the church are being translated into diakonos, deacon, presbyter, priest, and episkopos, bishop. These are the three Catholic orders that are articulated as early as the second century by Ignatius. And they're known in our Anglican tradition as the three holy orders. And that's why ordination is called holy orders. The apostle Paul, in exhorting a young presbyter, priest, Timothy, articulates the heart of the New Testament ordination when he writes, this is 1 Timothy 4, if anyone wants to look it up, do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. So in this early description of ordination, we see that ordination is arrived at when the spiritual leaders of the church gather together and lay their hands on a candidate, a kind of immediacy and power in the Holy Spirit occurs, in this case, prophecy, and a gift of love and a gift of service for the church and those far from God as given to the individual. So there's a sense that in which baptism and communion are moments where God gives you a gift in the same way ordination is a moment where God gives you a gift for the work ahead that you've been given to do. The creeds proclaim the church to be one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Catholic in this context means universal and that bishops are a powerful sign of this reality in their unity across time and space. So Danny talked a little bit about this in his teaching about how bishops represent a unity with all the other bishops in the church across geographic space and back through time, having hands laid on them by fathers who have had hands laid on them by grandfathers in the faith going all the way back to the apostles themselves. And so since ordination to any order, deacon, priest, or bishop, always comes through a bishop, all the ordained ministry participates in this sign of having the bishop lay hands on individuals. Thus ordination is not primarily about the individual. This is something that Nate Beasley who was ordained yesterday wrestled with. What does this mean about me? How am I supposed to feel about my ordination? And all the responses those who have gone beforehand gave were, it's not about you, it's about the church. This is a symbol and a sign for the church and about the church universal and how the church comes together and sets aside an individual or two individuals for this work going forward. So people might ask if everyone's called to serve, if everyone's given authority to be a minister by their baptism, why then are only some ordained? Ordained ministry is more than a call to serve the church. It's the call to be the church's servant. The symbol of the collar is actually a symbol of the slave's collar with the chain attached. That's what it's meant to represent. And it means that we are slaves to Christ, which is a phrase that Paul uses a lot. I'm a bond servant of Christ. And it's a reminder that we are slaves to Christ and that this means I am doing what the person connected to the other end of this chain is commanding. I follow him, I do what he says, I submit my will to my master's will is where this symbol comes from. So it's the call to be the church's servant, to be Christ's servant in this way. It's not about being recognized and validated, which unfortunately it became. It became a symbol of professionalism, a career that he chose. And about receiving some kind of status, which is now what we're trying to reverse. We're trying to tell individuals who are looking for status, this is not the way why one should be ordained. We want to ordain individuals who actually aren't looking to be ordained because we want you to want to serve Jesus first and foremost not to be concerned with status or apparel or style and being a certain somebody in a community of people. And it's about recognizing and serving Christ in the least of these, in the least of his brothers from Matthew 25, 40. So let's start with what it means to be a deacon unless there are any questions about the general overview of holy orders. Great. Interrupt at any time. The first of the three orders of the ordained ministry is that of the deacon. All who are called to holy orders are ordained to this ministry. And the understanding of being ordained as a deacon is that once you're ordained as a deacon, you are always a deacon no matter what. So if you become a priest or you become a bishop, you are still always a deacon. And a deacon is symbolized predominantly by the role of servant. Deaconess means servant. Richard Hooker, one of the popular Anglican writers, wrote, the fundamental order is that of a deacon. Every priest, every bishop is first of all and always a deacon. So at no point do you reach a status in the church where you say, that role is beneath me, that's what the deacons do because I'm always a deacon. And so I will always do what deacons do as well when there isn't a deacon there to do it. The very name of this ministry comes from deaconess, which means servant, and it's a reminder of Jesus' teaching that all authority in his church exists for service. He says, you know, this is Matthew 20, 25. You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, deaconess. Must be your servant. This servant leadership is perfectly exemplified by the Lord Jesus, and so he becomes the model of the deacon who came not to be served, but to serve. And so one of the symbols that captures the ministry of the deacon is the symbol of the towel and the basin of water when Jesus kneeled at the last supper to wash his disciples' feet. This becomes a principal symbol of the order of deacons to strive to model ourselves after the Lord Jesus who would remove his outer garment, take up the towel, and begin to do what only the slave in the household would do, and that is to wash feet. So we, as deacons, figuratively wash the feet of the saints by unstinting and selfless service to the parish family, to the poor. In many ways, we think of the ministry of the deacon as one of field leadership, one who is aware of all the needs in the community, not just within those who gather at church, but in the extending community that is affected by the presence of this church around the community gatherings, so the poor in the area, the homeless, the orphans, and the widows. The deacon is aware and should be aware of and working to meet the needs of those who are sick, those who can't pay their bills and are struggling for food or other basic necessities of life. And the first deacons in the scriptures that are mentioned is in Acts 6, 1 through 7, when a dispute arose among the early church and the apostles decided, out of what we interpret as wisdom from the Holy Spirit, to set aside unique individuals to serve and meeting the needs of the widows and the orphans of the Greek-speaking Jews who had become Christians, because that's who was being neglected at the time in the community. So they took seven Greek-speaking Jewish Christians and made them deacons because they knew that this group that was not necessarily being treated as equals with the Aramaic-speaking Jewish Christians, that they would then make sure that all the needs were being met. And so that means that the sort of unique gifts that we look for in those who are to become deacons are things like leadership development, Bible studies, pastoral care, visiting the sick, caring for the underserved and forgotten. Some deacons are later called to be priests to serve in a role of priesthood or as bishops, but others are not. Others are, the fullest expression of their gifts is really exemplified by the order of deacons. So no one should ever be ordained to the deaconate unless he or she is willing to serve in that order forever. If people view becoming a deacon as a stepping stone to becoming something else, they're not, the church would