Check it out (Hat tip to Lent and Beyond) .

The Archbishop was visiting Kenya to offer condolence and solidarity following the attack, while encouraging Archbishop Eliud and other bishops and clergy ministering around the Nairobi area.

Following his sermon Archbishop Justin had lunch with Archbishop Eliud, five Kenyan bishops and those Anglican primates who had arrived early in Nairobi for the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which starts today.

The Archbishop was unable to attend the conference due to a prior engagement in Iceland and the baptism of Prince George in London, but has sent a video greeting.

Read it all.

ARCHBISHOP Stanley Ntagali is expected to lead a delegation of 200 people from Uganda, to attend a global conference of church leaders to discuss the gay crisis in the Anglican Church.

Read it all from an article the day the conference began.

Asked if GAFCON was a breakaway Anglican movement, Secretary of the Primates Council Archbishop Peter Jensen said: “Nothing could be further from the truth. It wishes to work in [and] with the Anglican Communion on the very issues Archbishop Welby mentioned. We seek to model how the communion can be when it insists on strong theological standards.”

Archbishop Welby is clearly taking note of the words of the Primates Council of GAFCON when it met in London in April 2012 and said that the Primates Meeting of the Anglican Communion should elect their own chairman.

This conference was not supposed to happen. There was no trigger event like the Lambeth conference and its invitation to the consecrators of Gene Robinson to attend, which lit the fuse for the first GAFCON in Jerusalem in 2008. GAFCON at Jerusalem was ignored by the Anglican instruments of communion because they did not believe it would happen.

Read it all.

Amid deep division in the worldwide Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Sunday emphasized the need for mission and evangelism.

“The more seriously we take the Bible, the more effectively we will be able to deal with our divisions,” Welby said.

Read it all.

Makes the heart glad–KSH (Photo courtesy of David Ould).

Leading up to this event, African Anglicans said the situation in the global church had gotten worse since 2003. “We have a new Archbishop of Canterbury who is born again and has a testimony,” said Uganda’s Archbishop Stanley Ntagali. “I have personally met him and I like him very much. But, the problems in the communion are still there, and they don’t change just because there is a new global leader. In fact, 10 years later, the crisis has deepened.”

Many African Anglican conservatives draw inspiration for reform from the renowned East Africa revival, which started in Rwanda in the 1930s. “We need to learn from our history,” said Kenya’s Archbishop Eliud Wabukala. “Divisions about the Bible had spread to some missionary organizations in East Africa after the First World War, but the leaders of the East African Revival knew that there could be no true evangelism and no true revival unless the scriptures are allowed to speak as what they really are, the inspired Word of God.”

Read it all.

Nairobi conference confirms major realignment in Anglican Communion

Opening news conference, Monday 21st October 2013

The second Global Anglican Future Conference, which opens today in Nairobi, is confirmation that the churches involved in the GAFCON movement are committed to the Anglican Communion and modelling how the communion should operate in the 21st century.

Organisers say the movement has grown since the first conference in Jerusalem in 2008.

“We have exceeded the first GAFCON both in number and reach” said the General Secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Dr Peter Jensen. “We have also surpassed all expectations here in Nairobi.”

Although initially expecting 1100, the final total is 1,352 Archbishops, Bishops, clergy and lay people, men and women, from almost 40 countries.
The number of bishops attending is 331, of whom 30 are Archbishops.

Read it all

You may find the video here.

Watch it all and form your own conclusions and make your own prayerful evaluations (a little over 27 minutes).

The Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, left Abuja Sunday as the head of Nigeria’s 470-man delegation to Kenya, to attend the second Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), opening today.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury offered his qualified personal endorsement to Gafcon today, telling the congregation of All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi his vision for the future of the Anglican Communion was of a Bible-based church dedicated to mission and evangelism ”“ goals shared by the Gafcon movement of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA).

While Archbishop Justin Welby stopped short of giving Gafcon his formal imprimatur, he conceded the existing instruments of communion were no longer fit for purpose in ordering the life of the Anglican world.

The archbishop also hinted the Communion may not be able to count upon the Church of England to hold the line on issues close to the heart of the Gafcon movement.

Read it all.

