Associate for Transformational Discipleship

peter@stmichaelschurch.net

Assisting St. Michael’s Church to make disciples, by seeking to equip every Church member who believes in Jesus Christ to follow him with heart, soul, mind and strength. This position ncludes teaching courses such as BETA 1 and BETA 2, and joining in the full round of parish activities including preaching, counseling, visiting, and teaching.

Family: I am the husband of Sandra, and we are parents of Jennifer (36), Kate (28), and David (21). Kate is married to Sean Norris.

Favorite Books: The Abolition of Man (C.S. Lewis); Intellectuals (Paul Johnson); The Cross of Christ (John Stott); Short Stories (J. D. Salinger); Passing the Flame, a History of the Christian Church (Harry C. Griffiths); A Severe Mercy (Sheldon Vanauken); and so many more.

Favorite Movies: The Bourne Trilogy; Babette’s Feast; The Fugitive; Walk the Line; Singin’ in the Rain; Shadowlands; Amazing Grace; Lord of the Rings; Ben Hur (that dates me)

Likes Best About the Lowcountry: Weather; beaches; tennis; people; architecture; Christian opportunities; flowers; food

Most Interesting Assignment: Creating BETA; visiting the small groups in the Church; foot-washing on Maundy Thursday; getting to know Church members; working together with a staff team.

Recent Articles in the Messenger Newsletter

• 05-13-12 "Secret of Lasting Friendship" The Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore

  Printable version

• Are you hooked?

  Of course not, you say to yourself. But you may be fooling yourself. As someone said “Denial is not a river in Egypt.” Our ability to think we are freer, less dependent, more self-directed, and incapable of being in some kind of “bondage” is li...

• Evangelism Doesn't Justify Everything: Beware the Christian Mafia

  She waltzed down the aisle in the Crystal Cathedral, pinkish blond locks flowing, arms waving to well-wishers, flowers everywhere, celebrities ready to take part in the wedding ritual. It was Janice Crouch -- hardly a symbol of the demur mother-of-the ...

Archived articles

• Why a Mosque Should Not Be Built at Ground Zero

  by the Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore Many reasons have been given for building or not building a mosque within a few blocks of the greatest act of terrorism ever to have occurred on U.S. soil. Even the President has dithered, or so it seems, as to whether this should happen. Where he and I both agree is that the legality of the idea is unquestioned.

• Suicide In The Ivy League

  Six students at Cornell University, one at the University of Pennsylvania, and one at Yale took their own lives during the past academic year. One was a noted football player, almost certain to be elected captain. Another was a jokester, great student ...

• How Tithing Has Changed my Life

  by the Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore As a child I was something of a kleptomaniac. Yes, sorry to admit it. I used to steal. Of course it was small change – and I stole mostly from my parents’ “gambling bank” – an old and rather fancy (though out...

• A Fun Read in an Election Year

  The High Tide of American Conservatism, Davis, Coolidge, and the 1924 Election by Garland S. Tucker, III Were it not that the author of this very time-specific volume is a long-time and dear friend of mine, I would probably not have picked it up at ...

• A Surprising Point of Life

  Some fifteen years ago the rector of a sleepy Episcopal Church in a leafy, semi-rural part of Western Connecticut, had an experience of Christ that changed his life and ministry. George Crocker awoke to find himself really believing in the Gospel he...

• Jesus Wars: Making Sense of the Modern Quest for the Historical Jesus

  by the Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore Associated with the Beta: Essential Jesus Course When the United States Supreme Court ruled that prayer was not allowed in our public school system it also ruled that the teaching about religion was perfectly accept...

• Getting Focused Introducing a unique ministry to the “hurting coast.”

  Independent schools, prep schools, private schools, fee-paying schools – the word used to describe these non-public schools that prepare young people for higher education varies widely. But they all refer to a specific genre in the mix of US educatio...

• Away in a Manger: At Christmas, we should remember Christians who are persecuted for their faith.

  December 23, 2010 4:00 A.M. National Review Online www.nationalreview.com by Paul Marshall For Christians, Christmas commemorates a time not only of joy, but also of threat. At Jesus’s birth, Herod conspired to kill him and murdered all the ne...

• Be a Mentor

  Channel surfing the other evening my eye caught sight of – yes – our own Jim Stuckey. He was being interviewed on Tammy McCottry-Brown’s show on Comcast’s Channel 2 about what it was like to be mentored by an older, wiser man and how Jim himsel...