consider you not fit for ordination. To be a deacon is to be one forever, even if one goes on to be a priest later. So either way, the image of servant leadership provided by the ministry of the deacons remains a model for all of the orders of the ordained ministry. And one of those deacons became one of the church's first martyrs. His name was Stephen, right? I named my child after him, Stephen. And it was at his persecution and martyrdom that the apostle Paul, the spirit began to work in the apostle Paul's life. So it's a powerful story. And it was at his what? At his martyrdom, when the Jews in the city stoned Stephen, one of these first seven deacons, Paul was there. He was present for it. He was doing part of it. He was part of it. It says he was holding people's coats while they stoned Stephen. And it was the beginning of the story of Paul and God working in Paul's life to eventually bring about his conversion. So definitely a powerful story. Any questions about deacon before we move on to priest? Mother Teresa of India. Yeah, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Not only did she wash their feet, but their whole body when they were dead. Yeah. She was picking up those that are dying in the street. She exemplifies this role more than any other human being I can think of. Yeah. And they said, well, why, they're dying. But like death is a respectable thing getting into the other realm. Yeah. And she wanted to show dignity and honor to those who were dying. Yes. And so her love and compassion carried over into every aspect of the human life. We are less of a church without Mother Teresa here doing her work. So what does it mean to be a priest? The second of the three orders is that of priest. Priesthood, the word in the New Testament is presbyteros, which is usually translated as elder. Is what? Presbyteros is the Greek word in the New Testament. And it's usually translated as the word elder. Oh. To be elder, which is why some, like our bishop, hesitate to ordain really, really young people because it doesn't quite fit the description of elder in the church. So, but when the church is shrinking, you tend to ordain anybody you can. So a lot of churches will ordain at 24 to the priesthood. So we tended to ordain later and give people a lot of leadership experience early to see how the Lord is using and calling a person. So what marks the calling of priesthood has identified three essential facets of this sacred ministry, to teach, to sanctify, and to guide. Thus, the bishop asks in the liturgy for ordination, will you be diligent to minister the doctrine, to teach, the sacraments, to sanctify, and discipline, to guide the discipline of Christ as the Lord has commanded and as this church has received them according to the commandments of God and to keep and observe the same. That's the ordination sort of examination question. As one who teaches, the priest must not only preach the word according to the second Timothy four, but also contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. This is from Jude 1 3. So an ordinant of the priesthood is asked, will you be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away from the body of Christ all erroneous and strange doctrines that are contrary to God's word. So a role of the priest is to protect the teaching that's being delivered to Christians from heresies and distortions and syncretism with the culture or other religions. It's to protect the corpus of the doctrine that comes from God's word. As one who sanctifies, the priest is entrusted with ministering the sacred gifts of word and sacrament that Christ himself is given, quote, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. That's from Ephesians five. So in the laying on of hands upon a deacon to be ordained to the priesthood, the bishop pronounces the following words, receive the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a priest in the church of God, now committed to you by the imposition of our hands. And priests are usually made priests by all the other priests gathering around that one and all of them laying hands on that one. So while deacons are symbolized in their ordination by the imposition of hands only by the bishop, those who become priests have all the priests in the church, the diocese gathering around and laying hands on the candidate for priesthood. The bishop says, when you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. When you retain the sins of any, they are retained. That comes directly from the words that Jesus spoke to Peter. And be a faithful minister of the word of God and of his Holy Sacraments in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So as one who guides, the priest must be a true pastor, modeling his ministry on that of the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. He must reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching. Thus an ordinand is asked, will you be ready with all faithful diligence to admonish and exhort both publicly and privately the weak and the strong within your charge, as need may require an occasion be given. So there's a lot emphasized for the priest in terms of teaching and doctrine and making sure that the sheep are being fed by the word of God, being responsible. And so there are lots of ministries of the church that are extensions of the priesthood, which would be preaching of the word in the service, the spiritual formation of any kind of Bible studies and other arenas for teaching like this one that are helping to feed the sheep and help them grow in their life of God, but also to clarify the confusions that come in from the culture. Traditionally, the bishop presents a Bible to the new priest and in the presentation, this actually happened for the deacons as well. Bishop Stewart holds the Bible over the ordinand's head as a symbol that you are to live your life under the authority of scripture. So he presents the Bible and to the priest, he presents a chalice, which is a symbol of the sacrament. So word and sacrament, and the chalice is the principal symbol of Eucharist on the altar. And so generally those priests take that chalice to their church and that's where they lead their Eucharist service with. So Bible and chalice serve as powerful symbols of the priest's call to preside at the regular celebration of word and table that happens weekly where they're at. The way that Greenhouse has sort of begun to turn the ordination process on its head is in the past, people would be trained and then they would be deployed. You'd somehow identify someone who's interested in being ordained. You'd send them to seminary for three years. They may or may not come back to you. They may or may not be trained well. They may or may not believe in sound doctrine anymore. And then they would become a priest and serve in your church in some way without having much experience serving in your church. So they'd be trained and then deployed. And in the East African revival and the spontaneous expansion of the church, there was a deploy first of individuals and then train as they had the experience of leading people to Jesus, needing to disciple someone from scratch, learning how to begin a gathering of worshipers, learning how to lead people in the word of God, the study of God's word, and all the things that churches do. So at Greenhouse, we take that to heart and we say to young leaders who are interested, old leaders, any age leaders, if you are interested in being a minister in the church, do ministry now. Try not to disappear off to seminary. We don't wanna send you to seminary. Stay here and do the ministry. Do you wanna start something? Go over there and start something. Do you wanna teach a Bible study? Start teaching a Bible study. And as the fruit of their ministry becomes