Anglican Network in Canada Synod

-	Establishing the “rules of order”
-	Endorsing the Jerusalem Declaration
-	Instructing the board of directors to pursue membership for ANiC in the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
-	Expressing gratitude to the GAFCon primates
-	Expressing gratitude for the ongoing work of the Common Cause Partnership in the development of the North American Province and encouraging ANiC leadership to work of the implementation of this province at the earliest possible date

It was a very full day!

For a play-by-play of days two and three of synod, you can follow the Anglican Essentials blog where David Jenkins is “live blogging” synod. As well, Christian Schoepke and Claurelle Poole are videoing the key sessions and we will get those posted to the ANiC website as soon as we are able to. I hope, very soon, to post to the ANiC website a copy of this agenda, the Bishop’s Charge, Dr Packer’s message and the parish presentations.

Attached to this email you should find a synod agenda and Bishop Donald Harvey’s charge.

Here are a few highlights…

Bishop Don’s Charge

•	The importance of prayer
•	This synod is follows the template of synods in the Arctic where prayer and praise dominate with intervals of business interspersed.
•	While we are under the jurisdiction and protection of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone (on an emergency temporary and pastoral basis), we are not bound by the constitution on the Southern Cone.
•	“We will be active participants in the formation of the canons and constitution of the new Province of North America.”
•	The business synod will focus only will only be that necessary to make ANiC a viable corporation. All other constitutional aspects will be presented in detail to this synod, then sent to the parishes for discussion before being voted upon at the next synod.
•	Selection of bishops… “Both of us [Bishop Don and Bishop Malcolm Harding] have a shelf life and I am only too aware that ‘best before’ date is approaching and that neither of us want to wait until it is obvious to everyone that our “expiry date” has passed… The Anglican Network in Canada needs to set up a process to select bishops from its own ranks who will be well prepared to catch the torch when we pass it to them.” unlike the Orders of Deacon and Priest, the Episcopacy does come under Provincial guidelines and regulations. Although we expect a new Province soon, it will not have regulations in place for this sort of thing nearly quickly enough for our needs... What I now am going to present to you, I have discussed with Archbishop Venables and it has his approval… What we propose here is a one time only method in order to facilitate us to move ahead. In due course it will be replaced with something more formal… The proposal is that you put the recommendation for three new bishops for the Anglican Network in Canada in the hands of your ANiC House of Bishops (Bishop Malcolm and me)… We when both agree on three names and get the confidential consent of those we select, these names will be sent to Archbishop Venables. He, after consulting with the House of Bishops of the Southern Cone will adopt our nominees and he will announce their appointment. Their consecrations will be conducted by him in Canada and they will receive his specific endorsement which will make them part of his House of Bishops. Being a member of such a House is the requirement for inclusion as a bishop in the world-wide Communion. I am now asking the Chancellor and Committee on Constitutions and Canons to prepare a resolution to be distributed tomorrow and to be voted upon on Saturday morning… Now, if this resolution passes… Each voting delegate to Synod would be given a blank piece of paper and a privacy envelope. You will be requested to put [on the paper] the name of a priest whom you would feel would be an appropriate and desirable person to become a Bishop in the Church of God. Seal that in your envelope…. They will be opened by Bishop Malcolm and me when we meet in private in the New Year. No one but us ever will know the results. This little survey will be just one of many elements we will bring into our discernment process, but learning your thoughts will be very helpful.
•	Call for ongoing prayer for unity amongst us during these turbulent times.
•	Warriors in the Gospel… “Of all the moments I have experienced during the four years that I have been active in this ministry, none moved me more than just a few weeks ago in Virginia. One of our speakers was the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orumbi. He was eating breakfast at table when I approached him to bid him welcome to North America, and express the wish that some day I even might welcome him to Canada. As I approached the good man rose from his breakfast to greet me. When I urged him please to sit down and not interrupt his meal, he looked intently at me and said, “My brother, in my country it always is our custom to stand in the presence of a warrior”. Whether I deserved it or not, I was deeply, deeply moved by this tribute from a man who himself had endured the battles in his own country and abroad more than most of us can imagine. “Now, my brothers and sisters, as I invoke God’s Holy Spirit on this Synod, I want to share with you that same tribute that so recently and movingly was paid to me. It is an honour and privilege to stand in your presence – my fellow warriors in the Gospel.”

