For an overview of the cadre with the schedule for future meeting, click here.

This page provides resources for each week of the cadre David Bains is leading on Anglican / Episcopal Christianity at Samford University in fall 2023. The materials provided under each date are things to help cadre members prepare for discussion on that date.

October 12: Interpreting Scripture and Women’s Ordination

We will be join by the Rev. Adam Young, canon missioner at the Cathedral Church of the Advent (Episcopal) and Mary Ann McCarty, Girls Youth Director also from the Advent. Canon Young suggests that we read “Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis” by N.T. Wright. Wright is a very prominent scholar of the New Testament and was bishop of Durham in England when he gave this lecture.

October 5: Eucharist

The Very Rev. Michael Novotny of Christ the King Anglican Church, Hoover, Alabama, led a discussion of the Holy Eucharist.

September 28: Baptism

Documents for discussion handed out on Sept. 21 and available online here. (review in advance if you can) liturgies for baptism from the Episcopal Church 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the Anglican Church in North America 2019 Book of Common Prayer

September 21: St. Matthew’s Day: Common Prayer

Documents for discussion handed out on Sept. 21 and available online here

Please read the following two short documents before we meet:

Introduction and reading from Thomas Cromber, 1672

Guidelines for Cadre Discussions: Circle of Trust

I encourage you to join in the observance of part of the daily office (morning or evening prayer) in the Anglican tradition. These services consist largely in the reading of scripture, but also include formal prayers of confession, supplication, and thanksgiving rooted in scripture. (I will bring copies of the order of Evening Prayer from the BCP (ACNA, 2019) so that we may discuss specific prayers.

If you are doing this on your own, this is most easily done through a web-page or app that supplies the scriptures readings for the day along with other prayers.

Common Prayer Daily is one of the simpler to follow webpages.

My favorite is the Daily Prayer app from the Church of England (choose either contemporary or traditional) in settings. Links to follow on web or download to your phone or tablet can be found here.

The Daily Office from the Mission of St. Clare provides the services from the Book of Common Prayer (1979) supplemented by hymns.

The Anglican group at Beeson Divinity School holds morning prayer at 7:15 a.m. on Wednesdays and evening prayer at 3:50 p.m. on Thursdays in Divinity S001, or Hodges Chapel when it reopens.

The singing of evening prayer, usually by trained choirs, is known a choral evensong and is a popular Anglican tradition. The regular services of many churches are webcast and archived online, I recommend St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City or Canterbury Cathedral in England. This is the tradition from which Samford’s own tradition of Choral Vespers comes. On September 21, 2023, the Cathedral Church of the Advent will hold a service of Choral Vespers at 5:30. I encourage you to go. Samford’s A Cappela Choir will host Choral Vespers at 5:30 on September 29.

Full liturgical texts of most Anglican denominations can be found online:

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer (Episcopal Church)

2019 Book of Common Prayer (Anglican Church in North America)

September 14: Holy Cross Day

Introductory day. No preparation materials. Anglican denominational history and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral were discussed.