evident, then the church begins, the people of God begin to see it. This person's really showing fruit of the Holy Spirit in their life by what's happening. This individual's led three people to Jesus in the last month. That's fruit, that's real fruit. Then the church says, I think we might wanna come around and recognize this person's gifts by ordaining them or putting them through a process to ordain them as they have already been deployed. And in that situation, you have clergy who know what they're doing, as opposed to every diocese, every region struggles with this, useless clergy, clergy who don't know what they're doing, but they write really good papers because of their training. So that's what we're trying to do in seeing people's fruit and then coming around them and ordaining them rather than the reverse, ordaining and then seeing if they have any fruit. So Nate Beasley, who was ordained yesterday, two years ago started a church in Chicago by University of Illinois. And then after leading that church for a year and a half, he started a second church on Sunday evenings in the same area and had led several people to Jesus and was discipling several of them in their growth in God when Greenhouse said, it's time to ordain this young man now as a deacon. He had already demonstrated the fruit of the ministry. Our parish is putting forth Alex Wilgus for ordination to the diaconate because he's done the same thing. And he's 26, right? And I think Nate's 26. Nate's 26. How old's Alex? 28. 28. So still, according to the church, relatively young for ordination, but they've demonstrated the fruit. So any questions about deacon and then priest in their roles within the church? The last one, of course, is bishop. Awesome. So what does it mean to be a bishop? This is relatively new for me because when I started attending Church of the Resurrection, we had just left the Episcopal Church and were without a bishop. And there were several years there where we didn't have a bishop. And then several of the leaders in the church started to get into fights. And then we experienced what others would call a church split because there was no bishop. There was no one who could call the leaders together and say, now you stop being naughty and you apologize for what you said. And you guys need to figure out how to make this work together. And none of this gossiping thing that I hear that you're doing, there was no one like that to bring discipline and to fight for unity in the church. So our church experienced a split, which what Satan intends for evil, God will use for good. And it resulted in multiple churches being planted that have all borne fruit since. And those leaders have reconciled since, but the presence of a bishop could have helped prevent the hurt that happened. And then as we then came back under a bishop, we saw the gift and the blessing that it is to have a bishop. But in America, bishops are treated almost with distrust because the bishops in most of the mainline denominations have abandoned the gospel. So then the bishops cease to be a symbol of spiritual father in the faith and have become troublesome. And so our bishop is one of the newer, younger bishops at work trying to re-symbolize the good gift of the role of bishop. So some people, they hear the word bishop and they think, oh, I don't wanna be here when he comes. Or it's not a positive feeling that they have. They wear ridiculous clothing and they look like the queen of England's draperies got stolen and sewn into something. They are always wearing big rings and big hats and big everything. And they just look so ridiculous that they must, it must be some kind of spiritual king or queen role where you just feel really important. So they're treated or viewed in this sort of suspicious way. And then as our diocese came into being three years ago and we took this down to earth guy that I love, who was my boss and made him the bishop, I started to understand more and more what it meant to be bishop. He also didn't know much. And so he had a steep learning curve with all these outfit options that he had and what things were called and why you have them because they were all new. And we only had stereotypes to associate with them. We didn't know what they were really for. So I'll talk through a few of those, but first let's start with what a bishop is and what a bishop symbolizes. As the third order of ordained ministry, the office of bishop, like the priest, is called to teach, to sanctify and to guide. Thus at the ordination of the bishop, we pray, give grace to all bishops, the pastors of your church, that they may diligently preach your word, duly administer your sacraments and provide godly discipline. At the same time, the bishop is called to be a living icon of the unity of the church. So they physically embody and represent the whole church. That's why a bishop is over a lot of churches so that they can also represent not just the region of churches of the diocese that they oversee, but they represent the entire church wherever a bishop is. And across time and space, they're also the pastors, shepherds of the priests and of the deacons in the church. So they see the priests and the deacons as their flock that they are caring for, providing for, instructing and disciplining. The ministry of every priest and deacon is an extension of the bishop and a participation in the ministry of the bishop. So in the past, at one point, the priests, what they could do in the church was more limited than now because the church kept growing so fast that at one point it was an innovation for the bishop who was the only one who could sanctify Holy Communion. He gave that authority then to the priests to sanctify in his place because he couldn't get to all the places where they were having communion. And so it used to not be a role of the priest to preside over communion. It used to be only a bishop's role. And then later that was an innovation to change that because the church was growing so rapidly and so quickly. So we see our role as priests and as deacons performing sacraments as the hands of the bishop symbolically representing the whole church. Just as the bishop as pastor shares in the ministry of the one great shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Jesus himself, we are extensions of the bishop. Traditionally, the bishop is presented at his consecration, which is what you call the ordination of a bishop, the consecration of the bishop. He's presented with a staff, which looks like a shepherd's staff that you would traditionally have for sheep. And that's a symbol that he is the pastor of this region. He is the shepherd. And a ring, a big ring. Some of these bishops have really big rings. I mean, like they're ceremonial rings. You can see them from very far back in the last view, the big ring. They're usually purple as a symbol of the color that is represented bishop, which is why bishops wear purple shirts instead of the black or blue that priests normally wear, or gray. And the ring symbolizes that they are married to the church, that they have married themselves to the church. So the bishops call to love Christ's bride just as Christ loves her and gave himself up for her. So the other things that the bishop tends to wear as symbols are, he wears a hat called a mitre. And it's tall and pointy, just like the chess piece of the bishop with a tall, pointy hat. And that's supposed to represent the bishop and that's supposed to represent the tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost that the apostles experienced. So the bishop often, in his symbol of being under and operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, one of the colors in the liturgical church for the Holy Spirit is red. And so a lot of what