Anglican Mainstream

Exclusive interview with David Virtue, VOL

VOL: What is your overall take on this gathering of African Bishops from 12 African nations?

DUNCAN: This, the Second All African Bishops Conference has lacked the clarity of the first All African Bishops' Conference. What I believe we learn from this conference six years later is that Anglicanism without a confession is in a troubled place. The contrast between the spirit of GAFCON and this conference was striking. The prayerful, joyful always aware that God-is-right -here attitude of the African Church was present only when we worshipped or shared relationally. The sessions at the conference were dominated by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and social solutions where the gospel of Jesus is not the driving force.

By and large, the folks in Entebbe were the same folks at Lagos and many of the same folks in Jerusalem, but this conference lacked that great enthusiastic spirit that the joy of Jesus invariably displays. Conference presenters were more often good-hearted NGO's, but what exuded and continues to exude from the bishops of Africa was not so often on the podium since bishops were not so often on the podium. The agenda, apart from worship and Bible studies, was far more dominantly social than spiritual. Nevertheless and as always, the Lord did great things for many who shared in the conference and He is able to work all things together for good. (Rom. 8:28)

VOL: Did you feel accepted and affirmed as the new Anglican boy on the block?

DUNCAN: Over and over again, bishops all across Africa expressed to me their affection and respect for the stand that I and all of us have made and their sense absolute oneness in the gospel.

Read here

By Charles Raven

On Sunday 15th August, Bishop Trevor Walters, Area Bishop (West Canada), preached at two churches in Worcestershire. In the morning he visited the congregation at Christ Church Wyre Forest, an 'extra mural' Anglican church plant near Kidderminster and then went on to preach at the parish church of Christ Church Lye in the industrial north of the county.

At Christ Church, Bishop Trevor took as his text Jesus' words in Luke 12:32 'Be not afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.' He spoke powerfully about the way that the expectation of Jesus' return as a real event in history underpins the Kingdom's reversal of worldly values and how we need to guard against a lazy reading of the Bible which accommodates it to what is fashionable.

Bishop Trevor's message came with an integrity which arises out of his many years of pastoral experience and the costly stand for the gospel which  he and his colleagues in the ACNA have taken.  Bishop Trevor continues to be rooted in the congregation of  St Matthew's in Abbotsford, BC where he was previously rector and under whose leadership a series of new churches were planted, despite a long running, continuing and costly battle to resist ejection from the church's property by the leadership of the Anglican Church of Canada.

It was a great privilege to share in this experience of gospel partnership and a very encouraging reminder that despite so much compromise with the prevailing secularism, a new and vital paradigm of Anglican faith and order is emerging.

Rev Charles Raven

From AAC

There is much positive progress to report in the Anglican realignment, with the orthodox Anglicans coming together and becoming stronger. The maturing of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is proceeding apace and showing that it has real staying power. At our recent meeting in Amesbury, Massachusetts, the ACNA gathering took part in the installation of Bishop Bill Murdoch as the diocesan in his new pro-cathedral. The feeling as the service progressed was "this is us"-this is the ACNA growing and expanding, and now the New England area has a cathedral and a settled bishop.

Additionally the ACNA approved and welcomed two applicant dioceses, the Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes (ADGL) and the Anglican Diocese of the South (ADOTS). These dioceses have the potential of having some churches fully seated as members, and other churches maintaining ties to another ACNA judicatory for the time being-having dual citizenship if you will. In ADOTS, some of the churches that I have covered as a CANA bishop are maintaining ties to CANA, but are also partner parishes with the new diocese. This allows a transition time that avoids abrupt endings of established relationships.

Read here

By David Roseberry, Treading Grain

Our guest blogger today is The Rev’d Canon David Roseberry, Rector of Christ Church, Plano, Texas and Chair of Anglican 1000.  He writes today of the Anglican 1000 initiative:

FORT WORTH, Texas – On Friday, June 25, the Texas Second Court of Appeals granted the Diocese's Petition for Writ of Mandamus and instructed the 141st District Court to modify its ruling of Sept. 16, 2009, to the effect that there cannot be a second Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and a second Corporation of the diocese.

In April 2009 attorneys for The Episcopal Church joined Mr. Jonathan Nelson and Ms. Kathleen Wells, representing local TEC interests, in a suit against the Diocese and Corporation. The case was assigned to the district court under the Hon. John Chupp. Applying neutral principles of law, Friday's decision found that “a corporation cannot sue itself” and that “it is undisputed” by both plaintiffs and defendants “that there is only one Corporation and one Fort Worth Diocese.”

“[W]hile Mr. Nelson and Ms. Wells may be authorized to represent the individuals who hired them,” the appellate court said, “these attorneys have not established their authority to represent or appear on behalf of the Fort Worth Diocese and Corporation as required by rule 12 [of Texas Rules of Civil Procedure].” Read the rest of this entry »

ChristchurchXP is celebrating its new home

A very special event has been planned for September 12, 2010, when ChristchurchXP will have a dedication and consecration of the new church facilities designed by Cole & Cole Architects out of Montgomery, Alabama. This will be a wonderful event with the building dedication beginning at 9:30, a Festival Eucharist at 10:30 and a Celebration Picnic on the church grounds that will begin at 12:00. Bishop John Guernsey, as well as 2 archbishops, will be present for this great occasion.

