Last year, during the Season of Creation, St. James Cathedral sponsored an Evensong sermon series focused on “God, Creation and Climate Change.” This year, as the two-year Season of Spiritual Renewal in the diocese approaches its climax in Epiphany 2026, the cathedral invites Anglicans across the diocese to join in a second sermon series at Evensong preached by several senior clergy of the diocese. The homilists and topics are:
- Oct. 26 – The Ven. Cheryl Palmer – “A Renewed Church: What happens when we ‘Proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom'”
- Nov. 2 – The Rev. Canon Kristen Pitts – “A Renewed Church: What happens when we ‘Teach, Baptize, and Nurture New Believers'”
- Nov. 9 – The Ven. Steven Mackison – “A Renewed Church: What happens when we ‘Respond to Human Need by Loving Service’
- Nov. 16 – The Ven. Theadore Hunt – “A Renewed Church: What happens when we ‘Seek to Transform Unjust Structures of Society'”
- Nov. 23 – The Rev. Canon Andrew Federle – “A Renewed Church: What happens when we ‘Strive to Safeguard the Integrity of Creation and Sustain and Renew the Life of the Earth’”
“In a renewed Church, proclaiming the gospel is not about reclaiming lost cultural ground, but offering a living, liberating hope. Renewal means we do not just attract people; we seek to grow people,” says the Rev. Canon Dr. Stephen Fields, sub-dean and vicar of the cathedral. “A renewed Church sees Christ in the hungry, the sick and the stranger and cannot be silent in the face of injustice. Renewal includes the earth itself.”
Canon Fields says he believes that any church that seeks renewal and to be renewed must, of necessity, ask the following questions: How do we tell good news that sounds like good news to those who have stopped listening? What does it mean to form disciples in today’s world, across generations and cultures? What happens when service becomes central, not peripheral? How do we become agents of God’s justice in a polarized and broken world? How do we live faithfully and hopefully in the midst of an ecological crisis?
The cathedral’s Evensong services start at 4:30 p.m. on Sundays, and all are invited.
