Over the weekend I was invited to the inaugural Orthodox Bioethics Conference, held in Felton, CA at St. Lawrence Orthodox Church. Grateful for the love, hospitality, and warm welcome we received, I offer you the lectures of this conference, whose important topic was Abortion. To watch the lectures
Small Parish Permaculture: What to do Next
What to do next? No one can do everything, but everyone can do something, so the saying goes. Every single parish can do something significant. Besides, it really doesn’t matter what others say or do, only what we say and do. If you have been reading these articles, and watching the videos included in them, then […]
What is Permaculture?
This is the question that I get most when talking about Small Parish Permaculture – just what is Permaculture? It has variously been described as earth worship (so wrong), environmentalism gone haywire (false), and promoting pagan pantheism, despite the fact that the teachers of Permaculture have explicitly rejected any attempt to ascribe metaphysics to it. Permaculture is […]
Small Parish Permaculture
by Fr. John A. Peck Many of you know that this year I was awarded the PDC by the Permaculture Research Institute at Zaytuna Farm in New South Wales, Australia under Geoff Lawton. (click on his name to see the free videos on his site). I cannot recommend his courses highly enough. That whole journey I […]
What is Christian Formation?
by Fr. John A. Peck Among the laments of clergy today, both Orthodox and heterodox, is the lack of spiritual formation among Christians. Those who are ‘believers’, church goers, even regular attenders at services and Bible studies seem, more and more, to lack a basic Christian foundation for spiritual identity, knowledge, moral discipline and ethical judgment. […]
2013 New Testament Challenge
Beginning Nov. 15th (that is, in just a few weeks at the beginning of the Advent/Nativity Fast), we will once again be embarking on our annual challenge event to read through the entire New Testament (aloud) by Christmas! This is a great endeavor and exercise and you should join it! Read with your spouse as […]
Orthodox Christian Responsibility in the Public Arena
by Fr. John A. Peck This coming Sunday is Pulpit Freedom Sunday. I think it is a sad state of affairs that we should even need such a Sunday, but we do, primarily because Christians in America have avoided or ignored their responsibility to participate in the political arena as Christians supporting Christian moral teaching. […]
The Manhattan Declaration
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2009—Today a group of prominent Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical Christian clergy, ministry leaders and scholars released the Manhattan Declaration, which addresses the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty. The 4,700-word declaration issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will […]
Sermons and Snickers Bars
by Fr. John A. Peck This little article recounts an important object lesson, given at a St. Herman Seminary homiletics class in 1996. I attended St. Herman Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska. At that distant outpost of theological instruction, we took homiletics very seriously, as we knew that on any given day or week, we might […]
The Preaching Pyramid
By Fr. John A. Peck We all know sermon preparation is important, but this article answers the specific questions: “What kind?” “How much?” This article was originally published by Preachers Institute in June of 2009, but remains a regular favorite, according to the traffic we get. We are reprinting it here, to be followed by […]