ChristchurchXP held its first service on April 17, 2005. Prior to this time many from their former Episcopal parish were active in conservative movements and even helped to start Stand Firm Alabama. They worked diligently to promote orthodoxy within the diocese…..however, ultimately a group left and began a new parish – ChristchurchXP.

After only five short years the Parish’s vision of having a home of their own has finally become a reality. On July 11, 2010 ChristchurchXP will hold its first service in its new church located at 8800 Vaughn Road, Montgomery, Alabama. The service will begin at 9:30 a.m

The Parish is excited about the opportunities for evangelism within the Capital City and look forward to welcoming visitors and anyone interested in finding a church family. For more information anyone can call the church office at 334-387-0566 or see the website.

ChristchurchXP is located in Montgomery, Alabama, and is a part of the Anglican Church in North America.
 

Bishop Martyn Minns, missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America in the Anglican Church in North America, will be preaching at St Mary's Church, Portreath, near Penzance in the Diocese of Truro after the 0945 morning service on Sunday June 20th.   Bishop Minns was formerly rector of Truro Church, Fairfax, Virginia, outside  Washington DC which was named after Truro Parish (now the Diocese of Truro) in Cornwall.

From Orlando Sentinel

The Anglican Church in North America, formed by churches that split from the Episcopal Church over issues such as gay marriage, added two new dioceses totalling 32 congregations.

The ACNA added the Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes, which has 12 congregations in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, and the Anglican Diocese of the South, with its 20 churches in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Both dioceses are part of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, an association of orthodox Anglican congregations and clergy in North America that is a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, a community of 80 million people.

Read here

From The Living Church

Officials of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), which launched a year ago as an alternative to the Episcopal Church, are reporting significant progress in their efforts to share Eucharist with other churches and to do evangelism alongside messianic Jews.

In a report delivered at the ACNA’s annual meeting in Amesbury, Mass., on June 9, ecumenism task force chairman Ray Sutton listed a series of recent milestones that show how the ACNA is forging connections outside mainline Protestantism.

Dialogues with the Orthodox Church in America have reportedly knocked down one of the centuries-old barriers that have kept Anglican and Orthodox Christians from sharing Eucharist. The big concession: when sharing Eucharist, the ACNA would confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and not add the phrase and the Son, as Western Christians traditionally do in a formulation called the Filioque.

What’s more, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod has lined up four meetings with ACNA representatives at seminaries later this year as the two denominations explore potential for Eucharistic sharing. The ACNA is also inviting 17 messianic Jewish groups to a September summit to explore “how we can do ministry together,” Sutton said.

Read here

Click to Watch

From Anglican TV

Annual Provincial Council of the Anglican Church in North America for the Year of Our Lord 2010

All Saints Pro-Cathedral and Ministry Center, Amesbury, Massachusetts, 8th June 2010

Unless the Lord builds the House, their labor is in vain who build it. [Ps 127.1]

It was fifty weeks ago that we gathered to constitute the Anglican Church in North America.

At that time we understood the mission God had for us: “To reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.“ Knowing what you are sent to do is a great starting point, indeed, it is the necessary starting point for the Christian.

Fifty weeks ago we also understood that it was time for orthodox Anglicanism to come together in North America. One hundred forty years of splintering and dividing – forty years in earnest – needed mending, for Christ’s sake, for the kingdom’s sake, and for our own souls’ sake. The coming together formalized at Bedford, Texas, was no less than a sovereign act of God (done in a people who were willing) for which we ought continually to give thanks and for the strengthening of which we must continually labor.

Along the way other understandings have been clarified for us. We have learned to describe our method for achieving this transformation in Christ Jesus as “converted individuals, in multiplying congregations, fueled by the Holy Spirit.” Moreover, we have been able to articulate a threefold accountability without which any congregation falls short of being reliably Anglican: accountable to the Holy Scriptures, accountable to the Great Tradition, accountable for the transformation of society. These understandings are, in themselves, remarkable achievements.

We did not do these things. The Lord did them in a cooperating people. The Lord has built this House. It is marvelous in our eyes. Read the rest of this entry »

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald for Boston.com

Amesbury- The Anglican Diocese of the Northeast becomes official this weekend as Bp. Bill Murdoch is installed as the fledgling diocese's first bishop.  The festivities in the new cathedral, located in a church purchased from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, will be one of the scheduled events for the ACNA's Provincial Council, which meets in Amesbury beginning June 7:

During the week of June 7, about 100 bishops and delegates from across North America will gather here at All Saints Anglican Church for a meeting of the year-old Anglican Church in North America, or ACNA. 

Though the Episcopal Church is much larger, with 7,400 congregations, it has been losing members for decades. The ACNA, meanwhile, is growing, from 700 congregations a year ago to about 800 now. And although ACNA has not sought official recognition yet from the Anglican Communion, it received affirmation in April as “a faithful expression of Anglicanism’’ from a gathering of leaders of 20 of the communion’s 38 provinces….