the bishop does in churches is symbolized by the color red. So a lot of ordinations have been red, days when the bishop comes to do something bishop-y is red. Now, one funny addition to that is, you guys know Santa Claus? What does Santa Claus wear on his head? What does Santa Claus wear on his head? A cap, how is it shaped? Like a cone. It's a cone, but it's floppy, right? And it comes down. Santa Claus is based on Saint Nick, who was a bishop. And this pointy hat is his miter, but somehow gone floppy. But that's the origin of the Santa Claus's hat, is it's a miter, it's the bishop's hat. And so people who become bishops often really connect with Santa Claus, because it hearkens his bishop role way back when, that eventually led to the modernized Santa Claus. And there's actually this entertaining cartoon depiction of the transformation of the bishop's clothing towards Santa Claus's outfit. It's fascinating to see the transformation and what Santa Claus wears now, how it actually originates from these vestments that most evangelicals and other Christians have never seen and don't know what they are. But in the Anglican Church or the Catholic Church, you recognize these vestments that the bishop has worn, that has evolved into this furry, fuzzy outfit that Santa Claus wears. So the bishop then comes to visit churches, to ordain individuals. So when we have Alex Wilgus ordained, we'll have a whole gathering of all of our congregations together, and we will have the bishop come and symbolize the authority of the entire church by making Alex a deacon after having observed that Alex operates like a deacon in the church spiritually. One person came to me and said, I'd like to be ordained a deacon. When can that happen? And I said, why would you want to be ordained a deacon? And he said, so that I could do these things in the church. And I said, you can do those things without being a deacon. Go ahead and start doing them. And he said, but don't I need the, you know, and all the things that tell people I'm a deacon? I said, no, just be a deacon. And then as people see the fruit of your ministry, then you will be made a deacon later. So it's almost as if, don't quote me on this, even though I'm being quoted on a reporter. It's almost as if God sort of makes one a deacon before the church does. Does that make sense? You can do the things that, there's nothing that tells you you can't serve the poor or proclaim the gospel or set the communion table, which is one of the things a deacon does. There's nothing that says you can't do that without being a deacon, so go ahead. Go ahead and start doing that. And then we'll see how you grow in the Lord as you're doing those things and come around you and recognize you as a deacon. Now, not everyone who does these things can be a deacon because we don't want too many ordained people in the church. And the reason that is, is when you have an environment where there are too many ordained people, those who are not ordained start to stop serving. They believe that the ordained people should be doing all the work and they're there to receive. And it creates this divide between those who are ordained and those who are not. And so if you need someone to teach a class, well, you have all these ordained people to choose from. And it means that people who are not ordained don't get to use their gifts. And so we keep a small number of ordained people in the church so that those who are not ordained can be the ministers in the church. So when there is one ordained person in a church on a weekly basis, we try not to ordain a second until there's at least 100 people gathered. That's what we try to do. That's the kind of ratio we're looking at. Unless of course there's a need to retire a clergy and raise up a new one. So that's why if somebody comes to be ordained, they may have the gifts, they may have all the fruit, but there might be a delay in the ordination simply because there are already ordained folks there. And if they're not willing to start a new church as an ordained person becoming ordained, then they've got to wait until there's enough people in the church to warrant another ordained individual there. I saw a church was planted recently in another state in America by four priests. Guess how many lay people are involved? Like they don't teach anything, they don't do anything because four priests in this small community of 50 people are doing all the work. So that's not a really excellent model for church multiplication. How does ordained ministry function? Three powerful symbols capture the nature of ordained ministry, the prayer book. So Catholics have a prayer book, the Anglicans, we also have the Book of Common Prayer, that's our prayer book. Every bishop, priest, and deacon participates with the Holy Spirit in the building of the church through a life of prayer and fasting, crying out to the Father on bended knee for both the church and the unchurched. At the heart of all ordained ministry is a life of sacrifice and this life is possible only by means of a life of prayer in true union with Jesus, and Jesus is great sacrifice for us. The second, the first was prayer book, the second is the pulpit. The pulpit symbolizes the proclamation of the gospel, the word of God. So each bishop, priest, and deacon then ministers through preaching and teaching, both in public and in private, with authority grounded in the authority of scripture. And then third, the third symbol is the altar. Now the altar is not something that was a powerful symbol in my Baptist church that I went to growing up. You couldn't touch the altar, but we didn't use it for anything. So it wasn't a strong symbol in our sanctuary in the Baptist church, but if you go into most Anglican churches, that it's the first symbol you really see, it's front and its center, the altar. And there's often a cross there. Nowadays, you might see a cross projected, you know, or made out of wood, but the altar tends to be the center of the front, symbolizing its highest importance. And the altar is the symbol of the body of Jesus. It represents Jesus's body, which is why during high feasts, we do different things with the altar, because we're symbolizing a way of regarding and treating the body of Christ, particularly in Holy Week, as the altar can be stripped of its cloths and washed and laid bare for Good Friday. It's a common thing to treat the altar as if it's the body of Christ through the holy fasts and feasts of the church. The deacon's presence at the altar is a clear reminder that the church's mission cannot be separated from her worship. The bishop and the priest, the altar is perhaps the greatest symbol of their call to lead. From the altar, the bishop and the priest practice their spiritual leadership as father, liturgical leadership as presider, vision leadership, and they're casting vision for hope for the growth of the church, executive leadership of wisdom. And finally, from the altar, they execute a pastoral leadership of love for the sheep and for younger leaders who will one day lead the sheep as well. So prayer book, pulpit, and altar become the predominant symbols of the ordained ministry. The most common question I get around ordination is how do we discern someone's call to be ordained as opposed to being in leadership in the church for an indefinite period of time? And this is a great question and one that I think continues to be adjusted as we struggle through understanding what's gone wrong in the church in the last 50 years as the church has gone more liberal and abandoned the authority of scripture and we have clergy that you can actually say aren't Christ followers. I heard the powerful testimony of an Anglican priest who said that he was an Episcopal priest and not yet a believer in