- Propers (Collect and Lessons) for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, with hymns.
- Link to “Watch this Sunday’s live-stream” on our parish website.
- Parish Announcements for the week of October 12th, 2025.
- Rector’s Ramblings: On the appointment of Dame Sarah Mullally to the Archbishopric of Canterbury
The Collect.
LORD, we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymns:
Hymns for this Sunday – Hymn numbers are from the 1940 Hymnal:
Processional Hymn: The Church’s one foundation – #396
Sermon Hymn: How firm a foundation – #564
Communion Hymn: My God, thy table now is spread – #203
Recessional Hymn: All hail the power of Jesus’ Name – #355 (First Tune: Coronation)
You’ll notice the hymns above have links…if you don’t recognize a particular hymn, please click the link and view a short YouTube video where the music is played. Even if you do recognize the hymn…it may be a different tune than you are used to.
If a live-stream of a Sunday service is accomplished, the audio of that Sunday’s sermon will usually be posted sometime Sunday evening on the media page on our website.
On any given day, check our “Current operating status” – in other words, whether or not the church is open for services or office hours, in case of inclement weather or unusual episodes (like the sabotage of transformers a few years ago). Check for changes to the service schedule (to include seasonal services such as Holy Week and Christmas) at Services and Office Hours.
The weekly parish email is reproduced on the News and announcements page. In addition, each of our after-service Christian Education sessions will have a post there where you can review the class video and access any handouts that were available. You’re also welcome to leave a comment or a question about the class on that page as well!
And lastly…if you ever want to ask a question, make a comment, contact someone about a ministry opportunity…please drop us a line using our church contact page. We’ll get your question or concern directed to the right person.
To volunteer for our media team, please contact our IT/AV/Social media specialist, John Fesq, at video.christchurchanglican@gmail.com.
(Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity)
If you are visiting us: Welcome to Christ Church Anglican, Southern Pines! Thank you for being with us. We are very pleased to have you join us for the service, and hope that your worship here is a blessing to you. Please sign the guest book on the table in the narthex, and if you wish, share your email or other contact information with us. And may God bless you!
Christian Education: John Fesq is facilitating the viewing of a series of Sunday School class videos from Holy Trinity Reformed Episcopal Church in Fairfax, VA. The class is an introduction to one of the works of Richard Hooker, who was an an important and influential English Reformer in the mid to late 1500’s. In particular, we will be exposed to Book Five of his “Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.” The class will look at the Anglican underpinnings and viewpoints of such topics as:
- Worship
- Church buildings and settings
- Preaching (this Sunday’s lesson, Week 4)
- The Book of Common Prayer
- Liturgy
- Sacraments
- Traditional ceremonies and services
- Ministry
The class will be viewed after Sunday service outside the sanctuary on our big television screen, after we’ve had time to fellowship for a little bit. The classes tend to run 45 minutes to an hour, not including any discussion we’d like to have afterwards.
We encourage you to plan to make time after Sunday services to stay and learn with us!
The video (and handout if there is one) for each week’s lesson is posted on the website in our News and Announcements section. If you can’t be here for a lesson, or if you just want to go back over it, go to that Sunday lesson’s page. At the bottom of each lesson’s page, there’s an area to leave comments and questions…we’d love to hear from you if you have either!
Midweek (Wednesday) Eucharist: We ordinarily offer a service of Holy Communion – also known as the Holy Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, or the Mass) at 10:00 on Wednesday mornings. Please note that this service includes an opportunity for the laying on of hands and anointing with oil for healing, for those who may desire this ministry. The Propers and Homily for the Wednesday service typically commemorate a saint whose day falls in that week.
Please Note: We are continuing to look for the following volunteers:
- Altar Guild – Please see Sandy, after the service, if you are willing to serve God and our parish by helping to prepare the altar and chancel for services.
- Fellowship Meal Team – Please see Amanda or Lindsey if you are willing to bring a main course, salad or side, bread, or dessert. The more folks who participate, the less each individual or family needs to spend!
