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WHEATON, IL: ACNA Archbishop says 60 New Churches Planted, Acknowledged ASA is down
Always forward, everywhere forward, always forward for the sake of Jesus Christ, declared Beach
By David W. Virtue in Wheaton
www.virtueonline.org
June 30, 2017
One new Anglican church was planted each week across North America last year, ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach told 1,400 delegates to the triennial Assembly being held at Wheaton College this week. He acknowledged that Average Sunday Attendance was down, but said many churches had not submitted congregational reports for quality control. He expected the figure to rise.
He said God continues to bestow His grace on ACNA and said there were now 1,000 congregations, 30 dioceses (South Carolina will make 31) plus a jurisdiction for chaplains. ACNA has 52 active bishops, 1,700 clergy with ministries across North America, including Canada, Mexico and Cuba.
Beach called on dioceses to be "church planting entities and machines, ministering to those who have the least ministering to them." He said the ACNA was endeavoring to raise $2 million (a matching grant of $1 million is on the table) for mission and the province was now "better place financially." The Lord has provided the funds we have needed with hundreds of small donations, he said.
Looking to the future, Beach acknowledged the presence of over 200 youth at the Assembly, acknowledging there was a long way to go, "but we are headed in the right direction."
He said the ACNA was now being taken "very seriously" by a number of ecumenical bodies and other Christian denominations who held closely to the gospel.
Beach said the Catechism review committee was getting closer and would finish by early 2018.
On the Marriage Task Force, the archbishop said it was vital to take marriage back from the culture, to preach biblical, Christian marriage to our children. "They need to be exposed to be God's plan for marriage and family life."
On the Task force on Holy Orders, he said David Hicks, Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the NorthEast and Mid-Atlantic of the Reformed Episcopal Church, is working to produce a final draft for the bishops. The Task Force notes that the Anglican tradition has been strengthened by the existence of "three strands" of theological perspective over time -- Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical/Reformed, and Charismatic. The existence of these three strands has provided a level of flexibility and breadth in Anglicanism, which has been the hallmark of our tradition.
Beach made an impassioned plea following the Scottish Episcopal Church's acceptance of homosexual marriage and said they had rejected "God's Word."
Beach noted that in some Church of England dioceses, they have already allowed some of their (Scottish) teaching (on sexuality) and events to occur. "Many have cried out for help for years." In response to that unbiblical teaching, the GAFCON primates would now send a Missionary Bishop to Scotland and Europe, he said.
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