Sometimes reflection is a process that takes longer than a few days or even a few weeks.  In the case of my reflections today, I offer you reflections that are immature and not yet fully ripe, yet which must be spoken in order to help magnify the beam of light that has pierced the gloom overshadowing faithful Anglicans in North American for the past few years, and is spreading across the continent and around the world – swiftly and powerfully.  This week marked the beginning of a new era in North American Anglicanism.  With the passage of the Constitution and Canons of the ACNA (Anglican Church in North America) and the enthronement of its new Archbishop, Bob Duncan,  the pieces of the Anglican puzzle are beginning to fall into place and the puzzle is beginning to take shape – for many, a new shape altogether.

Many of us have along-awaited this day as we have struggled through years of confusion, heresy, broken relationships, and uncertainty about our place in the life of the Anglican Communion.  This week’s events shed light, hope and clarity upon these things.  There is renewed strength and unity among us as Anglicans from many different sub-divisions of His Church, long estranged from one another through different doctrines and styles of worship.  We now have renewed purpose and vision, as well as clarity about who we are and where we are going…together as a unified body of Anglicans in North America.

However, not everything is settled.  There are still divisions and wounds that must be healed and overcome.  The issue of women’s ordination is a thorn in the side of the ACNA that must be extracted in order for us to be fully effective in mission and witness.  The Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in the Americas presented a challenge to the ACNA this past week to turn back to the teaching of the Apostles and Church fathers on this issue and move forward in the understanding that we cannot conform to this world, but must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  In order for there to be true communion with the Orthodox Church, certain doctrines of the ACNA, including that of women’s ordination, must be retooled.  Although the issue of women’s ordination is not a creedal issue for Anglicans; it is nevertheless an issue that evokes strong feelings and produces huge roadblocks to collegial ministry in the Anglican Church and the ecumenical community of Christians worldwide.

The specific relationships between congregations, their bishops, the Common Cause partners and the ACNA must also be sorted out.  The current model is complicated and looks more like a conglomeration of loosely connected congregational churches rather than an historic apostolic and catholic model which has been our tradition for centuries.  In my mind, this issue, more than any other, will determine the amount of fruit that the Anglican Church in North America will be able to produce and whether some congregations will even survive in this new era of Anglicanism.  The current model breeds confusion, mistrust and lack of accountability between congregations, the Common Cause partners and the wider Anglican Communion.  Currently, the individual parish bylaws of Christ the Redeemer have more authority and power than the bylaws of CANA, the ACNA or the Church of Nigeria, to which all we are theoretically subject.

And yet, despite the issues remaining to be sorted through, we have much over which to rejoice.  As St. Paul writes in the fifth chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians,  “the old has passed away, behold, the new has come…”  A new era has indeed begun which will prayerfully produce a harvest of ripe fruit to be reaped by the member churches of the ACNA.  We must then, look to the future and to the “fields which are white unto harvest.”  Archbishop Duncan issued a challenge for the ACNA to plant 1,000 churches in the next 5 years.  By God’s grace, this will be accomplished.  Yet not without a strong commitment by each of us to “forget what lies behind, and press on to the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  The Cross is calling to us.  Will we respond unreservedly and selflessly, choosing sacrifice over selfishness?  Will be enter into the fray of battle and endeavor to fight the good fight of the faith and seek to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus himself to “Go and Make Disciples of All Nations…?”  For the sake of Christ’s kingdom, I pray you will choose this day to serve the Lord and not the flesh…that you will choose life!

Below, you will find a PowerPoint presentation, which accompanied by the sermon I gave this past Sunday at Christ the Redeemer, will assist you in personally sorting through the new model that is being formed by the ACNA.  I encourage you also to go to the website for the ACNA, so that you may review the constitution, video footage of the Assembly and other newsworthy documents.

May God help us all as we seek to be faithful witness to Jesus Christ our Lord!