Eighth Day Life and Mission

Second of three talks given at the ASAC /CoJ retreat

We’ve just finished going through some formative practices of prayer. I want now to give some brief history and show how God has woven the threads of our lives together over the years.

I beg your indulgence as I give you some of my personal background; I’m also going to call on many of you along the way. I hope to tie these threads to our sense of Mission – another of our Four Practices.

I was originally introduced to Benedictine spirituality through Fr. Pete Turner, after he attended A Benedictine Experience retreat d in Washington D.C. Listening to Pete desribe the experience, it occurred to me the Rule of Benedict, which was written to guide the communal life of monks and nuns, could be adapted to create an intensive outpatient counseling program to be housed in a local church! Fr. Pete suggested that I contact David Green, rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on the west side of Charleston and talk to him about the idea. We connected and eventually collaborated on the formation of The Eighth Day Life Center, an intense, week-long program of counseling and spiritual direction based on a Benedictine model of prayer and spirituality.

(The notion of the 8th Day comes from the Church fathers such as Augustine of Hippo, who said that the day of Christ’s resurrection is a new day of creation.)

Between 1996 and 1998, our team ministered to about 75 “Seekers”, helping them through ‘eight days’ of personal and spiritual healing. Fr. Pete was involved in several of those early classes, and he really became a living icon of St. Benedict to me. The whole 8th Day experience profoundly transformed my own spiritual life and ministry, eventually pointing me towards profession in the Company of Jesus and Holy Orders – directions that were not even on my radar screen up until then.

Fr. Mark and Brenda were attending St. Luke’s at the time and in a little bit we’ll hear how their lives intersected with ours…

My involvement with the 8th Day Life Center ended in 1998, but in
2001, I was introduced by friends to the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, a “Continuing” Anglican group of the Convergence, Three Stream type, and began to discern a call to Holy Orders. On the eighth day of the eighth month of 2001, I was ordained Deacon by Bishop Rob Hoyt, in Sparta TN. A year later, I was ordained Priest – not really knowing exactly why, but being certain I was called to the Priesthood.

Through the Diocese of St. Cuthbert, I met Fr. Mark Camp, a former Baptist preacher, who had become a Franciscan member of the Company of Jesus and he put me in touch with Abbot Geoffrey Ames. In July of 2002, I made my profession as a Third Order Benedictine.

At a professional conference in 2003, Mark Goldman approached me about becoming a Benedictine himself.

( Here Mark+ Goldman gave a brief statement about becoming a Benedictine and the four of us beginning to meet on a monthly basis.)

Later we would include Ryan Connor. I’ll have him say something a bit later.

About 2003, my daughter Leah introduced me to David and Carol Ann Frederick and David invited me to a Saturday mens’ meeting.

(Here David told briefly about Mission Tri-State).

It was David who told me about St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and how they had affiliated with the American Anglican Council. Cindy and I started attending St. Andrews in 2003, right after the Gene Robinson vote – and that’s where we met Tom and Cathy and Ron and Clara Norma and Tony.

Fr. Mark Camp became Abbot of the CoJ, after Geoffrey Ames. In 2004, Abbot Mark+ was consecrated Bishop +Mark, and I was elected Abbot of the Company of Jesus. I have continued my day job as a Christian Therapist, and a professional supervisor – and that’s how I met Ryan Connor (here Ryan told briefly his background).

But I’ve also continued in the Benedictine walk, helping new aspirants discern their calling to our order, overseeing the work or our Vocation Directors and leading retreats for the Company of Jesus - which is how I’ve met Vaughn and Darren and Dale and Ed and David.

In 2006, a bunch of us from St. Andrew’s got fed up with what was happening in the Episcopal Church and finally decided to leave. (Tom Proctor really spearheaded our effort to start All Saints Anglican Church. Tom told about contacting Bishop Mark and getting started with the APCGS).

Mark Goldman had recently been ordained a Deacon and I asked him to come alongside and to work with me in planting this new work.

And that‘s how we met Lisa and Bruce and Debbie. ( Lisa told about learning of the new work and coming over from Ashland.)

We officially began on October 1, 2006 with about 18 of us meeting at Barboursville City Hall and then St. Hampton’s for about 14 months.


Back up one month. In September of 2006, the house where four teens had been murdered came up for sale and I felt God impress upon me the need to do something about creating a memorial to the slain teens.

I preached about this one Sunday at All Saints and in November, several of us, including David Frederick et al. began meeting on Friday afternoons to pray that God would make a way for us to buy the house. In February of 2007, for the Lordly sum of $10,000 we bought a cursed and decrepit property and started Hope House, a ministry that has really become synonymous with All Saints Anglican Church in the Tri-State region.

We have continued to pray every Friday afternoon in good Benedictine fashion, and have held two annual Memorial Eucharists for the Victims of Violent Crime. We have been renovating the house with help from the community and have ministered to many walk-in folks from the area while we were working. Our outreach to the area has included picking up trash in a one block area and holding a candlelight Vigil for Murder Victims. We’ve been able to minister directly to each of the families of the four teens, and are now in the process of developing a local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children.

A central concept in all this is that we are taking Christ’s “Eighth Day Life” into our community. That includes something we call “Bless Ur Biz” – BUB. (Have Bruce tell about how we went to his business and to the Chevron station).

The concept of Eighth Day Life reaches out to include all facets of life. Christ’s death and resurrection have ushered in a new day of creation and we are taking that Life to the world for its redemption and transformation. Broadly put, this is our mission.

I believe that Hope House presents us in All Saints Anglican Church and the Company of Jesus with an opportunity to reach out to the urban Huntington. (Cindy told about her passion for working with the children of the poor. Ron Clay told about his ministry as a Big Brother.)

We want to provide mentoring services at Hope House to help with the fathering process and to encourage stability in the urban community. We have instituted The Neighboring Initiative to help with our administration of Hope House and to act as a platform for our other future outreach ministries, including the annual Steven Ferguson Award for Exemplary fathering and churchmanship.

One of the really exciting things that is happening right now is that Anne Swedberg, one of our Neighboring Initiative Board members is putting together a drama based on interviews with family members and friends of the four teens. She is teaching a class at Marshall University about this technique and her students will do a lot of the actual interviews. Then, students from the Theater department will actually put on the play. The University is behind this project and has also agreed for us to do some fund-raising for Hope House around this play.

Lastly, we continue to be involved in Mission Tri-State. Recently, we participated in a Blessing of the Four Corners of Huntington, asking God for revival. As ministers from Mission Tri-State have gathered to hear from Rhonda Hughey about some of the wonderful things that are happening in places like Fiji, where God is coming in His presence and completely transforming the communities. The “fire and cloud” are descending and whole villages are getting saved and seeing their very land transformed by the Presence of God.

The leaders of the initial village transformations have taken this transformation to some 200 additional villages and have followed a process of gathering the civil leaders, church leaders and laity together and repenting of their sins, and asking God to come and transform their land – and even to dwell tangibly with them. Unlike former brief revivals, this movement is one of habitation – where God comes and stays.

But the process involves the entire community. And this is where we’re going to end this session, because I have more to say about this in our Profession service this evening.