Forming the children of the parish in Columbia

Our September 12 webinar presented an interview with Fr. Zachary Braddock, dean of the Church of the Epiphany, the cathedral of the Diocese of the Holy Cross in Columbia, S.C.  Fr. Braddock has been rector at Epiphany for the past 4 years, and previously served as curate under its previous rector, Bp. Paul Hewett. The parish also sponsors the C.S. Lewis Student Center at the University of South Carolina, led for more than two decades by Fr. Paul Sterne.

The conversation was led by Fr. Hayden Butler, associate rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Newport Beach, Calif. The two of them discussed how the home school coop at Epiphany both benefitted from and contributed to the renewal of the parish over the past few years. The video of the entire webinar has been posted to YouTube.

Renewal at Epiphany

When Fr. Braddock joined Epiphany, there were not many young people or children. A generous donation provided a rectory near the parish, allowing him and his family to live walking distance to the cathedral.

He worked to build up the spiritual life of the parish, particularly through what Martin Thorton called a threefold Rule of life: weekly Eucharist, Daily Office, and private prayer. Epiphany observes in person offices every day except Sunday night — when it hosts a sung Evensong at the Lewis Center. It also celebrates Mass on Wednesday, Friday and on all the Prayer Book feast days. These midweek services provide numerous opportunities for visitors, and follow up conversations.

Together, he sees adoption of the Office as evidence of increased spiritual depth in the parish:

So once parishioners were following the lectionary, that was a very encouraging sign that … it’s not just something that we talk about priests needing to do. It’s an active part of the church’s life, whether they’re here in the church building, or whether they’re at home or in an airport. I’ve got a couple of parishioners who travel a lot for work, and you know they’ll take their prayer book and say morning prayer setting in an airport. and I think that’s great.

Formed by Mason’s Moral Framework

Around 2018-2019, Fr. Braddock said the parents of the parish began organizing a homeschool coop.

The coop really began when these families wanted something for their children. … It began [because] we have these kids, and we're responsible for their Christian formation. We’re responsible as parents for their education. And so it started as a way for us to do that very intentionally and in the community that we had begun to build.

The coop began with its own curriculum, but eventually switched to one based on the philosophy of Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), an Anglican educator.

The parents all switched to use a free homeschool curriculum from AmblesideOnline, one based on Mason’s principles and original materials. The use of a shared curriculum makes it easier for parents to use a common set of readings, coordinate field trips and other outings.

Well aligned to goals of the church, homeschool and parents is Mason’s moral philsophy. As Fr. Braddock explained

One of her big principles is that children are born humans. And to me that lines up very, very well with … the fact that we're created in the image of God. … We’re not less of a person because we're 2 years old or 10 years old than we are at 18 or 75. … We’re forming … these young people into being the next generation of adults and leaders in our churches.

He described a model where adults and children are learning together, such as the Tuesday night hymn sing. They both agreed that such a model of lifelong learning provides an antidote to the standard American educational model, where students learnfor 12 years and then somehow no longer need to learn.

Instead, Fr. Braddock said that education must be about more than just preparing for a career:

I think very often with education as it’s viewed in the popular culture, we view it simply as job training… What do you want to do with your life, i.e. what kind of job do you want? And while the work that we do is not unimportant, I think if we only view education as training for an employment, I think we miss out. We [should view] education as again you know, formation, but as a way to grow in virtue [and] as a way to grow in knowledge and love of God and of His creation and of our fellow creatures. I think when you look at education like that, it gives it a very profound difference from the prevailing view in the society.

Conclusions

Together, the two described both a philosophy and approach that integrates the goals of the church and school communities. As Fr. Hayden concluded:

There is a kind of harmonizing of the kind of formational and educational goals of the home, the formational and educational goals of the school, and those would comport very neatly with the formational and educational goals of the church.

Some of these themes overlap with our June webinar with Fr. Brian Oldfield, which discussed how a K-12 school allows an Anglican church to become more actively involved in the education and formation of its children.

We invite our viewers to join us for our October 3 webinar, where Fr. Wade Miller will talk about parish renewal and ministry to a college town.