This post is sticky. Please look below for new entries. LAST UPDATED: 26 October 19:30 EDT / 23:30 GMT

The OFFICIAL GAFCON Website
GAFCON conference program

SOURCES FOR NEWS STORIES:
– Anglican Ink – with live reporting from Fr. George Conger (Gafcon stories) [Anglican Ink homepage (some GAFCON stories are at this link, not the other)]
– ACNA’s GAFCON page (click on the daily tabs for each day’s news & photos)
– Anglican Mainstream GAFCON category Note: some Anglican Mainstream posts about GAFCON may be posted under the “news” category, so perhaps it is better to click on this link which provides search results for all entries with the word GAFCON
– TitusOneNine GAFCON category

VIDEOS: Anglican TV:
Live Feed videocasts
Anglican TV – archived videos
*IMPORTANT*: There are several GAFCON videos on KevinKallsen’s YouTube page that are not yet archived at AnglicanTV.
GAFCON videos page (Vimeo)

TWITTER FEEDS:
#GAFCON2013 [Other variants: #GAFCON or #GAFCON13]
ACNA Twitter Feed page
Anglican Future @gafconference

PHOTOS:
GAFCON Facebook page
ACNA Facebook page
Photo album from the GAFCON site (with captions!)
[** NEW **] George Conger’s GAFCON II Photo Album at Flickr {see note on copyright here.)

BLOGS: (focusing on first-person blog entries by those attending the conference)
David Ould
Juicy Ecumenicism (IRD blog) – reporting by Jeff Walton & Faith McDonnell
21st Century Anglican
I am not the man (Nigel Fortescue, Australia)
Fr. George Conger’s blog (includes his stories for publications like the Church Times, etc.)
LRM (Laurel Moffatt, Sydney Australia) [*updated link*]
**Bishop Mark Lawrence’s blog
Restoration Anglican Church blog (Arlington, VA)
Does Anyone Read These Things? (St. Timothy’s Anglican, Burlington, VT)
Blog of St. John’s Working, UK
Jolly Monk blog
Rob Munro’s blog
The Beach Blog (Bishop Foley Beach)
[New]The Rev. Shari Hobby (Trinity Anglican, Thomasville Georgia) [Reports on church facebook page]
[New] Updates from John W Yates III (Holy Trinity Anglican, Raleigh NC)

PRAYER:
GAFCON Collect
Lent & Beyond GAFCON category
GAFCON Prayer Bulletins
GAFCON Prayer Points

***

GAFCON 2013 DAY by DAY: TRANSCRIPTS, VIDEOS, DAILY DIGESTS, BLOG ENTRIES, PHOTOS
**(signifies a featured entry)

Sunday Oct 20 – Opening Worship & Primates Meeting with ABC
** Video: Abp. Welby Addresses GAFCON (Oct. 20)
** Notes of Archbishop Justin’s sermon to GAFCON Primates in Nairobi
50 great pictures from Oct. 20th service at Cathedral (ACNA facebook page)
** TRANSCRIPT: Archbishop Jensen’s address to the archbishops’ luncheon with Justin Welby
** VIDEO: Archbishop Jensen’s address to the archbishops’ luncheon with Justin Welby [12:12]

DAY 1: Monday Oct 21:
Day 1 Press Release: Nairobi conference confirms major realignment in Anglican Communion
Monday Oct 21 Daily Digest (ACNA)
GAFCON 2: Monday 21st October (Andrew Symes, Anglican Mainstream)
October 21 photos – ACNA facebook page
** Video: Monday highlights (Gafcon)
** Video: Opening Press Conference (Oct 21) [There is also a short 3 minute compilation of excerpts from the Day 1 Press Conference – watch it here.]
** David Ould: Gafcon Day 1- The Church Gathered and a Firm Word for Abp Welby
Laurel Moffatt: GAFCON Day One in Living Colour
Bishop Mark Lawrence: Jottings from GAFCONII
**GAFCON Feature Article: Legacy of East African Revival Frames GAFCON Opening Night
** Video: Abp. Wabukala welcomes delegates to Kenya [7:41]
** Video: Abp Jensen Opens the GAFCON Conference (including roll call of nations) [22 minutes]
GAFCON DAY 1: Seeds of Revival? (Rob Munro’s blog)
** TRANSCRIPT: Presentation on the East African Revival by the Rev. Dr. John Senyonyi, (Vice-Chancellor of Uganda Christian University)
Selected Tweets: GAFCON Day 1
** [NEW] Fr. George Conger’s Summary of Day 1 at GAFCON: Revival and the Anglican Way
** [NEW] VIDEO: Presentation on the East Africa Revival by the Rev. Dr. John Senyonyi (Vice-Chancellor of Uganda Christian University) [48 minutes]

