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ANiC news
ANiC and ACNA events calendar
Jan 4-8 – ACNA College of Bishops meet in Melbourne, FL
Jan 17 – Sanctity of Life Sunday (US)
Jan 21-22 – Anglicans for Life Summit & March for Life, Washington, DC
Jan 29-31 – Living Water Healing Streams Women’s retreat, Ottawa-area
Feb 17-18 – C2C church development workshop for Archdeacons, Toronto
Feb 24 – ACNA Executive Committee meets in Phoenix, AZ
March 5 – Liveword Women’s Conference, Vancouver
April 7-10 – New Wineskins for Global Mission 2016 conference, Ridgecrest, NC
April 12-14 – Ontario clergy silent retreat at a retreat centre near Orangeville
April 16 – Southern Ontario Women’s gathering at New Song, Port Perry (information to come)
April 24, 7pm – The Revs Ken Light and Alvan Lewis ordained priests, Resurrection, Kelowna
May 2-5 – Western clergy retreat, Malibu retreat centre, BC – with Dr Jon Vickery speaking
May 3 – Sanctity of Life Sunday (Canada)
May 12 – March for Life 2016
June 14-15 – National apologetics and teaching conference, Vancouver, BC (Details to come)
June 16 – National preaching conference, Vancouver, BC (Details to come)
June 20-22 – ACNA Executive & Provincial Council meet in Mt Pleasant, SC
Oct 25-28 – Synod 2016, Church of the Good Shepherd, Vancouver, BC
Refugees – what is happening?
ARDFC – There is good news from the Canadian government. It has extended its commitment to match donations to aid Syrian refugees until the end of February. That means that donations through ARDFC for Syrian refugees in the Middle East will be matched by the government through February 29. Maclean’s reports that the reason for the extension is that, of the $100 million in federal funds set aside to match donations, only $12-million has been donated to date.
Many in ANiC are eager to help. Although the media is no longer giving prominence to the story, the plight of refugees hasn’t changed. And while the media spotlight shone briefly on refugees from the Middle East, there are equally desperate and needy refugees all over the world. Christians and other minority groups fleeing persecution in Pakistan were greeted in Thailand by being thrown in jail; Eritrean refugees – many Christians – escaping the horrors of their own country are often captured by slave-traders in Sudan and Sinai; Sudanese and South Sudanese refugees have sought refuge in Egypt and Ethiopia. And so many others have been forced from their homes by persecution and war! It’s overwhelming. But God doesn’t expect us to solve the world’s problems. We are called to pray, however, and to do what we can to help where we can.
What is your congregation doing? Let us know by emailing Marilyn.
This is what we currently are aware of:
Church of Our Lord and The Table, both in Victoria, BC are working together to sponsor an Iraqi refugee family. Lois Pegg, from Church of Our Lord, reports that $25,000 has been raised so far. She writes: “We are planning to sponsor a Christian Iraqi family who are relatives of an Iraqi lady in our church… they fled ISIS several years ago, after the father's uncle, who was a leader in the church in Mosul, was kidnapped and beheaded. They are currently living in Amman Jordan in quite difficult conditions. It's a big leap of faith, and we are trusting God to guide us step by step.” See The Table’s website for more information and to help them reach their goal of $56,000.
Several ANiC churches have raised funds for other local congregations which are sponsoring refugees. Others are donating funds to ARDFC’s Syrian refugee appeal.
World Missions Sunday in ACNA, February 7
The last Sunday after the Epiphany is traditionally designated World Mission Sunday in ACNA churches. In 2016, this falls on February 7. You may wish to use (and adapt as needed) a liturgy posted on the New Wineskins website. Please also consider a special offering for missions, including the ARDFC.
New Wineskins conference, April 7-10
Are you interested in missions? Do you want to know more about God is doing in the world? If you possibly can, do attend the New Wineskins conference, April 7-10. With speakers from around the world, this large conference is always a highlight. It is held in North Carolina, but the effort to attend will be well rewarded. A number of ANiC members, including Bishop Charlie Masters, are planning to be there. Please contact Claus Lenk, ANiC’s On Mission ministry priority leader, if you are interested. Full details of the conference can be found here. By the way, Bishop Stephen Leung will be a workshop leader, discussing AMMiC’s ministry to immigrants and visible minorities.
Along a similar line, BC residents should consider taking advantage of Missions Fest Vancouver, January 29-31.