• 43 Days Hanging Between Heaven and Hell

  One man’s bicycle journey across America and the spiritual lessons it taught him. Joseph Martin is a particularly good friend who used to trounce me almost weekly on the tennis courts of Greater Pittsburgh during my years as Dean of Trinity Semi...

• The Joy of Teaching

  The snow lay all around, and virtually every day I was there more snow came down. On the last day, the temperature warmed enough to create murky slush on the streets. But at least, being away in Ambridge Pennsylvania from January 9-14, I avoided the 20...

• A Feast of Good Things: Mere Anglicanism 2011

  The heavenly banquet we all look forward to can’t be a whole lot more sumptuous than this year’s menu at Mere Anglicanism. This annual conference, in honor this year of Bishop Allison, offered a hearty spread of truly great things to savor – espe...

• One Perfect Day After Another

  Try to imagine snow-capped peaks set against a crystal blue sky and glistening pine trees encrusted with weeks of heavy snow and ice - a veritable winter wonderland. Now picture yourself gliding down corduroy-groomed trails on freshly waxed skis with a...

• Thriving Christianity

  The following article appeared in the American Spectator website and was reposted with permission. I think it is worthy of note. ~ The Rev. Dr. Peter Moore Most secular media in the U.S. imply that the world is largely dividing between resurgent Is...

• Sobering Thoughts: On the State of Christianity in America

  In the article entitled “Thriving Christianity,” it had some glowing statistics about the growth of global Christianity, especially in the Southern Hemispheres of our world. It also pointed out that the number of self-styled atheists in America has...

• “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” The Roots of Evangelicalism and the Birth of English Hymnody

  By: Bryan Hunter The joy of Easter season has now overtaken the gravity of Lent, but if you feel called to persist with a bit of spiritual discipline, here’s an exercise for you (in two parts): (1) Pick up a copy of The Hymnal 1982 (that’s the e...

• A Letter from Holly Craighead: A St. Michaelite Seminarian

  Greetings fellow St. Michaelites! By now the early spring trees and daffodils have shown their first blooms.  It has been a very long winter in Western Pennsylvania, but new life is emerging!  Everyday I can feel the prayers being sent from South Ca...

• “You’re the vicar who tweets!”

  So goes the word on the street around Burscough, a town about 20 miles outside of Liverpool. People are referring to Richard Jones who pastors a growing parish that draws about 420 people to Sunday services. Richard has been visiting St. Michael’s th...

• It's Really Human

  She was one of those Northeastern society matrons who prided herself on her liberal attitudes, and disdained the conservative zeitgeist in which her inherited money had provided her with a safe cocoon. I can’t remember her name; but it oozed with New...

• A Right Sense of Christian Duty: The Rise of Evangelicalism in the 19th-century Protestant Episcopal Church

  By Bryan Hunter In the last issue, I offered a brief overview of the birth of Evangelicalism within the Church of England. With such significant players as the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield at the forefront of that movement, one could assume...

• This Old House: Lament of a Jilted Lover

  It’s been three long years since someone loved me. Back then my prospects seemed so bright. Why they were even vying for my hand, bidding for my affection. Up and up the price went. Well, not exactly; but it felt that way to me. But that was three...

• Where does faith come from? Romans 10:9-17

  I had a conversation after church with a parishioner about where faith comes from. He told me: “I don’t know why I believe. It all makes no sense that God should become a man, and die for us. It all seems so irrational. But I still believe it.” H...

• You take the High Road and I’ll take the Low Road: The Death of Cranmer and the Insurgence of the Tractarians

  By Bryan Hunter On 21 March 1556, deposed Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer stood in a niche carved out below the pulpit of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford and delivered his final sermon. He had forwarded an advanced copy o...

• A Week To Remember: Tracing the Footsteps of Early Christians Amid the Ruins of Asia Minor and Greece

  Swimming in sun-splashed Aegean waters, bargaining in bustling Turkish bazaars, sampling tea and cakes on the lido deck, viewing ancient theatres that held 10,000 Romans built into the side of hills, wading through the hot springs of white-washed Hiera...

• My Last Visit With John Stott

  June 17, 2001 “There was a man sent from God whose name was John” John the Baptist, to whom the above reference refers, was beheaded by a king in a palace at a relatively young age. John Stott, who I met in January of 1957, spent his final da...