DAY 2: Tuesday Oct 22:
**TRANSCRIPT: Chairman’s Address GAFCON 2013 Plenary 22nd October
Tuesday Oct 22 Photos (ACNA)
** David Ould: GAFCON Day 2 – A Clear Challenge to Welby and Much More
GAFCON Diary Day 2 (Anglican Mainstream)
GAfCON Day Two (Nigel Fortescue’s blog)
**GAFCON Feature Article: Churches tempted to ”˜change Christian faith’ for culture
ACNA Tuesday GAFCON Daily Digest
Tuesday Highlights Video [under 3 minutes]
Video: Apb, Jensen interviews Andrea Minichiello Williams on Christian Persecution in the UK [2:30] [this was part of the “You are not alone” series]
VIDEO: The Rev. Paul Perkin: What is happening in the Church of England [18 minutes]
VIDEO: The Lonely Church [13 minutes]
** Rob Munro: GAFCON Day 2: Who’s Changing Whom?
*** TRANSCRIPT: The Grace of God OR the world of the West? The Rev Dr Michael Ovey (President, Oak Hill College) [highly recommended!] [PDF File is here]
You Are Not Alone – brief summary of several of the testimonies from those persecuted for their faith (AAC website)
Selected Tweets: GAFCON Day 2
**[NEW] VIDEO: Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali: Global Challenge [12 minutes]
**[NEW] VIDEO: Dr. Mike Ovey’s presentation on The Grace of God or the World of the West [50 minutes]
**[NEW] TRANSCRIPT: The Rev. Paul Perkin: Battle for the Soul of Britain – what;s happening in the CoE
***[NEW] Fr. George Conger’s Summary of Day 2 at GAFCON – A Suffering and Lonely Church (VERY HELPFUL – includes embedded links to various videos)

DAY 3: Wednesday Oct. 23:
Archbishop Justin Welby’s video message to GAFCON
GAFCON Delegates Share Across Cultures as Mini-Conferences Begin
VIDEO: Participants reflect on the mini-conferences taking place at GAFCON [2:30]
David Ould: Day 3: Welby and Jensen – Ambiguity of Context and Clarity of Scripture
** Nigel Fortescue: GAFCON Day 3
** GAFCON Report Day 3 (Anglican Mainstream)
Rob Munro: GAFCON Day 3: What marks a movement of the Holy Spirit?
Photos: Day 3 (ACNA facebook page)
Selected Tweets from GAFCON II – Day 3 October 23, 2013
ACNA Daily Digest – Wednesday
** Laurel Moffatt: GAFCON Many Voices One Song
** Restoration Anglican: Nairobi #2

Day 4: Thursday Oct 24
We elves have not been slacking off, but today is a slow news day at GAFCON. Much of the afternoon and evening was free for a visit to a national park and a cultural evening, so there are likely to be few materials available for today.
** Summary GAFCON II Day 4 (Andrew Symes, Anglican Mainstream)
** Nigel Fortescue: GAFCON Day 4
** Rob Munro: GAFCON Day 4: Widening Horizons
** Bishop Foley Beach: The Suffering Church
Photos Day 4 (ACNA facebook page – mostly pictures from this afternoon’s trip to Nairobi National Park
** David Ould: GAFCON Day 4: Global Anglicanism in its Natural State
GAFCON Day 4 (St. John’s Working UK blog)
Shari Hobby: GAFCON Reoprt Day 4
VIDEO: GAFCON Thursday Highlights
ACNA GAFCON Daily Digest Thursday
Video on Women’s mini-conference [3:00]
*** [NEW] ** Bishop Mark Lawrence: Jottings from GAFCON II – Take 2 (summarizes Days 2 – 4)

GAFCON Day 5: Friday Oct 25
**VIDEO: GAFCON Friday Press Conference
David Ould: BREAKING: GAFCON Movement Bishops Vote to Expand – Across Boundaries
** Friday October 25 Press Release: GAFCON Votes to Expand
** Anglican Mainstream: GAFCON 2 Report Friday October 25
** Nigel Fortescue: GAFCON Day 5
** St. John’s Working UK blog: GAFCON Friday, Day 5
** Rob Munro: GAFCON Day 5 – Discerning the call of God for the Future
** Bishop Foley Beach: GAFCON the East Africa Revival (this is a bit of a general overview, not as specifically about Day 5, but it is very good)
Selected Tweets GAFCON Day 5
VIDEO: Canon Phil Ashey of AAC – Anglican Perspective Commentary on GAFCON as an Ecclesial movement [2 minutes]
ACNA Daily Digest – Friday
Friday Photos – ACNA facebook page
[NEW] Jeff Walton: GAFCON Leaders Point to “Strong Foundation of the Bible” at Second Press Gathering
[NEW] Friday Highlights Video
** [NEW] Snippets of African Worship “Afayo [He is Lord] via Instagram here and here