Upcoming ordinations
The Revs Ken Light and Alvan Lewis will be ordained priests by Bishop Trevor Walters on April 24, 6:30pm, at Resurrection (Kelowna, BC) - 2279 Benvoulin Road.
Grieving
We are grieving the passing of Mary Jane Kemp, wife of the Rev Dave Kemp of Eternal Hope Anglican Church (Carleton Place, ON). Please pray for Dave, their family, and the church family. Funeral services were held on January 11.
Liturgical calendar
Canon Tom Carman has, once again, prepared for ANiC a liturgical calendar using Common Worship (from the Church of England. The pdf is posted on the ANiC website. Clergy and Alter Guild members, in particular, will want to download and print a copy. Thanks Canon Tom!
March for Life, May 12
Anglicans are awakening to the urgency to stand for life. ANiC has taken a strong stand. What will you do? As a start, please participate either in the Ottawa march or in a march in your region – usually held in provincial capitals. So far we know of Anglicans participating in marches in Edmonton and Victoria, as well as Ottawa. But we’d love to have Anglicans for Life represented in all the provincial marches. You might need to take some initiative to organize Anglicans in your area to join together under the Anglicans for Life Canada banner. Email the Rev Vicky Hedelius, director of Anglicans for Life Canada for information.
ANiC’s participation in the Victoria (BC) March for Life is already being organized. The Rev Richard and Jenny Roberts, who will lead ANiC’s participation, report that Bishop Trevor Walters will be marching. And highly visible signs and florescent green caps are ready to go. Rich+ and Jenny will be coordinating transportation from the Vancouver area, so do email them if you can join the group.
Each year ANiC’s participation in the March for Life has been growing. Let’s have a strong showing from in 2016. It’s time to take a stand and be counted!
Whether or not you are able to march, you can join in prayer. Anglicans for Life is partnering with the Colson Center for Christian Worldview to offer the 21 Days of Prayer for Life: Calling Christians to Unite, to Pray, and to Engage Prayer Guide. This guide will unite us in praying for the children lost to abortion, mothers and fathers considering abortion, family members hurt by abortion, and the pro-life community struggling for basic human rights at all stages of life. Download the guide and join in prayer starting at any time.
Liveword Vancouver women’s conference – March 5
Vancouver area women have a wonderful opportunity to attend this annual conference designed specifically for women by women with the purpose of elevating women’s ministry with Biblical expository teaching of God’s Word. This year’s conference is focused on “True Life: Grace & Godliness in the Book of Titus”. For more information on the conference see the conference website.
Date: March 5, 2016
Time: 9:30 am - 3:30 pm (doors open at 8:45 am)
Location: Broadway Church (2700 Broadway E. Vancouver BC)
Cost: $45 per person($55 after February 14) Lunch and snacks provided.
Register on the St John’s website
Women’s meeting in Ontario set for April 16 at New Song, Port Perry
The Rev Aretta Hagle says, “Please mark your calendars and plan to attend. As you know, these have always been fruitful times together.” More details will be available soon.
Did you miss Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas message
Our sovereign clearly communicated the Gospel in her video as she talked about the Christian message of light triumphing over the darkness – quoting the John 1:5. She then talked about the difficult circumstance of Christ entrance into the world and His difficult call to love one another.
Parish and regional news
St Peter’s Fireside (Vancouver, BC) – Despite rain, parishioners gathered to carol on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery in the heart of downtown Vancouver December 23. According to Church for Vancouver, “Quite a number of people stopped, no doubt attracted by the confident singing. Everyone who even hesitated was handed a nicely put together 20-page carol-songbook-cum-testimony-invitation-to-church – and a candle. And some of them joined in with pleasure.”
Got parish news? Let the rest of us know about it! Email Marilyn.
Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) news
ACNA College of Bishops issues report from week-long meeting
In their report, the bishops detail the highlights of their meeting last week which focused on “ways to plant new churches, strengthen marriages, form disciples through common prayer, and guard the biblical faith of the Anglican Communion”. ANiC’s Bishop Trevor Walters’ also presented on clergy burnout. Here is a summary:
Church Planting – The ACNA church planting initiative which began as Anglican1000 has been renamed Always Forward. A new website has been launched with resources for dioceses and church planters. The first resource, a “Church Planter Assessment Manual,” is available now for use. A provincial church planting conference “Always Forward 2016” is planned for Denver, CO on August 25-27 with registration opening on February 1.
