News

It was a double-blessing to be ordained to the holy diaconate on the Feast of the Annunciation. Not only is that the name of the parish where my family and I began our journey into the Church, but it is also where my confessor and many of my oldest and dearest friends remain.    … [Read more…]

Having just been reminded by my ‘missions professor’ to stay up with the site, I thought I’d give a summary of why I’ve been silent for the last month or so…for those of you who may not know. At the end of August I left my home and mission in Oklahoma to return to my… [Read more…]

It was truly a blessed day. After a long distance catechumenate  that lasted over a year and a half, Leah Tindell entered the holy Orthodox Church as Mary (Magdalene).  In the kind of wonderful (apparent) coincidence that I’m finding comes with being Orthodox, the parish and people that really brought Mary to this point were… [Read more…]

We’ve added our monthly calendar to the website (it’s one of the tabs on the top of the page)…This will allow you to track what we’re doing – both in terms of worship and as a community.

We had a wonderful dinner yesterday at our place with four of the people in the mission. It was very satisfying to hear them share their stories and watch them get to know each other.  For a small town the difference between them – and how they found (and are finding) the Church – is… [Read more…]

…If you view the Church as a crop that has to be planted, cultivated, protected and harvested, as well as providing the seeds for other crops, you’ll also hold to the interpretation of the Apostle Paul’s metaphor of 1 Cor. 3:6 “one planting and one watering but God giving the increase;” that the Church is… [Read more…]

We bid Joel and Tessi and the girls (and Liam) good-bye yesterday morning. Sure hard to see them go. Joel and I (as I have mentioned before) formed a real partnership in the mission and his input and participation and enthusiasm has been invaluable to me. We’ve had this ongoing discussion of what missions really… [Read more…]

As wonderful as the daily Readers Matins and Vespers services have been, there’s nothing like serving with a priest – just as there’s no other service like the Divine Liturgy. The Tuesday evening Vespers service with Fr. Michael was very blessed but today’s Liturgy was even more so.The Liturgy is always grace-filled of course, but… [Read more…]

Yesterday morning we received an encouraging email from Preist Michael Storozuk, rector of St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church in Denison, TX.  He informed us that after hearing our story and seeing our website, he felt convicted to come and serve the Divine Liturgy here at St. Basil’s in Weatherford.  We’re honored, blessed and very… [Read more…]

Evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, published an interview today with Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Great Britain.  Metropolitan Kallistos answered several difficult questions about the state of Orthodoxy in the West, the Orthodox approach to evangelism, as well as her involvement in “social justice.”  Here is one of the questions: Q: In open countries where Orthodoxy has… [Read more…]

Today after Matins we went to coffee at what is becoming our regular place. If you’ve ever been to a downtown Portland, OR or Soho coffee shop you’ll be able to visualize the place…I had seen the owner twice before when we were there but hadn’t introduced myself – preferring instead to wait until he’s… [Read more…]

Intrigued by the unique efforts of Saint Basil the Great Orthodox Mission, Joseph, author of Orthodox Christian blog “Byzantine, Texas,” recently asked us several questions about this mission.  He was kind enough to post the interview to his blog which you can read here.  Here is one of the questions: What are the current and… [Read more…]

We did Matins today and R showed up again. We had a wonderful Prologue reading that allowed a great discussion – at least I thought so. After we had a cup of coffee (again, in our cassocks) we stopped by R’s business to drop off a few items he loaned the mission and ask him… [Read more…]