GAFCON DAY 6: Saturday October 26

** [NEW] ** FINAL Nairobi Communique and Commitment PDF Version is here
Feature Article: GAFCON ends with commitment in Nairobi
Chris Sugden (Christian Today): GAFCON offers itself as ‘important and effective instrument of Communion’
**[NEW] Laurel Moffatt: GAFCON – Strands of Loving Kindness
**[NEW] Rob Munro: GAFCON Day 6 – Discovering the Real Meaning of the Anglican Communion
[NEW] Some Final Tweets from GAFCON Day 6
**[NEW] Restoration Anglican: GAFCON Day 6
**[NEW] St John’s Working UK: GAFCON Day 6
**[NEW] Lent & Beyond: The Faces of GAFCON – Part 2 (30 awesome pictures)

***
We will update this list as we find more links. We would love to know of anyone blogging about the conference, or any other good links you find for following the conference. Please leave a comment with any links you recommend. – the elves.

Thousands packed multiple services at Nairobi’s All Saints Cathedral on the eve of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Sunday 20th October).

Leading the joyous congregants was the Primate of Kenya and chairman of GAFCON, Eliud Wabukala, along with members of the GAFCON Primates Council and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Archbishop Justin Welby joined Archbishop Robert Duncan, Primate of the Anglican Church in North America, Presiding Bishop Tito Zavala of the Southern Cone, Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul of Sudan, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria and Archbishop Henri Isingoma of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Archbishops Duncan and Bishop Zavala joined in celebrating communion while Archbishop Welby preached, in a truly international event.

Read it all and there is a link to pictures

Listen to Archbishop Eliud Wabukala followed by the Rev George Conger being interviewed about GAFCON and the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury by William Crawley on the BBC’s Sunday Program this morning [lasts for the first nine minutes]

Read it all.

The second Global Anglican Future Conference will get underway in Kenya on Monday 21st October, following a meeting of the Primates Council, comprising leaders of some of the world’s largest Anglican churches.

1200 delegates, clergy and laity, men and women from across of the Anglican Communion will gather in Nairobi for a week-long meeting.

Among them will be victims of religious persecution in various parts of the world who will tell their story.

The programme includes ”˜mini-conferences’ on topics such as gospel proclamation and culture, theological education, economic empowerment and the church, marriage, family and sexuality, and engaging with Islam.

The gathering is the second conference since the landmark GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem in 2008.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will make a flying visit to Nairobi just before the start of the conference to talk to the Primates. Delegates will gather at All Saints Cathedral on Monday for the opening session.

The Church of England and ++Welby are culture bound. They formerly sent missionaries to the far corners of the earth. Much of the pushback against Canterbury is from lands Canterbury missioned through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The prophetic voice for Anglicanism is from the Global South not Canterbury. It should be Canterbury speaking truth to power not cowering and renting her garments because she is ashamed of her guiding documents and Lord. Does accommodating the cultural change make the church more relevant; more genuine; more truthful; more liked? Does ++Justin Welby actually speak the mind of the WWAC any more than the former ABC ++Rowan Williams? His collaboration, while cloaked is progressivism not true reconciliation or repentance.

The bitter irony is that Canterbury in an attempt to be more relevant and responsive to her immediate culture has made herself less relevant to the Christian church in general and the WWAC in particular. Since when does taking the majority side make the church right or more liked? Does Canterbury even understand that lukewarm Christianity is no match for Islam which will ascend to power by demographics alone? England is in danger of having a new and less tolerant established religion.

The title of my article is “A Way Forward For Anglicanism”. It is different than two years ago. We are further down the road. There is more clarity. GAFCON II will be meeting in Kenya in October. I am hopeful.

Read it all and part two is there.

GAFCON2 will be held on October 21-28 in Nairobi, Kenya. Bishops and their wives, clergy, and delegates from Anglican dioceses all over the world will gather for worship, instruction, fellowship, and discussion of how to share Jesus with the world.

Please pray for GAFCON2. Here are some specific things to bring before the Lord:

1. For all the delegations attending:

Pray for good health, travel mercies, ministry time while there, and reentry upon returning.
Pray for their witness for Christ, their ministry to others, and for what God wants them to receive.

Read it all.

After the news broke last week (on Anglican Ink) that Archbishop Welby was not going to Gafcon, a torrent of negative comments from the right and rejoicing from the left washed through the Anglican blogosphere. Others gave the archbishop the benefit of the doubt. And the vast majority paid it no mind at all.