Jesus. And his journey of coming to faith in Christ had to do with him leading his Episcopal church in Texas while other churches were growing and thriving. His was stale, stagnant, or shrinking. And he began to ask what are they doing differently that I'm not doing? And he went and he studied what they were doing and his main synthesizing conclusion was they're all teaching the Bible and I'm not. So in order to grow this church, I'm gonna start teaching the Bible. Well, he became acquainted with Jesus as he began to prepare his sermons on the Bible. He met Jesus for the first time in his life. He didn't know he didn't have this. And so he gave his life to Christ, was teaching the Bible, and the church started to grow. And that's his conversion testimony. I was stunned, but that represents or is symptomatic of a priesthood or a clergy in America that may not all be Christians, which is a problem. It's a significant problem that you can be ordained and not be a Christian, that you can be ordained and not live a Christian lifestyle, or have Christian doctrine. I was just talking to a woman who had been in a liberal church for years and she was gathered, she's a gifted teacher, she was gathered with a bunch of other teachers and they all were talking about going around the circle, it was like a dining table, sharing what they wanted to teach on in the next season, like in the fall, and they all went through the different things they wanted to teach and they got to her and she said, I want to teach on the Bible. And the response was, you can't do that, there are Muslims who go here and they'd feel very uncomfortable. And that wouldn't work for the Buddhists coming here. And she's like, but I thought this was a church, like a Christian church. And it was too controversial. So yeah, this person is actually Barbara Gauthier. What? Yeah, yeah, so I realize she's been here, so you know her. It's Barbara Gauthier's story before she came to our church. So, and she's such a gifted teacher of the Bible. I mean, she could teach the smartest academics and she gives the best seventh grade Bible study I've ever seen, where junior hires are like, totally focused and have no behavior problems because they can't wait to hear what she's gonna say next. She's so good at it. So, serving as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher, the fivefold ministry gifts from Ephesians four is a gift. And it cannot be earned, it cannot be won, it can only be received from God. And that's how we think of ordination. The work of the church, especially her clergy, is to discern to whom the gift of spiritual leadership is being given by God. Whom is God gifting? And to present that person to the bishop for final discernment and blessing with the laying on of hands to make them a deacon or a priest. God's call is always discerned through the church. We don't take individuals who have a vision or a dream and say that God has spoken to them directly, that they're to be ordained and just ordain them. We don't take people on the merit of their own encounter with God, but that is part of it. We want people to feel a call, but sometimes the church will come to an individual and say, we see the gift being given to you, would you consider being ordained? And they have never thought of it. Are you kidding? I think Stephen Gautier's meeting with the clergy in the church, he thought he was in trouble when they called him in and said, we'd like to meet with you and your wife. They thought they did something wrong. And it was a conversation around, we think you should be ordained. He was totally stunned because he was not looking for ordination. So the church is trying to discern. And so in recent times, in many traditions, the individual discerns a call to ministry, which is then confirmed by the church's leaders, but in the ancient church and still largely so in the Orthodox churches today, it's the reverse. The call to ministry is discerned first by the church leaders, and then they go to the individual and the individual confirms, yes, the Lord is perhaps calling me. We believe that ancient practice offers great wisdom. In Greenhouse, our clergy are proactive in discerning who has the call to holy orders. We want to help spread the church and replace ourselves and raise up new leaders. And we're looking for the people God is raising up. But to the person who has an unshaped character, they often are asking, when can I be ordained? How soon can I be ordained? Have you thought about me yet? Which is usually going to slow that process down because the clergy wants those who are not looking for status, but want to humbly serve using their gifts. Does that make sense? So it's actually really good when somebody comes to us to say, I want to be ordained. And like, I had somebody who was hardly involved in the church at all, came once every three or four months. And every conversation I had with this person, it was, I can't wait to be ordained. When are you guys going to ordain me? And it was like, well, you have to serve the church at some point, like, you have to be there. You have to come and like serve. And that never happened. And so we do tend to say, if you ask about ordination again, we're not going to talk about it for another year after that because people need to have that sort of beaten out of them to some degree or another, that you can do what the ordained ministry asks of you without the symbols of status. So do them and let the church then respond. It's okay to ask questions, but that, like, when are you going to promote me to your boss tends to have negative consequences. And that's not a really good analogy. So here's what we look for. Character is the first thing we look for. We're seeking those who have a fervent devotion to prayer. They pray, they talk about how they are experiencing God or how they struggle to experience God in their prayers. An uncommon heart to serve others. You see them really make sacrifices to say yes when other people say no. They love those who are far from God. They don't incubate with other Christians and make it uncomfortable for those who don't know God to be in their presence or in their group or in their home. They have a passion for learning and communicating the Holy Scriptures. They have a sacrificial love for Jesus. They have a quickness to receive correction and direction. People who are difficult, who have a real difficulty receiving correction. That's a red flag. You want people who are showing humility and a desire to get better or to grow in their life for a nation. Where are the future clergy found? They emerge in the prayer meetings the church has. They emerge in hidden sort of mundane acts of service. They emerge in ministries where others are beginning to naturally follow them. That's where we begin to see those who will one day be clergy, they begin to be noticed. Fruitfulness is another thing we look for. The people of God is recorded in Numbers chapter 17. Struggle to know who should be given spiritual authority over them. They struggled with Aaron, their priestly leader. He seemed a little too human. He seemed a little too frail and he made some poor decisions. So they weren't sure that Aaron was their God-given, God-anointed leader and they asked for a new leader. And so they questioned Aaron and in this moment of uncertainty, God spoke and he told Moses to enact this unique test to show the person that the Lord has chosen, has anointed, has ordained. And so the 12 leaders, one from each of the 12 tribes of Israel were to bring their staff into the tent of meeting where the presence of the Lord tabernacled. And each staff would be marked with the leader's name on it and left there overnight. And the staff that sprouted blossoms would be the staff of God's appointed, ordained