• Surprise in Vermont New Light on the ‘Hurting Coast’

  A voice from the past called. He’d heard that I was going to be in Vermont on a reading/writing retreat this past summer, and would I come and preach in his newly-formed Anglican church in Burlington? And so it was that I drove north and stayed with ...

• Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton’s Lessons on Endurance

  After wandering among ancient Roman sites in Asia Minor this past June, where 2000 years ago young churches struggled with the seductive pull of a secular world, I recalled that one of the great lessons of the Book of Revelation where we read about the...

• The Importance of the Beta Ministry

  We talk regularly about the critical nature of the Alpha ministry as that ministry that helps bring people to an ‘aha’ moment in their relationship with Christ.  But Beta of course is that critical next step where we begin to walk as Disciples of ...

• Peter Moore - Testimony of Tithing by Faith

  “The last part of a man to be converted,” said the famous evangelist D. L. Moody, “is his pocketbook.” “Look in a man’s check book,” said another preacher,“and you will see what that person’s priorities really are.” Fortunately f...

• The Enigma that is Turkey

  Nothing quite epitomized the enigma that is modern Turkey than something I saw on my stroll through the museum of the Topkapi Palace that sits atop the ancient city of Constantinople. After an obligatory tour of the Sultan’s harem quarters, I emerged...

• 10-16-2011 "'The Little Engine that Could' Having the Secret of Real Strength" The Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore

  Part of a Preaching Series Finding Purpose in Your Life: A Deep Look into Ephesians Printable Version

• From Folly - Matthew Lock Pridgen’s True Story of Fall and Redemption

  When I first listened to Matthew Pridgen tell me his life story I wasn’t quite sure if he was totally sane. His enthusiasm, contagious smile, penetrating eyes, and intense excitement made me wonder if he was still on something as we sat on the second...

• Thank You St. Michael’s

  Reaching a milestone like a 50th anniversary is an occasion for rejoicing. But big anniversaries are always bittersweet. The fact is that you can’t push water back up above the waterfall. Those years are over, and there will be many fewer of them loo...

• Don’t Bite the Apple: Assessing Genius from a Silvery Cloud

  The hagiography on Steve Jobs has only just begun. Expect biographies by the truckload, articles in every major news magazine, online tributes and re-runs of speeches. Every thought, feeling, side remark and rumination of this 21st Century genius will ...

• Muslim Anti-defamation Laws and Free Speech

  Disturbing trends in ostensibly democratic nations are currently threatening our fundamental liberties of free speech. Western nations, intimidated by threats of violence from Islamic radicals, are reevaluating the rights of citizens to criticize the b...

• Ambassadors Extraordinaire

  While during our fall semester we each think of the call on us to be an “Ambassador for God”, as part of our BETA-level course, we might ponder the witness of two actual ambassadors whose lives have recently broadened my understanding of this call....

• Too True to be Good? Tim Tebow and the Media’s Conundrum

  I am a football fan, but not a fanatic. I played the game all through high school, but not very well. I was a slow, lumbering right guard who didn’t make his quota of tackles. However, I enjoy watching a good game almost as much as I enjoy the tailga...

• BONANZA

  Thanks to the entrepreneurial skills and generosity of Michael Lalich, the leader of one of St. Michael’s Life Groups, two shall-we-say more mature members of the congregation, Sykes Wilford and I, got the chance to venture out into South Carolina wa...

• Michelangelo’s Pieta Poem by Jay Haug

  Slowly, carefully, hand over hand His body lowered down From the cross. Mary reaches toward him, Not knowing whether to assist Or wait to receive it. Casting around for a place, Finally, she sits on Golgotha’s cold stone. Where they lay him...

• There He Goes Again! Episcopal Bishop Shelby Spong

  Someone once said that “every heresy begins with an inadequate view of sin.” Downplay sin, and you’ll downplay grace. Downplay grace, and you’ll find no need for the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. Downplay them, and you’ll find no need for...

• 01-15-12 8 & 10:30 am "Why the Crown Sits on Our Heads" The Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore

  Printable Version Part of the Epiphany Preaching Series on the Psalms

• Is There Really Reality? Oh Boy What a Troublesome Question

  It began in our men’s group that meets in Room 202 of the Belser Building at 7:30 on Wednesday mornings. One guy asked: “How can teachers (who claim to be Christian) just ignore some of the things Jesus said, and come up with crazy reconstructions ...

