Hot Rod Anglican: Beautifully Understated

Hot Rod Anglican: Beautifully Understated

So, imagine my delight to read the following words from the The Rt. Rev’d Wendell N. Gibbs, Jr., bishop of the Diocese of Michigan, in commenting on EDOMI's current financial woes:

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We are in a different financial place than where we were even 6 short months ago.

I cannot help picturing a group of Episcopal bishops, gathered together indaba-ing in the Afterlife, when one bishop offers in a solemn tone:

We are in a warmer place than heretofore.

BabyBlueOnline: The Official Episcopal "State of the Church" Report is released to the public

BabyBlueOnline: The Official Episcopal "State of the Church" Report is released to the public

AAC meeting in Atlanta gets started

Rt. Reverand David Anderson, CANA Bishop and head of the AAC gave a stirring opening address, followed by Rev. Phillip Ashey as the main speaker for the night. The meeting is taking place at Holy Cross Anglican Church in Loganville Ga. ... A Parish started around the year 2000 and now with more that 600 Anglican members! A Beautiful Building with towering Bell Tower.

Tomorrow Anglican tv will be live video streaming this session of the Blueprint for the New Church Conference Friday, March 27, 2009 - 4:15-5:15pm (EST)

Also the Ugandan Parishes form their Diocese today -Diocese of the Holy Spirit.

ACNA Expects at Least Five Inaugural Dioceses

The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) expects to receive at least five, and perhaps as many as eight, applications for official recognition as a diocese when it meets for its first provincial assembly in June.

A letter sent in January by the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan to members of the Common Cause Partnership encouraged the formation of dioceses.

“Consistent with all Anglican practice, congregations are a part of an Anglican province because they are part of a diocese, which in turn, is part of a group of dioceses banded together as a national (or international) church,” Bishop Duncan wrote. “This principle is critical to understanding the provisional constitution of the [ACNA], and to the steps we all need to take as we move toward our first provincial assembly.”

Bishop Duncan is Archbishop-designate of the ACNA and Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that is now under the auspices of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone. The Rev. J. Philip Ashey, chief operating officer and chaplain for the American Anglican Council, told The Living Church that Pittsburgh is one of the five applications for recognition as an ACNA diocese that have already been received. The deadline for applications is April 15.

Earlier this month, the Rt. Rev. John H. Chapman, Bishop of Ottawa in the Anglican Church of Canada, said he would authorize a congregation under his oversight to begin performing same-sex blessings in part because “while our church struggles to honor the call for gracious restraint in blessing same-sex unions, those who are proponents of cross-border interventions have and continue to show no restraint.”

That view was echoed this week during the House of Bishops’ spring retreat by Bishop Dan Edwards of Nevada. Bishop Edwards posted a blog entry noting that a number of bishops are considering the repeal of Resolution B033 because of what they perceive as a lack of reciprocal restraint by the ACNA.

Fr. Ashey countered that it is unrealistic to expect the ACNA to postpone its efforts to organize while same-sex blessings continue to occur unofficially in a number of dioceses in both the U.S. and Canadian churches.

“[Ottawa and Nevada] have already made their decisions and are now looking for an excuse to implement them,” he said. “We have responded to the invitation from the GAFCON primates to form an orthodox Anglican province in the Americas.”

The ACNA has been welcomed “in abiding and full communion” by the standing committee of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. The March 20 announcement also noted that the standing committee recommended that the Church of Nigeria send a delegation to the provincial assembly in Bedford “to demonstrate our enduring partnership in the gospel.”

The Living Church Foundation

Fox Contributor says time to "plant"

When the Pastor Says It's 'A Time to Sow'

By FRED BARNES
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123751393100191463.html
March 19, 2009

In 2007, my wife Barbara and I left The Falls Church, which we had happily attended from the time we became Christians a quarter-century ago. It's a 277-year-old church in northern Virginia well-known for its popular preacher, the Rev. John Yates, its adherence to traditional biblical teachings and its withdrawal in 2005 from the national Episcopal church. Our three grown daughters and their families stayed behind at The Falls Church.