leader. The next day, Aaron's staff not only flowered, but it budded and bore ripe almonds overnight, right? Clear sign of fruitfulness, which we take then and say, we similarly want to look for the fruitfulness in the life and ministry of the men and women in our churches in greenhouse. Are others becoming more like Christ because of who they are and what they do? God's call is always discerned through the church, the people of God. Any questions about that? Oh, that was only two, there's a third one. Leadership, since people in holy orders will be leading others, we look for those who have a God-given ability to lead leaders, to lead others, to oversee, to administrate, to vision, to care pastorally for others, to handle conflict, to mentor younger folks. The person in holy orders is, we think of them as, a spiritual father or a spiritual mother. And they need spiritual, emotional, and relational maturity to be a spiritual father or a spiritual mother to serve in that way. And we think of every man, a spiritual father, we think of every woman, a spiritual mother, in terms of their calling as a Christian, but it's hard to look at someone who's not really bearing the fruit of spiritual fatherhood or spiritual motherhood and to put them forward for ordination. We need to see that they really are showing similarities. And that's an important factor when you're particularly talking about young men and young women. Are they exemplifying fatherhood-like characteristics in their spiritual life? Are they exemplifying motherhood-like characteristics? So, and that's why priests are called father. It's to talk about their spiritual fatherhood. And in Africa, they really put forward their spiritual mothers by calling them, it's less formalized, but it's very widespread culturally. They recognize the spiritual mothers in their community by calling them mama as a title. So Mama Beatrice, Mama Catherine, it's what the whole church calls them. In Nigeria, I heard grown men call the bishop's wife mommy. Mommy. And I think it's just unique to the culture, like mommy to them does not mean what it means to us, but I am a little kid calling you mommy. It sounded very strange to me. And psychologists in America would probably go crazy if you did that in the church. But the principle remains. They addressed their spiritual mothers as mama in Africa. And I think there's a need to do that in America as well in some way. How long does it take to be ordained? It's common in American churches to answer this question in two or three years, as long as it would take to get a formal degree. In Greenhouse, we honor and encourage theological education. We see service, leadership, and fruitfulness in the parish as the primary indicators of readiness for ordination. Developing maturity in service and leadership and fruitfulness take time, and often more than two to three years, right? St. Paul admonished in 1 Timothy, do not be hasty in the laying on of hands. And we see that as a very wise, cautionary word. Don't lay hands on people too quickly, meaning don't ordain them too quickly. Gregory the Great, several centuries later, exhorted, no one ventures to teach any art unless he has learned it after deep thought. With what rashness, then, would the pastoral office be undertaken by the unfit, seeing that the government of souls is the art of the arts, right? So with this in mind, we're committed to early leadership in the church, but later ordination. That's what we're committed to. Early leadership in the church, but later ordination. Therefore, in Greenhouse, we don't have a preset time, amount of time for people to prepare for ordination. We discern as we go. Even yesterday, some other Anglican came to visit and said, how long does it take to get ordained here? And he was talking to both Alex and me. And so Alex was like, there's really no way of knowing how long ordination takes. It's a matter of discernment per individual. Yes, but isn't there like a checklist you have to go through, he said. And I said, yes, there is, but that doesn't guarantee that you get ordained at the end of it. The checklist is for these moments of discernment where you try to figure out not just if they're called to ordination, but you're also discerning when are they called to ordination. Is this the right time to do it? Or is later a better time to do it? There's always a discernment about timing as well as fitness for ministry. So we will have ordinands in their 20s, we'll have ordinands in their 50s. It just doesn't, there's no conveyor belt that assimilates everybody into the same process coming out looking identical. We take each individual and work with the individual's strengths and weaknesses in discerning their process for ordination. So you can't even really speculate. We put Alex forward for ordination, so maybe he'll get ordained in six months. You can't even speculate because the process is without a timeframe and it's about discerning what will best serve Alex and what will best serve his family and what will best serve Logan Square Anglican Church and the community he's in. So every individual is discerned uniquely, which I think is a strength for our movement and for our diocese. Is there a limit to the number of people being ordained in Greenhouse? No, there's not a limit, but we only need so many clergy in each congregation as I mentioned before. So we believe in planting leaders. Greenhouse is going to more likely plant people quickly when they're starting new congregations. And it's more slowly if they're in a congregation that's already been planted and already has an ordained leader. That's just gonna be a natural outworking of this movement of multiplication. The Archbishop from Nigeria that I'm friends with, Ben Kwashi and his wife, Gloria, whom another Nigerian had called Mommy, they have built a relationship with us and we with them. And he said this that I found really powerful. He said, when I asked him about, he's an Archbishop in the church and I asked him how he prepares people for ordination. And this is what he said. We're called to build the kingdom of God. This is not a call to selfish or personal enjoyment. It's not a call to profit or gain. It's a call to labor. We must be people who are willing to suffer for the sake of the gospel and the kingdom. People who will not complain or grumble when things are difficult, when we are tired out, when somebody disappoints us or when things go wrong or when we have no place to live. We cannot do this on our own, but we're called to be builders of the people of the kingdom by relying on the word of God, experiencing the abundance of the fullness of the Holy Spirit and exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the word of God in daily ministry in the world. I found that to be particularly powerful in his take on what it meant to be ordained and how to prepare people for ordination. What questions do you guys have as we get down here to the end? This teaching is put together by Canon Stephen Gauthier, Bishop Stewart, and Father Kevin Miller, who is the Assistant Rector or Associate Rector at Church of the Resurrection, and William Beasley. So these are the folks that contributed to this to help clarify what ordination looks like in our diocese. Yeah. So how, like, so Phil and I were talking about this yesterday, that like once you're a priest, you're like, you're a priest. But what if your theology changes later and you start seeing where? Yeah, that's where the role of the bishop is important. The bishop does defrock, which means to un-priest you. So you can be un-priested, and you can be un-priested either for how you're living your life, contrary to the word of God, and when you are disciplined, you don't repent. The same as we would any Christian