Liturgy – Significant progress has been made toward a Book of Common Prayer 2019, with sub-committees hard at work on: Calendar, Collects and Lectionaries; Psalter and Music; Episcopal Services; Pastoral Services; and Offices of the Hours and Liturgies for Special Days. The plan is to produce working texts of a new prayer book by mid-2017.
In mid- February, look for: a third Eucharistic rite, the 3-Year Sunday Lectionary, the Daily Office Lectionary, Collects for the Christian Year, and the minor Offices for Midday, Compline and Family Prayer. A Holy Matrimony liturgy may be ready as early as the end of June.
Holy Orders - The Theological Task Force on Holy Orders is in phase three of their process – focusing on how ecclesiology relates to ordination and holy orders from the three primary perspectives that comprise our Province: Anglo-Catholic, Charismatic, and Evangelical/Reformed. The resources developed by this Task Force will be posted online soon.
Global Anglicanism – The Province of Rwandawas thanked for allowing the PEARUSA to be fully incorporated in the ACNA.
New bishop elected – The College of Bishops elected the Rev Dr Canon Ronald Jackson to be the next bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes.
Change coming to Trinity School of Ministry (Amherst, PA)
Dr Justyn Terry has announced he will step down as Dean and President of Trinity School for Ministry effective June 30. The Terrys plan to return to England for both family and ministry reasons. A search for his replacement is underway; applications will be accepted until March 1.
Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and Anglican Communion news
Primates meeting – news from January 12 (today)
Despite all the predictions of imminent break down and angry walk-outs, the Primates seem to all be meeting together still (as of this writing). The (unverified) address by Archbishop Justin Welby is worth reading, although there is no acknowledgement of the underlying heresy – abandoning the authority of God’s Word, and basic tenets of the faith – that is driving the church apart. Here are some excerpts:
“We so easily take our divisions as normal, but they are in fact an obscenity, a denial of Christ’s call and equipping of the church…
“We can also paint a gloomy picture of the moral and spiritual state of Anglicanism. In all Provinces there are forms of corruption, none of us is without sin. There is litigation, the use of civil courts for church matters in some places. Sexual morality divides us over same sex issues, where we are seen as either compromising or homophobic. The list can go on and on. The East African Revival teaches us the need for holiness. We must be renewed as a holy church, defined by our passionate worship and its content, with every Christian knowing scripture, prayerful, humble and evangelistic. In a sentence, we must be those who are, to the outside world, visibly disciples of Jesus Christ…
“We are a Jesus centred people, and we serve the God who raised Jesus from the dead and raises us. At the heart of the life of the church is not power, or structure, or authority, but the person of Jesus Christ, present by His Spirit, whose plans for good, whose love for the lost is our calling and our urging.
“In this country [England] many talk of the post Christian society, but the C of E…, [is] not losing… we are also in the middle of the biggest reform of the church since the mid-19th century. We are planting churches. And the Bench of Bishops is described by the longer standing members as the most orthodox since WWII….
“The idea is often put forward that truth and unity are in conflict, or in tension. That is not true. Disunity presents to the world an untrue image of Jesus Christ. Lack of truth corrodes and destroys unity….”
Anglican TV has a positive commentary on the progress of the meeting as of last night.
Archbishop Peter Jensen’s issued a short video, on behalf of the GAFCon Primates, thanking us for our prayerful support.
Primates meeting – posturing and praying
So much has been written in the lead up to the meeting of Primates – called by the Archbishop of Canterbury for January 11-16 – designed to the identify the issue and frame the agenda, as well as shape public perceptions and expectations.
The Archbishop of Canterbury did not seem optimistic going into the meetings, telling the BBC that a formal schism would be a failure, but not a disaster.
The Anglican Communion establishment and the “liberal” western churches are intent on framing the disagreement in terms (a lack of) love and normal family tensions. Or as the Anglican Church of Canada’s primate Archbishop Fred Hiltz puts it, the primates “need to address openly and honestly the tensions in our common life. We need to confess any and all ‘uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbours and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us…” At the same time, Archbishop Hiltz is preparing his members for the worst. According to the Anglican Journal, “Hiltz also stressed that… the Primates’ Meeting… does not have the authority to judge who belongs in the Communion and who does not.”
The official website for the meeting focuses on the Communion as an institutional family. The Archbishop of Canterbury calls us to pray for “…that the love of Christ… will so overwhelm us that we are able to love each other as we should…and the wisdom that we may know the call and purpose of God and in love and wisdom serve His world in the way He calls us to.”