By Charlie Boyd, Christian Today

Orthodox Anglicans in North America are inviting priests in the Church of England to make a show of solidarity by taking part in a clergy swap.

The Anglican Church in North America was formed last year by Anglicans who broke away from the liberal Episcopal Church in the US. It is proposing the swap in the wake of last Saturday’s consecration by TEC of its first partnered lesbian bishop.

ACNA said the clergy swap would be an opportunity for Church of England parishes and clergy to express their solidarity and friendship with ACNA churches.

Participating clergy will be matched to churches with similar preaching and ministry styles and serve the pulpit for a period of three to four weeks in January and July or August next year.

In a letter of invitation to Church of England clergy, Paul Perkin, Chair of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the UK and Ireland, and Secretary Chris Sugden, said the swap would be of “mutual benefit”.

“We are writing in the wake of the letter from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church to the Primates of the Anglican Communion that her consecration of a woman in a partnered same-sex relationship represents the mind of the majority of elected leaders in the Episcopal Church,” they wrote.  Read here

From The Living Church

At the request of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, the Anglican Mission in the Americas is seeking a greater distance from the Anglican Church in North America, which it helped found.

The Anglican Mission will ask the ACNA’s provincial council, which meets June 8 and 9, to change its status from jurisdiction to ministry partner. Leaders of both the ACNA and the Anglican Mission said that there was widespread confusion about how the two ministries relate to each other. Both parties said the new arrangement clarifies their structural relationship.

Changing the affiliation “will allow the Anglican Mission to maintain a level of connection to the North American Province, even though the missionary movement will remain under the spiritual and canonical authority of Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini and the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda,” said a communiqué from the Anglican Mission. “It also allows for the Anglican Mission to continue to function as a missionary movement committed to church planting as we have for the last decade.”

A communiqué from the Most Rev. Robert M. Duncan, Archbishop of ACNA, said the Anglican Mission’s request for a different affiliation “came as a result of a January resolution by the Rwandan House of Bishops objecting to the dual membership of Rwanda’s missionary bishops in the North American College of Bishops.”  Read here

From AMiA

A special communique from the Anglican Mission in the Americas: The Anglican Mission’s Relationship with the Anglican Church in North America

For the past year Bishop Chuck Murphy and Archbishop Bob Duncan have been seeking to clarify the Anglican Mission’s structural relationship within the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). This clarification, as required by our original protocol, is necessary as we approach the ACNA Provincial Council to be held June 8 – 9.

By George Conger, CEN

Predictions of the death of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) appear to have been premature, as the leaders of the third Anglican province-in-waiting in North America report that in its first year of operations it has added 106 congregations.

Archbishop Robert Duncan, the Bishop of Pittsburgh and leader of ACNA, last week reported that since the Church’s founding convocation in June 2009, 106 new churches have either been planted or joined the ACNA, bringing its total number of congregations to 809 comprising an estimated 100,000 Anglicans in the United States and Canada.

“When we began in June of 2009, I issued a challenge that we plant 1,000 new churches in the five years of my service as your Archbishop. It is wonderful to see how much progress has already been made,” Archbishop Duncan said.

Read here

by Chris Sugden, Evangelicals Now, May 2010

The UK website group Fulcrum have now recognized that TEC was dishonest from the beginning. But they are still blinded by the belief that Canterbury remains the key to the unity of the Communion and the integrity of orthodox faith in the Communion.

Read the rest of this entry »

Archbishop Bob Duncan speaks of recognition by and partnership with many Anglican Provinces at the Global South Encounter

From Anglican TV

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post

More than 100 new churches have been added to a breakaway Anglican group less than a year since its formation.

The Anglican Church in North America has now grown to comprise 809 congregations, some of which were newly planted and many of which severed ties with The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada over scriptural authority and homosexuality.

"When we began in June of 2009, I issued a challenge that we plant 1,000 new churches in the five years of my service as your Archbishop. It is wonderful to see how much progress has already been made," said ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan in a statement.

Among the newest churches in the ACNA is the Church of the Epiphany in Hamilton, Ontario, which started meeting in January. The church began with members who left the Anglican Church of Canada.

"We left everything behind, and we started fresh," said the Rev. Vicky Hedelius. "We stepped out naked, and he has clothed us … All you have to do is take the first step, and He guides you on to the next."  Read here

From Anglican Church in North America

New Anglican congregations are springing up all over North America. Since the church’s founding in June of 2009 with 703 congregations, an additional 106 new churches have either joined or have been planted by the Anglican Church, bringing the church’s total number of congregations to 809.

“When we began in June of 2009, I issued a challenge that we plant 1,000 new churches in the five years of my service as your Archbishop. It is wonderful to see how much progress has already been made,” said Archbishop Robert Duncan.

One of those new church plants is Restoration Anglican Church in Addison, Texas. The congregation, which began meeting last fall, hosts between 100 and 120 people for Sunday services.

“We just want to do church for the sake of others. We really feel we have a calling for those who are broken, those who are lost and those who are looking for a place where they can walk through life together and grow in faith with other believers,” said the Rev. Jed Roseberry, Resurrection’s founding priest.  Read here