We didn't leave in anger. We didn't have political or theological anxieties. Rather, we left for a new church because our old church wanted us to. The Falls Church has become entrepreneurial as well as evangelical. It's in the church-planting business. And we were encouraged by Mr. Yates to join Christ the King, the church "planted" near our home in Alexandria. We were a bit ambivalent about the move, but when Christ the King opened its doors in September 2007, we were there.

Well, not quite its doors. The church began with a monthly service in a 600-seat school auditorium. About 30 people showed up, mostly members of the seed group dispatched from The Falls Church. Soon Christ the King, which was launched with a grant of $100,000 from The Falls Church, rented an assembly hall, seating about 100, in a private school and started regular worship every Sunday. Now, with 130 adults and 40 kids, we meet Sunday mornings in another church, whose own service is held in the evening.

But we don't just meet one day a week. One of the problems for a new church is that most of the parishioners don't know one another. They're not yet a community. Barbara and I knew fewer than a dozen of the original members of Christ the King. So David Glade, the 35-year-old pastor, organized everyone into dinner groups that gather monthly. Indeed, they had better gather: When our group skipped a month, Mr. Glade wanted to know why.

Three men's Bible studies have popped up along with a women's group. There is a prayer ministry, a vestry, and a choir led by a volunteer music director. A church retreat is set for August. Newcomers tend to be singles or young couples, and six baptisms are scheduled for the Sunday after next. Barbara and I are the old folks.

"It's a pretty amazing start," Mr. Yates told me. But it's not unusual. Church planting is a burgeoning movement among evangelicals who are conservative in doctrine (but not fundamentalist) and inclusive in their outreach to nonbelievers and lapsed Christians. It's a growing missionary field.

There's a theory behind church planting. It rejects the idea of trying to fill up existing churches before building new ones. Old churches are often "closed clubs" that don't attract new residents or young people or "the lost," says the Rev. Johnny Kurcina, an assistant pastor of The Falls Church. Besides, population increase far exceeds church growth in America. This is especially true in cities.

As an Episcopal Church rector, Mr. Yates began thinking about planting churches 20 years ago. But the bishop of Virginia "wouldn't allow us to discuss it," he says, fearing that new Episcopal churches would lure people from older ones. In 2001, he was allowed to plant a church, but only a county away in a distant exurb.

Mr. Yates was strongly influenced by the Rev. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan. Mr. Keller has led in creating new churches -- Redeemer has planted more than 100 churches in New York and other cities around the world. Innovative new churches, he has written, are "the research and development department" for Christianity, attract "venturesome people" as fresh leaders, and have the spillover effect of challenging existing churches to revitalize their ministry.

Leaving the Episcopal denomination (while remaining in the Anglican Communion) has given Mr. Yates the freedom to plant churches in urban areas amid many Episcopal churches. (One is next door to Christ the King.) His goal is to plant 20 churches in northern Virginia before retiring. Christ the King was the third, and a fourth was recently planted in Arlington. Mr. Kurcina, 33, who is my son-in-law, is preparing to plant a fifth in Fairfax County.

For a growing number of young preachers like Christ the King's Mr. Glade, planting and then leading a new church is an ideal option. As orthodox Anglicans, they didn't feel welcome in the Episcopal church. And they felt a strong calling to lead their own parish. Mr. Glade grew up as an Episcopalian in Jacksonville, Fla. After graduation from Florida State, he came to The Falls Church as an intern and spent four years as a youth leader before attending Trinity Seminary outside Pittsburgh. He returned to The Falls Church eager to lead a theologically conservative Anglican congregation. "In order to do that, you had to go out and do it yourself," he told me.

"Every new church has an awkward phase, figuring out who they are and getting to know each other," Mr. Glade says. That phase is over. Christ the King has also become financially self-sufficient. It aims to be a "healthy church," like its parent. "A healthy church reproduces itself," Mr. Glade says. Christ the King may soon do just that. Its assistant rector wants to plant his own church.