The “conservative” position represented most vocally by GAFCon members is framing the conversation around truth – specifically obedience to the truth of God’s Word and upholding historic Anglican formularies. GAFCon general secretary, Archbishop Peter Jensen writes “Truth matters even more than institutional unity. But true unity supports and nourishes the truth.”
Archbishop Stanley Ntagali (Uganda) writes his Province, “The Archbishop of Canterbury understands that the first topic of conversation in the “gathering” of Primates is the restoration of godly order in the Anglican Communion. This is the unfinished business from the non-implemented, but unanimously agreed, Communique from the 2007 Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam. If such discipline is implemented and godly order restored during the “gathering” of Primates, then I will be free to join any subsequent Primates Meeting that may be convened immediately thereafter in Canterbury. If such discipline and godly order is not restored, then I will uphold the Provincial Assembly’s resolution and withdraw from the meeting.”
ACNA’s Bishop Bill Atwood, writing in the American Anglican Council newsletter, says:
“Leaders from GAFCON and the Global South are clear that they know what is at stake. There needs to be clear consensus and commitment to “the faith once delivered” (Jude 1:3) in order for the Communion to survive… This gathering is a very difficult one… Orthodox leaders are well aware that what is at stake is eternal life and redemption. Those who diverge from revealed Christian truth are not just wrong, they are heading toward and leading others to Hell. There is literally no other issue that is as important…
“For more than twenty years, there has been a huge war going on. It has come to a head. The decisive battle will be in Canterbury from January 11th to 15th. It will determine the future of the Anglican Communion. Please pray! This is not just an institutional kerfuffle. It is a spiritual war of epic proportions. Any energy devoted to praying and fasting for this meeting will be well invested.”
The GAFCon Primates aren’t the only ones calling for repentance. A list of Church of England clergy and General Synod members have signed a letter calling for the Primates to acknowledge and repent of the Church’s failure to love LGBTI people and making “…them feel second class citizens in the Kingdom of God…”
In a letter to ACNA members, Archbishop Foley Beach explained why he was attending the Primates meeting, saying he was going at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as a member of the GAFCon Primates Council, as a full partner with Global South Primates, and finally “to not attempt to bring godly order and unity to the Church would be a sin against the Lord and His bride.” Also, apparently in response to those who believe the ACNA should not bother with the Anglican Communion, Canon David Roseberry gives 10 reasons he believes being part of the official Anglican Communion is important for the ACNA.
What the pundits are saying…
If you read no other piece on the upcoming meeting, the various players, positions and strategies, read David Ould’s thoughtful analysis posted on StandFirm. Gavin Ashenden has also prepared a worthwhile article setting the Anglican Communion division in the broader context of aggressive secularism and militant Islam.
David Virtue writes, “One hopes that the Lambeth event will show the courage and faithfulness of the Global South triumphing over Western compromise, cowardice, and trust in unbiblical forms of reconciliation. The future of the Anglican Communion is at stake.”
Alan Haley is pessimistic about the Primates meeting, anticipating a more clear-cut splintering of the formal structure. But, he writes, “The big question is: what will the Church of England do? … if Parliament forces the Church to offer same-sex marriages, then the Church will splinter, and parts of it will become disestablished. The Church of England as we know it will (especially under King Charles III) cease to be.” Similarly, David Virtue seems to suggest that a good outcome of the Primates’ meeting is a “recognized new [orthodox] Anglican Province in the British Isles”.
Profiles of Primates of the Anglican Communion:
Anglican Ink has prepared brief biographies of all Primates participating in the meeting this week:
The more things change…
You’ll be surprised how current these articles are:
· Canon David Short’s 2004 articles: Are we stronger than He? and A Crisis in Koinonia
· Canon Dr J I Packer’s 2002 article: Why I walked
Explaining GAFCon
Archbishop Peter Jensen briefly recounts how and why GAFCon came to be, the need for GAFCon, and why GAFCon matters.
Mother’s Union turns 140
The worldwide Anglican Mothers Union, which began in a Hampshire parish in1876, has grown in 140 years to encompass more than four million women – and men – in over 80 countries. Its mission is to “… show our Christian faith by the transformation of communities worldwide. We can do this through the promotion of stable marriage, family life and the protection of children.”
Note: A full newsletter will follow soon, including the International news and Resources sections
Soul food
Thought
"If you do not die to sin, you shall die for sin. If you do not slay sin, sin will slay you." C H Spurgeon
And now a Word from our Sponsor
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Colossians 1:15-20 ESV
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