Does anyone think that the former Governor of NJ Jim McGreevey, twice married and now living with his homosexual lover while studying at General Theological Seminary in NY, can start a parish with Good News about Jesus? Or a combination of Gene Robinson, Mary Glasspool, and Tom Shaw announcing a Billy Graham style Crusade with J. Jon Bruno offering the benediction while leading hundreds to Christ out of which new churches are formed is going to happen? If this weren't straight blasphemy, it would be hysterically funny, something a writer for New Yorker magazine might pick up.

Just the other day, we learned that the remnant (and indeed they are a remnant) of the 4,000-member Falls Church, Virginia church would have a disgraced woman priest to lead them. Oh what joy. The said priest, Lauren Stanley was tossed out of the Sudan for making remarks about same-sex marriage along with a short shrift when she was a "missionary" in Haiti. Is Virginia Bishop Shannon Johnston on a kamikaze mission?

Church plants are indeed taking place in the US and Canada, but they are occurring with church planters from the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), CANA, and AMIA who have a very definite fix on how to plant a church, know what the nature of the gospel is and how to make Jesus a compelling figure to follow, and are prepared to make disciples.

Not so with TEC. According to the American Anglican Council, TEC has lost more than 300 parishes since the Episcopal Kristallnacht began its pogrom against orthodox churches to cleanse them of alleged homophobia. TEC has successfully taken over tens of millions of dollars worth of properties across the country, but the vast majority of souls have fled the gay Episcopal storm troopers and their legal beagles, leaving the keys and mortgage payment book in the Narthex. Mercifully, we still live in a country where one can leave a church without fear of retribution, and leave the mortgage for the incoming revisionists to absorb.

There is a double irony here. Recently I heard renowned church planter and missiologist Ed Stetzer give a series of lectures on church planting. He made one observation that still sticks with me. He said that church planters should NOT be given money. In his research, he found that giving a church planter $50,000 or $500,000 does very little. In fact, it might prove retrograde "We've bought all the church planting that we can buy, and that's not enough to start a church multiplication movement. Thousands of planters are waiting for their turn and their funding. Unfortunately, many times, we let one's funding determine one's calling." Stetzer argues that church planters should, in many cases, be bi-vocational.

If there is anything TEC should know by now it is this: pushing pansexuality does not start or build a church. It has never happened and never will. TEC does better infiltrating orthodox parishes and waiting for the old guard of retiring orthodox priests to go; then the bishop makes sure the newcomer is more open and "inclusive" and "diverse" to the new world order of TEC; and then slowly undermine it with niceness, blasts at homophobia, talk of healing the world, the need for interfaith alliances, and "why can't we all just get along" sermons.

The famous 20/20 program to double the church by 2020 has clearly failed with more people leaving the church than entering through its red doors. Even Bonnie Anderson, HOD chairman, recently bemoaned the loss of 50,000 Episcopalians over the last few years. Clearly it is not about demographics and age, because a large number of closing churches are in high density population areas like Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

A case in point. A friend of mine has seen first-hand the destruction of the parish of Saint James-the-Less, East Falls in Philadelphia, once the home to the thriving Anglo-Catholic congregation of the Rev. Dr. David Ousley before he was ousted by Bishop Charles Bennison. (He has now gone to Rome through the Ordinariate.) He wrote, "You should make a day-trip out there and see how the parish buildings are deteriorating. On a rainy day, the headmaster of the new school there, allowed myself and a Roman friend to view the interior one last time. There was mold on the walls, an odor of mildew in the air, the organ would not function properly, and he was unable to turn on half the lights in the nave because of corrosion of the electrical wiring. There was very little heat too, not enough to keep the organ in working order. Even the brass-copper-iron rood-screen is tarnished and rusting. It is not the beautiful church building that I remember as a boy. The Wanamaker tower clock no longer chimes. We examined the stones in the churchyard for well over an hour, and these chimes were silent. When Bennison won his court case and drove off the congregation, he also took the parish endowments. This church is now a mission of Saint Mark's, 16th & Locust, Philadelphia."

Dropping $2 million to start 20 churches into the lap of church planters won't go very far at $100,000 a pop. That will barely pay salary, provide housing, repayment of seminary loans, medical, and much more, especially if the church planter has a wife and two kids (presuming he/she is straight). Even if said planter takes over an existing parish, those who have left are not going to come flocking back. They left for very good theological reasons. They won't betray the faith to support a liberal priest whose basic message is a warmed over version of the New York Times, liberal political bloggers and constant whining about homosexuality.

THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION

The Episcopal Church is doing its best to influence Global South Anglicans into believing that TEC poses no threat to the Communion's doctrinal coherence.

The Inter-Anglican Budget/Secretariat which was $1,160,000 is being slashed by $850,000 to $500,000 a drop of $660,000. That is a huge drop and must be causing consternation at the Anglican Communion office in London, which has depended upon the largess of TEC to manipulate and sway Primates into thinking that TEC is simply a misunderstood cousin and not a heretical brother.

"This office provides support to strengthen relationships between The Episcopal Church and the 37 other provinces in the Anglican Communion through hospitality, communication, education, and financial support," writes Jefferts Schori. Maybe.

But countries like Burundi, Central Africa, Congo and the Sudan will actually get a pittance (in some cases cuts) compared to South Dakota which will receive $2.1 million (up from $1,686,000) an increase of $414,000.

Total grants within the Anglican Communion, which was $1,145,279 in the last triennium, will drop by some $860,279 to $285,000 in the next triennium, if Jefferts Schori has her way.

Clearly the Global South is not cooperating and must be punished for not buying into TEC's pansexual agenda. Of course this opens the door for the Anglican Relief & Development (ARDF) of the ACNA to move in and support its brothers and sisters with economic aid and development. Clearly the fulcrum of the Anglican Communion is turning and not in TECs favor.

The Presiding Bishop says budgets are moral documents. "Our investment of time and energy in preparing a budget is a kind of liturgical work, giving shape to the "public work of the people." Budgets reflect our hopes and dreams as a community. They reveal the secrets of our hearts. They represent a concrete strategy for achieving what we believe God is calling us to do and to be in moving toward shalom or the Reign of God. They offer an opportunity for faithfulness."

That, of course, depends on how you define faithfulness. Is it to the gospel, the spreading of the Good News, of salvation and faith in Jesus Christ through the Great Commission or is it to the socio-political agenda of The Episcopal Church?

The two are not the same. The Global South knows it. That is why leaders like Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria and other Anglican Archbishops influenced by the East African Revival will have nothing more to do with TEC. Those days are gone as its money no longer has the power it once did.

The full budget can be viewed here: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/notice/presiding-bishop-releases-budget-proposal-general-convention-review