• Tensions in Nigeria And why they should matter to you and me

  On Christmas Day 2011, churches were bombed in five Nigerian cities — Madalla, Jos, Kano, Damaturu, and Gadaka — leaving dozens, perhaps hundreds, dead or wounded. The killings were apparently the latest handiwork of the violent Islamist group Boko...

• Merry Anglicanism

  Or that’s how the Lord Bishop of London referred to it Take this little 2 minute quiz: Did you know…. That the Book of Common Prayer had been translated into 200 languages, including Mohawk, as far back as the 17th and 18th Centuries? Tha...

• The Most Unforgettable Person… I Never Knew

  Decades ago Reader’s Digest used to have a regular feature column entitled “The Most unforgettable character I ever met.” I loved those articles, and have often thought of who I’d write about if and when the time came. Well it’s come. You al...

• Books Worth Reading: For those interested in learning more about mission in general & also the Muslim world

  Suggestions by Peter Moore The Gospel in a Pluralist Society,  Lesslie Newbigin [a masterful apologetic for mission in the modern world] The Message of Mission, Howard Peskett & Vinoth Ramachandra [a very thorough look at the biblical basis ...

• Preachers’ Preachers ~ Reflection on GIC by Peter Moore

  Ravi Zacharias and Barry Black are what are called “preachers’ preachers.” They are the kind of preachers other preachers like to listen to. And, of course, laity love to listen to them also. Refreshingly humble, disarmingly direct, hilariousl...

• When Children Go Astray A Beloved Bishop and His Wife are Murdered

  The Anglican world was rocked a couple of weeks ago with the brutal murder of one of its more outspoken and faithful bishops. On Sunday February 26th Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti of Recife, Brazil and his wife Miriam were murdered by their 29 year-old ad...

• Vandy and the HHS: Taking a Fresh Look at Religious Liberty

  We are all aware of the recent ruling of the Health and Human Services that all non-exempt private health insurance plans must provide coverage for all FDA approved contraception methods, sterilization, counseling and education. Even though the Preside...

• Roadmap for the Journey: Charting your course, getting your bearings

  You know what to say to someone who asks you: “Have you been saved?” Depending on their facial expression and attitude, you either want to punch them in the face, or politely respond, as one famous Anglican bishop did: “Do you mean ‘was I saved...

• Nearing the End as a Trinity Seminarian- by Holly Craighead

  This past week has been Reading Week, dedicated to writing papers.  Most of the campus is quiet, save for the few one finds in the library.  This past Wednesday, I went out into my garden to search for new life emerging from the perennial bed planted...

• Canterbury to Bid Adieu: The A.B.C. Throws in the Sponge

  Saying that he hopes that his successor has the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros. Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, will resign at the end of this year and return to academics. He will become the Master of Magdalene ...

• BUY THIS BOOK! Beyond the Flaming Sword: Poems of Life between Eden and the Cross by Jay Haug

  OK, you are not a reader of poetry. Neither am I. I almost never pick up a book of poetry and begin reading. I hated reading poetry in literature class at college. I’ve never written more than a few lines of doggerel to celebrate this occasion or tha...

• Starry Nights over Switzerland and the Rhone Riverway: Exploring the roots of Huguenot France

  In just over a year, we will have the opportunity to explore an absolutely lovely part of Europe while digging into some of the great moments of the past. Religion, history, art and wine will all combine to make this the adventure of a lifetime. &nb...

• Titanic: Victims and Villains - Revisiting the worst sea disaster in history 100 years later

  Of the writing of books and making of movies about the sinking of the Titanic there seems to be no end. As the world remembers this horrific tragedy 100 years later, it seems right to revisit it once again if for no other reason than to lay certain gho...

• MY FIRST VISIT TO GOOSE CREEK

  They came in carriages, men in powdered wigs, ladies in lace and satin, down the shady lane to the parish church of St. James – located near enough to Charles Towne Landing to be safe from Indian attacks, and yet close to plantations in the area. Ver...

• WHERE DO YOU GO – When you’ve really blown it? Reflections on the life and witness of Chuck Colson

  You go to a friend’s house, of course. With the debacle of Watergate hanging over his neck, with the public outraged at the Nixon administration he served so loyally as a hatchet man, with a prison sentence looming over him on the horizon, Chuck Cols...

• 05-13-12 "Secret of Lasting Friendship" The Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore

  Printable version