- Altar Flowers – We are now doing our own altar flowers; donations toward the cost of purchasing flowers (significantly less than purchasing pre-made arrangements!), as well as donations of time and talent if your suite of skills include floral arrangements, are greatly appreciated. Please see Amanda if you can assist.
- Housekeeping – Another cost-cutting measure: we are moving toward shifting the cleaning of the church to an “in-house” operation. Volunteers to assist are greatly welcomed – please see Lindsey.
Rector’s Ramblings
Sede Vacante: on the appointment of Dame Sarah Mullally to the Archbishopric of Canterbury
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
Many of you may be aware that on the 3rd of October, acting on the advice of Prime Minister Kier Starmer, His Majesty King Charles III appointed Dame Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury. She previously served as Bishop of London since 2018, in which role she has been noted for her non-Biblical, indeed anti-Biblical, views regarding gender and marriage.
If you have wondered why I have not posted a statement on this topic earlier, the answer is that unfortunately, this is really nothing new: it has been many years since the Church of England has fully embodied catholic orthodoxy in its expression of the Christian faith; and the appointment of Dame Mullally is but the final public nail in the coffin. I have come to the conclusion, sadly and painfully, that short of a miracle – and it is true that, with God, all things are possible! – the Church of England is, like the Episcopal Church here in the United States, a lost cause.
It has fallen prey to counter-Christian secular ideologies of the Left and, until it repents and returns to the faith once delivered to the saints, it will be, at best, a husk of its former self, and increasingly, an irrelevant anachronism; its glorious structures becoming mausoleums of the glory they once proclaimed to their nation and the world, when they are not sold and turned into mosques or LGBT night-clubs.
But let it be clear that the Church of England, like the Episcopal Church, has far departed from the faith, order, and moral standards contained in the Holy Scriptures, the teachings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the foundational documents and historic formularies of the Anglican Tradition. In particular, the fateful decision to depart from the Scriptural and traditional teachings limiting Holy Orders (Bishops, Priest, and Deacons) exclusively to men in accordance with Christ’s will and institution, as evidenced by the Scriptures, and the universal practice of the Church Catholic, has led – logically but tragically – to the setting aside of any other Scriptural and traditional teachings which are at odds with the secular cultural zeitgeist.
There is particular irony in the appointing to not just a bishopric, but the Primacy of All England in the See of Canterbury – whose occupants are the spiritual successors of St. Augustine of Canterbury, who brought the Christian faith to heathen Anglo-Saxon England in 597, and whose holders have included such luminaries of the faith as St. Anselm, William Laud, and Michael Ramsey – of someone whose purported episcopal orders and whose un-Biblical teachings are both counter to the faith once delivered, since it is part of the office of a Bishop to “drive out strange and erroneous doctrine” from the Church.
Accordingly, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the See of Canterbury, the archiepiscopal Seat of St. Augustine, and the Primatial See of All England, is now vacant (“sede vacante” – literally, “the seat is vacant”).
My heart, and my prayers, go out to the many faithful Christian people, both orthodox clergy and laity alike, in the Church of England – who, though small in number, have tenaciously clung, despite the innovations and errors of the hierarchy, to the parishes that have for many centuries nurtured generations of their forebears – as they seek to discern how best to proceed in the present environment.
But let anyone who may be wondering, be reassured:
1) Christ Church Anglican Southern Pines, as a Continuing Anglican Church since its founding in 2004, is not in communion with, nor does it owe any allegiance to, the present-day Church of England and its purported Primate Archbishop.
2) Christ Church Anglican continues, as it has since its founding, to maintain and uphold the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the traditional Anglican Church, doing all things necessary for the continuation of the same.
As the Rector of Christ Church Anglican, I find myself recalling the immortal words of the 19th century Oxford Reformer, John Keble:
“If the Church of England were to fail, it would be found in my parish.”
By God’s grace, may it long continue to be so. If you share these ideals, we warmly and heartily invite you to join us. And may God bless the Continuing Anglican movement!
Faithfully and steadfastly yours in Christ,
The Rev’d Thomas H. Harbold
Rector, Christ Church Anglican
Southern Pines, North Carolina