when it comes to being in our communities in the church. So I've actually seen a priest in our diocese be defrocked when he was tempted and committed adultery in his marriage by moving in with a woman on the vestry for two days without coming to the door, and all the church members went to the door to try to get him to come out. It was quite an event, and it was very public, unfortunately. But he did come out, and he did repent. But he was defrocked, and a year later, after going through a process of counseling and support and the different things, all the things the bishop asked him to do, he was quietly at the Easter vigil re-stolled. They put the stole of the priest back on him to make him a priest again. And he has been faithful in his ministry for the 20 years that followed that event. So the bishop disciplines the clergy, and whether it's lifestyle or doctrinal changes, theological changes, or it's simply bad conflict skills. If they get into a fight with someone and don't manage the conflict well, doing what they're supposed to do, that's also cause, because the unity in the church is highly valued. So if you don't play well with others, you're going to struggle in your ordained ministry, and at some point, risk being removed from the ministry. Does that make sense? And then the archbishop disciplines the bishop? Mm-hmm, yep, yep. So, and then supposedly, the council of the primates, forgive me, maybe Barbara already covered this, the primate is the lead archbishop in each province, not the gorilla, or the monkey, or the orangutan. So it took me a while to adjust all the Anglican terms. So our primate is Archbishop Fully Beach, and the group of primates are to hold one another accountable, although we're watching that sort of struggle its way through, because some provinces have changed their doctrine. And so we're seeing a bit of an Anglican reformation today, as all the mainline denominations are beginning to experience. So, what other questions do you guys have about ordination? Then Paul, he was like, Bishop was me. Yes, and John, and eventually Timothy, over time, and as the beginning writings of the church fathers, they talk about the roles that people had. So John, in writing the Book of Revelation, wrote letters to the churches he oversaw. So John was like a bishop as well. Yeah. What, you didn't know that? No, that's cool. Ah, I knew something Getty didn't know. Getty knows so much. So that is quite an accomplishment on my part. So, yes. So you're absolutely right. The Mormons, they actually, everybody in their church has to take two years off of work, well, this is like when you're young, like 20 years. To do missionary work, right? Right, they have to go out and actually take that two years just to do that. And they are called a priest, like you said. Everybody's a priest if they're baptized. Yeah, the priesthood of all believers is the biblical verse that is used to definitely convey that we all can be Christ to one another and help one another grow in our life in God together. It doesn't remove the need for the office of priest, but there is a way in which God calls all believers, all Christians to be ministers one to another. Well, do the work of, you don't have the office or the name, but you do the work. Exactly, exactly, yeah. And it's quite easy for churches to recognize individuals as spiritual mothers or spiritual fathers who never did get ordained. And some priests, they operate like bishops even though they're not bishops. So one example would be William Beasley is not a bishop, but he serves the church like one in all the ways that he fights for unity and bringing Christians and churches together to work together for the mission of the church. He's constantly catalyzing new churches and disciplining priests. So he operates a lot like a bishop. And so to some degree, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter whether you're ordained or not, whether your role is recognized or not, we are serving an audience of one. And that is all that matters. That's how good it is. But how about like in America? I mean, like I used to go to Fourth Presbyterian, they said that Good Senior Center, it was run by a woman who was a reverend. So in the Presbyterian church, they have reverends who are mothers. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. I was wondering if anyone was gonna bring up the issue of women in ordination. Thank you, Marcy, for having the courage. So can women be ordained in the church? The answer is yes. In our diocese, we ordain women to the first order that was mentioned, the deacon role, and they're called reverends. They wear a collar and they can do weddings and they can do all the role of the deacon in the church service. And they can, they say Mary and Barry, so they can marry and bury people. And the sort of scriptural argument for that has been the one mention of the person in the New Testament as a deacon, her name is Phoebe. And then the tradition of the church at that point has not ordained women to the priesthood for the next 2,000 years. So it was understood that the priesthood was, or the presbyteros was reserved for those who are practicing their role as spiritual father and that spiritual mothers exercise their ministry in a different way. So that is one of the issues at dispute today in the church. There are some churches that will ordain women to the priesthood and some that won't, all out of a desire to be faithful to what they think the scriptures are saying. And so our diocese is a diocese that does not ordain women to the priesthood, but ordains women as deacons. So as deacons. Yeah, so I have incredible relationships with the spiritual moms at resurrection who are deacons. And I also have some strong friendships with some women who are priests. So it's all a matter of what they wear and what their titles are when we get together for large church gatherings. So, but the desire and the value is to call women and men into leadership in the church and to bless their gifts and release them in ministry. Not to tell men or women what they can't do, but to call them into what their giftings are. And so the whole egalitarian and complementarian controversy is one that we feel like is quite frustrating because it's a polarity on a position that we kind of feel in the middle of, not on either pole. And so we feel like to divide everyone into either of those two categories doesn't quite describe us very well. So we are very strong on women in leadership, very strong on women using all of the gifts that they have while holding to the historic tradition of the church to not ordain women to the priesthood or as bishops in the church. All the language in the scriptures refer to presbyters and episcopas with the male pronoun. And so that's where that's, it's not a strong biblical argument, but that's where it's taken from. The stronger argument is that in 2000 years, it hasn't happened in the tradition of the church. So thanks for bringing that up, Marcy. Well, now that most women, most people are educated and I think there's gonna be more women. Yeah, we need more women, Marcy. Because they're leaders. I mean, look at Hillary. Yeah, we need more women in the church. We need more women exercising their gifts. We need more. Yes, I think so. And it's not an easy environment, I think. I can't speak for women. It's not an easy environment for women to enter into because there is so much controversy. And even if you're in a church where women are ordained to certain levels, there are still people who don't necessarily agree and it can be very hurtful. And in addition to that, there are churches that actually have spiritualized and misogyny, a devaluing of women. And so it could be confusing as to whether different views are misogynistic