Dr J I Packer’s message, “ANiC: Our position and our prospects”

•	“We are a community of conscience, committed to Anglican convictions…”
•	“We are a community of church people, committed to the Anglican Communion… because we recognize in the historic Anglican blend of biblically based, creedally shaped, liturgically ordered, pastorally and evangelically oriented Christianity, with its heritage of human breadth, spiritual depth, theological wisdom, personal piety and irrepressible vitality, the richest version of Christianity that is on offer anywhere. So we stay with global Anglicanism, despite its current disorders, and even though we have been forced to leave our own geographical province, and we contend for a re-reformation that will restore Anglicanism where it is ailing to full purity and health. We are not evangelical, Anglo-Catholic or charismatic in party or sectarian terms, but under the guidance of Scripture we seek to enter into the strengths of all three, and thus to model what we hope and pray will be the Anglicanism of the future. Meanwhile, we do not abandon the Communion, but realign within it.”
•	“We are a community of consecration, committed to the Anglican calling… [which] covers worship and work, doxology and discipline, evangelism and education, holiness and mission.”
•	We are a community of courage, committed to the Anglican confidence in the faithfulness of God…”
•	“…within Anglicanism, we are travelers…but ANiC belongs to that category of travelers whom nowadays we label refugees… displaced from the home we once had…by God’s good providence, we have been given jurisdictional sanctuary and a welcome by the Archbishop of the Southern Cone…”
•	“…the grand scale of Archbishop Venables’ action has effectively demolished the historic Anglican rule of only one bishop with jurisdiction for each geographical area…The bar of alternative episcopal oversight has come down, and cannot be put up again in its old form. In days like this, in which bishops are being elected who will not uphold the fullness of historic Anglican faith, this is a development for which to thank God.”
•	“If a credible constitution can be produced, we may expect that the Primates’ Council within the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans formed at GAFCon will recognize it as a component of the inner circle of authentically Anglican provinces that the GAFCon strategists evidently hope to see formed as a first step to re-establishing Anglican soundness worldwide… We cannot however guarantee that it will come to fruition, so while we pray for its success we must continue the work that this synod is beginning, namely to construct an infrastructure for ANiC that will stand even if the planned third province for North America never becomes reality.”
•	“…what hope do we see for Archbishop Williams’ attempts to hold the Anglican Communion together by means of a covenant, leading to a state of affairs in which refugees like ourselves fell able to return to the places from which they came? Little hope, I think, is the answer to that question. The Archbishop’s public gesture reminds me, at least, of the Canadian hero, Red Green of Possum Lodge, who reckons to hold things together with lashings of duct tape, while the equivocal nature of his own position… robs his leadership of moral authority… this entire enterprise of patching the cracks seems forlorn. The cracks are, quite simply, too wide for that to work.”
•	“There was a meltdown of churchly prerogative in the 16th century, which proved to be God’s way of establishing the Reformation; could anything similar be on the horizon for us today? … this might be God’s heroic surgery, whereby he is using the upheaval to squeeze liberalism out of Anglican leadership…join me in praying that this is what will finally happen.”
•	“…we are trustees, God’s trustees, on the one hand for truth and on the other hand for training. Both are matters of vital importance…”
•	“Concerning truth…ANiC should develop a strong inner theological life, in which, under the authority of Scripture, we mine together the full wealth of the expository traditions that we label evangelical, catholic and charismatic…”
•	“And concerning training: it is vital, in my view, that we work from the start for a renewal of catechetical life, and of adult catechesis in particular, in all our congregations… as the need for lifelong Bible study is unquestioned among us, so the need for continuous doctrinal study in face of constantly mutating paganism should today be recognized as a means both to personal maturing and to effective witness, and should henceforth be pegged into the regular round of weekday congregational activities.”
•	“…our calling is fourfold: to adore our Saviour God, to adorn the doctrine of the gospel with lives of righteousness and holiness, to accept and work through the current pressures, as part of our preordained pilgrimage… and… to address the tasks of pastoral care, evangelism, congregational education, church-planting and mission, with all the resources of energy and enterprise that God has given us.”

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