Living a Faithful Life - '26-'27 Program Year
Author:
September 02, 2026
Beloveds,
As we prepare for a new program year, I find myself thinking about one of the great gifts—
and tensions—of being the Church.
We are a people of tradition and inheritance. We receive prayers generations before us
have prayed, gather around the same Table, hear the same Scriptures, and belong to a
story far larger than ourselves.
And we are also a living Church.
In every generation, we are called not simply to preserve what we have received, but to
inhabit it faithfully—to discover again what this ancient faith has to say to the lives we are
actually living.
Because our lives are complicated. We carry full calendars and tired bodies. We navigate
work, relationships, grief, responsibility, uncertainty, joy, injustice, and change.
And I am increasingly convinced that our faith can equip us for far more of this life than
we sometimes give it permission to.
That conviction is at the heart of our guiding vision for 2026–2027:
LIVING A FAITHFUL LIFE
Ancient Practices for Everyday Discipleship
This year, we will explore six enduring practices through which Christians have learned to
live more deeply in response to God:
WORSHIP — gathering around Word and Sacrament to worship God and be formed as the
Body of Christ.
PRAYER — deepening our relationship with God through conversation, silence, listening,
and praise.
CARE — loving one another as Christ loves us.
SERVICE — joining God’s work of healing, justice, generosity, and reconciliation.
LEARNING — growing in faith and wisdom through Scripture, tradition, and one another.
REST — receiving God’s gift of Sabbath and learning to trust grace more than our own
striving.
These are not six new programs. They are ancient Christian practices already woven
through the life of St. Paul’s. This year, we are going to practice them more intentionally—
and discover what happens when we carry them beyond the Cathedral doors.
A Practice for Every Week
Beginning on Rally Day, September 13, you will receive a new Living a Faithful Life card
every Sunday—so yes, collect the whole deck!
Each card will name our Faithful Life Focus for the season, the shared Cathedral Practice
we are taking on together, and additional practices you can try during the week depending
on where you are in your life and faith.
The goal is not to complete every card. The goal is to practice—to discover which of these
ancient rhythms help you meet the real circumstances of your life with greater faithfulness.
And if we are asking each of us to practice more intentionally, our common life at St. Paul’s
should do the same. So you will notice some changes this year.
Worship with Greater Intention
Our Sunday announcements will move to the beginning of the service. Once we enter the
liturgy, we want to give ourselves fully to worship—and when worship concludes, to protect
the formation time we have set aside for adults, children, and youth. Announcements at
the beginning of the service helps to accomplish both.
You will also see new Time and Talent tokens in the narthex.
Many of us now make our financial gifts online or through recurring giving- and so many
people give of their time and talent. The tokens give everyone a tangible way to participate
in the offertory by placing something in the plate representing the time, gifts, work, service,
relationships, and life we offer to God.
The offertory has never been simply about collecting money. At the Eucharist, we offer our
whole lives. The tokens are a small physical reminder of that larger truth.
A Fuller Sunday Evening at the Cathedral
Beginning this year, each Sunday evening we will offer 4 p.m. Evensong followed by a condensed
Holy Eucharist.
The musical shape of Evensong will vary across the year. On some Sundays, the service will
be led by the full Cathedral Choir. On others, by the Schola Cantorum. And on some
evenings, the service will rely wholly on the congregation itself to sing and pray the parts of
Evensong together.
That variety matters.
Evensong is not only something we come to hear. It is a form of prayer the Church inhabits
together. Sometimes that prayer will be carried by the full richness of our Cathedral music
ministry; sometimes by a smaller ensemble; and sometimes by the gathered people
themselves.
Each expression reveals something different about who we are as a Cathedral: a place of
musical excellence, a place deeply rooted in Anglican tradition, and a place where the
whole gathered community is invited to pray, sing, and participate in the worship of God.
Following Evensong with Holy Eucharist allows us to root our Sunday evening life even
more deeply in our Anglican and sacramental tradition while also living more fully into our
vocation as a Cathedral for the city.
A Cathedral should be a place whose doors are open when people are searching.
Someone may come for music and encounter prayer. Someone may need silence.
Someone may be curious about faith. Someone may simply need the Eucharist.
And for those of us already at home at St. Paul’s, Sunday evening offers another way to
enter the breadth and beauty of our tradition and begin the week grounded in prayer and
sacrament.
Ancient Tradition, Still Speaking
During Lent and Easter, our Cathedral will welcome Icons in Transformation, an
extraordinary exhibition placing the ancient Christian tradition of iconography in
conversation with contemporary art, with artist Ludmilla Pavolic intepreting traditional
icons into contemporary pieces.
You will see some physical changes around the Cathedral (things moving) as we make
room for the exhibition. More importantly, the exhibit will become part of our worship,
prayer, formation, and reflection during some of the most significant seasons of the
Christian year.
In many ways, the exhibit expresses what I hope for this entire year: deeply rooted and
alive; ancient and contemporary; received from those before us and faithfully
practiced now.
Some things this year will feel different. Much will remain wonderfully familiar.
We will still gather around Word and Sacrament. We will sing, pray, learn, serve our
neighbors, care for one another, welcome strangers, celebrate, grieve, feed people, and
show up for one another.
We are not leaving behind who St. Paul’s has been.
We are continuing to become more fully who God is calling us to be.
And my invitation to you is not simply to attend more church.
It is to discover more of what your faith can do.
Practice worship.
Practice prayer.
Practice care.
Practice service.
Practice learning.
Practice rest.
Take your card home. Try Evensong. Stay for Eucharist. Offer your time and talent.
Experiment with prayer. Ask questions. Serve someone. Receive Sabbath.
And pay attention to what happens when these practices leave the Cathedral with you.
None of this earns God’s love. We begin with grace—with the love of God already given to
us in Jesus Christ. These practices help us learn how to live from that grace in the very real
lives we have been given.
By the end of this year, I hope we will have accomplished something far more important
than a successful program year: that each of us will have discovered practices we can
reach for in joy, difficulty, confusion, ordinary days, and overwhelming ones—practices that
root us more deeply in Christ and become part of the shape of a faithful life.
Come and discover how much this ancient faith still has to give us.
With gratitude,
Dean Katie+
The Very Reverend Katie Churchwell+, 15th Dean, St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
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