or not. And that misogyny can hurt women very, very deeply and men as well. Women can be part of perpetuated misogyny as well as men. And so it's a place where we need wisdom and incredible carefulness when we talk about men and women and how they're gifted and called in the church. So, any other questions, you guys? This is just a really good question. Go, August. Has it always been that priests who are Anglican can get married and priests who are Catholic can? Yeah, isn't that fascinating? So, one of the things that totally blows stereotypes wide open is when people out in the community see me with my wife and my kids. It's like, what? The worst was when I went out on a date with my wife on Valentine's Day and everybody was at the restaurant for Valentine's Day in these pairings and my wife was eight months pregnant and I had just come from a service, so I was dressed like this. So there I was, eating dinner, looking cozy with this eight-month pregnant woman and people could not stop staring. It was the most self-conscious I ever felt. And there was nothing wrong. I was a married man. I was just like everybody else in the room, but because of the collar, it was a clashing of stereotypes, right? So, traditionally, Catholics have required that their priests not marry and be celibate. And Anglicans, I think, have always had the tradition of marriage. Am I right? And so. Catholics didn't start it until like 1,000 AD. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay, great. Danny knew something I didn't know. I just wanted to point that out. So, the reason I am a strong proponent of priests who marry is it's really helpful for the people of God to go to a priest who knows what it's like to be married and knows what it's like to struggle with children and as a father in order to be ministered to, comforted by, validated by, counseled. And I think it's really helpful to see a spiritual father as one who has also physically been part of, even if it's not biologically their children to be a part of a family where they have the family rhythms of life for all these other families that need someone to be able to counsel and help them. It says in the Bible that those who are put forward for leadership in the church need to have been responsible with their own household. It's hard to do that when you're a single celibate male priest and you're kind of living alone and you have all this spare time. It's like, you know, unless you're like fully engaged in the families and the community, there could be a lot of disconnect between the priest's life experience and the life experiences of those that they're ministering to. And it helps to have priests speak into this issue of sexuality. And if priests are celibate and not engaged in any way in this, it's really hard for people to feel like they actually have a word to speak into this. Now, there is an exception to that. I feel like John Paul II, Pope John Paul II wrote theology of the body about sex. And he was a celibate priest and he contributed more to the issue of godly sexuality than any married man I know. So I'm not saying that singles can't contribute. I'm saying the culture disregards singles in a way that's not helpful. He had so much to contribute to our understanding of what it means to be man or woman, what sex is for and how we live out that part of our lives under the authority of God and his word. And he was a single celibate priest. But I know that in certain cultures like the Hispanic or Latino culture, priests in the Catholic church are viewed as non-masculine. They're like neutered men. And so the men in the culture don't look to the priests to tell them how to be men because of that issue. They're sort of seen as emasculated males. And that's part of the machismo of the culture. But it'd be really helpful then to have married with kids priests to help say, no, I am masculine. Look at what I'm dealing with. I'm dealing with what you're dealing with. So don't disregard me. I think that's helpful. It must be terribly lonely for a priest. I mean, it's not healthy. Yeah. And we've seen some struggles that have come out of that with some of the scandals in the church with priests that have grievously hurt the people in the church. But I think in older times, I mean, before, at one time, they could be married. Before 1080, right? Before, like, I think the 11th century, it was 1000, I don't know. You're right, Marcy. For the first 1000 years, it seems like they could. But the second 1000, they couldn't. Something happened or something. Do you know what prompted it? I think there are a number of reasons, pros and cons for each. I think part of it was, there was a really growing value in singleness based off of Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 7, where he says, I advise you not to marry. Yep. And he says, the reason for that is because he, when you're married, you have to deal with the affairs of your spouse and not just the affairs of God. And so I think part of the idea is, well, if these people are spending their lives focused on the affairs of God, they can't be distracted. And then he'd pull out a verse, like Paul's saying, just like a soldier doesn't get entangled in civilian affairs, you have to stick to your task. So there became a really high value in singleness, which kind of went with like the growth of the monasteries and the convents. He was doing singleness in kind of the ascetic life. And there are other pros to it as well. So like, there are a lot of folks who, if they're being persecuted, they won't break. Like if they torture them, they're gonna be okay. They'll hold fast to faith. They're not gonna deny it. But then if you take their son or take their daughter and torture their son or their daughter, they break. Like they give away all the scriptures to be burned. They repent. They offer sacrifices to idols. So part of it was- Interesting. Like people who were single didn't have that linchpin that made it really hard to endure persecution. So there are a few pros, but I think a lot more pros of allowing marriage. Yeah, yeah. That's helpful. What other questions do you guys have before we close? I can just mention about the deacons. Yeah. In the Catholic church, you can be, let's see, you can be, there can be Mr. and Mrs., can be deacons, both of them. Separately, but married. But if one dies, they can't get married again. I don't think that's right. Yeah, and not being Catholic, I'm not familiar with everything. Yeah. That they do today. So I mean, like, if you were married before you became a priest, became a priest, like in your religion. As an Anglican? You can be married, and then somebody asks you to become a priest. That's right. Is that what happened? Yeah, I was married first. Yeah. But if I have my spouse die, there wouldn't be any prohibition to getting married again as a priest. I'd still be able to, so. So those little things first. Yep, yep. They're not big. Yeah. Theological questions. So that's why this is one of the issues we wanted to add into our Anglicanism course, so you could be familiar with how Anglicanism has treated this topic for the last several hundred years, and what we're thinking about today with ordination. With regards to the end of this course, who is interested in being confirmed by the bishop and commissioned for ministry in the confirmation ceremony that we want to reach out to and find a date that works for you guys? It's August and Phil, okay? Danny, have you been confirmed? Okay. Are the Holes interested or not? It's okay if discussion needs to be made later. It's totally fine. Okay, great. Awesome. Great, well, thank you so much for coming to, for coming to be with us for the last several weeks. It's been great to have you guys for whatever weeks you could make it.