---Mr. Barnes is the executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a Fox News commentator.

BluePrint in Action

A True Blueprint for the New Church in Action

On March 26th at Holy Cross Anglican Church, Loganville, GA, just before the American Anglican Council's "Blueprint" conference kicks off, Anglican history will be made. Over 25 Anglican churches from across the country are sending delegates to convene and begin charting their future together as a diocese in the new Anglican Church in North America.

The delegates that gather will have a common bond; they are all Anglicans under the jurisdiction of the Church of Uganda. While at Holy Cross, this convocation will be moving past the dream of the New Church and beginning the challenging task of making it a reality. Their goal is to be able to send their diocesan delegates to the inaugural Provincial Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America, held June 22-25th, and to vote and ratify the new constitution and canons of the church.

Before they can arrive at the Provincial Assembly in June, there is organizational work to be done. Consistent with Anglican practice, congregations come together to form a diocese and dioceses band together as a national church. This convocation will be taking the first formative step in creating a diocese. (A diocese in the ACNA can also be referred to as a "cluster" or "network.")

Prior to this meeting, the vestry of each congregation needed to adopt a resolution subscribing to the Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church in North America. They also needed to state that their church wanted to be a part of the diocese being formed from the congregations presently under the Church of Uganda. After this, a delegation from each parish was assembled with proportionate representation of lay delegates selected by the vestry, or other means, based on the congregation's average Sunday attendance. All clergy were invited to attend.

When the delegates arrive in Loganville, there will be serious work to do. Structures must be formed - a Standing Committee, Officers (Treasurer, Secretary, and Chancellor) must be elected. Delegates to the Provincial Assembly must be elected to attend the June meeting. Like any organization in formation, draft by-laws and canons need to be ratified along with articles of incorporation and an application for 501c3 status reviewed and filed. Along with these important tasks, a budget and financial report will be prepared to support the emerging organization as well. One of the easier tasks before the delegation will be that of choosing a new name for the new diocese, which will be revealed at the AAC's Blueprint conference.

As this group of parishes comes closer together, we can all thank the Lord for being one more step closer to the new Anglican Church in North America for which we have all waited so long.

Anglican Church in North America Recognized

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 20, 2009

The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has resolved unanimously to be “in abiding and full communion” with the emerging Anglican Church in North America. The Church of Nigeria, which counts more than a quarter of the world’s Anglican Christians as members, is the first Anglican province to formally accept the Anglican Church in North America as its North American partner within the Anglican Communion.

In making their decision, the leaders of the Church of Nigeria’s 153 dioceses also recommended that their province send a delegation to the Anglican Church in North America’s inaugural Provincial Assembly, to be held June 22–25 in Bedford, TX, “to demonstrate our enduring partnership in the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Bishop Robert Duncan, archbishop-designate for the Anglican Church in North America, thanked the Church of Nigeria for their decision. “In this one action, leaders representing every diocese in the Church of Nigeria, which in turn count as members more than a quarter of the world’s Anglicans, have declared themselves to be full partners of the Anglican Church in North America. They have stated clearly that we stand together on the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible, the historic creeds and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as our only Savior and Lord. We look forward to welcoming our Nigerian brothers and sisters to observe our inaugural assembly in Bedford this June.”

“Both in Nigeria and in North America,” added Bishop Duncan, “We understand our mission very similarly, that is, to reach our societies with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.”

The Anglican Church in North America unites some 700 Anglican parishes in 12 Anglican jurisdictions in North America into a single church. Jurisdictions coming together in the Anglican Church in North America are the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy and San Joaquin (of the Anglican Communion Network), the Anglican Mission in the Americas, the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the Reformed Episcopal Church, and the missionary initiatives of Kenya, Uganda, and South America’s Southern Cone. Additionally, the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith North America are founding organizations.