On Anglican Unscripted I said that the excuse of having to baptize Prince George was the best get-out-of-a-social-obligation-free card I had ever heard. I gave the archbishop high praise for finding a way to finesse a sticky situation. And now we have this extraordinary volte face — and this pitiable explanation.

So, what is going on? Wheels within wheels? Or incompetence? From what I have been able to divine, Archbishop Welby is breaking free from the shackles of the Church of England’s bureaucracy. His predecessor, Rowan Williams, was Anglicanism’s Jimmy Carter (or for our English readers its Harold Wilson). The smartest man in the room — but clueless as to how to use his authority and office. Justin Welby started off well as archbishop, but has also fired some distress rockets that worry the Global South. While they like him and are encouraged by his sincere faith ”“ will the office overwhelm the man as it had Rowan Williams?

Read it all.

One result has been the visible expression of a truly global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans ”“ the name is significant, as it sets the heart of our unity in what we confess, what we believe about God, Christ, salvation and the Christian life, not in forms of worship, or administration based on geography. Its worth remembering that Christians in Nigeria, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan are not being targeted because of the architecture of their churches or the style of liturgy, but because they testify counter-culturally that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour. We must also recognize that the majority of Anglicans worldwide to be found in Africa, where most Anglicans live in poverty compared to us, but have learned to trust daily in God for their daily bread, who share their faith as evangelical Christians with their neighbours, and who care for the poor and oppressed around them. Through the global FCA and the GAFCON conferences the voices of these ordinary Anglicans, particularly women, can now be heard.

So GAFCON 2 in Nairobi is nearly upon us. It starts on 21st October and runs for 5 days. More than 100 delegates will be coming from the UK and Ireland, to join over 1000 others meeting in All Saints Cathedral for daily worship, inspiring messages and seminars wrestling with missional challenges in cross-cultural groups. Nairobi is of course in the spotlight as recent terrifying events have highlighted the problem of Islamic extremism, and the presence of the Westgate shopping centre and the Kibera slum in the same city are a reminder of the challenge of economic inequality. But the Church of Kenya is rooted in the East Africa Revival of the 1930’s, where hundreds of thousands turned to Christ and tribal divisions were healed. These divisions resurface of course, but more recently the Anglican Church was at the forefront of the peaceful settlement after post election violence of a few years ago. In Kenya we will be reminded that the world is dangerous, the challenges are huge, but God loves the world and its people, and the testimonies of Christians prove it . He has provided the way of salvation through his Son, and he has established his church as a supernatural gathering across racial barriers (Ephesians 2:14-16) through the Gospel (3:6), and as a means of displaying his wisdom to the hostile powers against whom we struggle (6:12), and who one day will be subdued in the new creation (1:10).

So the focus at GAFCON 2 will be on world mission….

Read it all.

Exactly one month after the terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi (News, 27 September), 1200 people are expected to gather in the city to attend GAFCON II.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will preach at a eucharist at All Saints’ Cathedral in the Kenyan capital, the day before the conference opens there. He will not attend the conference, owing to “long-standing commitments”, a statement from Lambeth Palace said, but will record a video greeting.

The Archbishop will be the guest of the Primate of Kenya, Dr Eliud Wabukala, who chairs the GAFCON Primates Council, from 19 to 20 October. The “flying visit” to Nairobi was “to be in close solidarity following the recent terrorist attack”.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will visit Nairobi on 19 and 20 October as a guest of the Archbishop of Kenya, the Most Revd Eliud Wabukala.

The purpose of the visit, which has been arranged at short notice, is to be in solidarity with the Kenyan people following the attack on the Westgate shopping mall last month.

Read it all.

Remember that the more specific you can be, the more the rest of us will get from your comments–KSH.

Lambeth Palace said last week that, although he had been invited, the Most Rev Justin Welby, could not attend the meeting, organised by the powerful Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), who claim to represent around 40 million churchgoers around the world, in person but would address them by video link.

He is due to be in Iceland for an international church leaders’ gathering which had long been planned.

But, in a move seen as an olive branch to the traditionalists, it has now emerged that he is to make a detour to Kenya on his way to Iceland to meet the group’s leaders before the summit begins ”“ adding more than 8,400 miles to his journey.

Read it all.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will visit GAFCON primates just before the opening of GAFCON 2013 in Nairobi.

Read it all

My dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

Today we are just three weeks away from the first day of GAFCON 2013 and I am eagerly looking forward to welcoming many of you from around the world to Nairobi and All Saints Cathedral. Last week our General Secretary, Archbishop Peter Jensen and our Executive Director, Bishop Martyn Minns, were with me here in Nairobi on a planned visit to review our preparation and we are so thankful to God for his blessing and provision.

Read it all.