This was new to me–check it out.

A deal to avert the break-up of the worldwide Anglican Communion risks collapse amid signals that African churches are reassessing ties with the Church of England over the issue of same-sex marriage.

The new leader of a powerful bloc of traditionalist bishops and archbishops – seen as representing the majority of the world’s estimated 80 million Anglicans – said the Church of England had recently crossed a “line” with a series of decisions seen as endorsing a more liberal stance on homosexuality.

The Most Rev Nicholas Okoh, the Archbishop of Nigeria, said many traditionalists now view the British branches of Anglicanism in a similar light to The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the US which has been accused of “heresy” for ordaining openly gay bishops and endorsing same-sex marriage.

Archbishop Okoh ”“ recently elected as chairman of the influential “Gafcon” (Global Anglican Future Conference) group of clerics ”“ also pointedly gave his backing to a new breakaway network of churches in England, set up outside the control of the Church of England.

His intervention is the clearest sign yet of a renewed threat of schism within Anglicanism.

It follows the decision by one Nigerian diocese last week to break off ties with the Church of England Diocese of Liverpool because of the appointment of an American bishop who supports same-sex marriage to a special role in the area.

Last month there was also anger among traditionalists after a cleric from the Church of England’s Oxford diocese took part in a celebration of Desmond Tutu’s daughter’s same-sex wedding in South Africa.

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..I received a message from our Primate in Nigeria, who is currently the Chairman of GAFCON today about a partnership that is in the Western news. That there is a three way Diocesan partnership between the Diocese of Liverpool, England, the Diocese of Akure, Nigeria and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in the United States.

Also, that recently, the Diocese of Liverpool made the assisting Bishop of Virginia, Susan Goff, an assisting Bishop in Liverpool. Susan Goff is in favour of blessing same sex unions and this has been a part of the litigation against the orthodox in Virginia.

Therefore, in view of the above and being aware of the fact that Nigeria does not support same sex marriage, we in Akure Diocese cannot have any link with Liverpool Diocese.

We pray that Jesus Christ, The Owner of His Church will reveal Himself to us anew in Jesus name.

Yours in His Service,

Simeon Borokini,
Bishop of Akure Diocese.

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Of special interest is the “Faith and Order Board Doctrine Committee Paper on the Theology of Marriage” which starts on numbered page 20–take a look.

It is one church separated by a border – but this week Anglicans in the Church of England and in the Scottish Episcopal Church face falling out over the issue of same-sex marriages.

In the progressive corner is the Scottish Episcopal Church – in effect the Anglican church in Scotland – which is preparing to vote for clergy to be allowed to carry out same sex marriages. Meanwhile, its southern neighbours, the Church of England, is on the reactionary side, opposing any such move.

Members of the Scottish Episcopal Church will be asked if they back a change to canon law which currently states that marriage must be between a man and a woman, at the Church’s General Synod in Edinburgh on Friday.

Read it all from The Herald.

A growing number of Muslim refugees in Europe are converting to Christianity, according to churches, which have conducted mass baptisms in some places.

Reliable data on conversions is not available but anecdotal evidence suggests a pattern of rising church attendance by Muslims who have fled conflict, repression and economic hardship in countries across the Middle East and central Asia.

Complex factors behind the trend include heartfelt faith in a new religion, gratitude to Christian groups offering support during perilous and frightening journeys, and an expectation that conversion may aid asylum applications.

Read it all and don’t miss the great picture.

Bendigo was ringing with the sound of bells on Sunday to mark the re-opening of St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral.

The bells went quiet about 2.45pm in preparation for an invitation-only opening service for the diocese.

Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, The Most Reverend Dr Philip Freier, delivered the sermon.

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How did your Christianity journey begin?

In 1985, a friend invited to be to a local Anglican church in Olendeme where a white missionary who also served as a nurse at the area dispensary was looking for an interpreter in a bid to allow her to effectively communicate with the local Maasai community. Being the only one who understood English, she recruited me and worked alongside her in interpreting health messages as well as read the Maasai version of the bible during her evangelical missions to the village. That is how I begun interacting with the word of God and embraced it…

What don’t people know about you

Immediately, after high school I worked as a cattle trader. My associates and I would buy cattle in Narok and trek with them for sale at the famous Dagoretti cattle sale yard. I would plough the profit back to increasing my cattle numbers at home…

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In the beginning, the focus of our concern was North America and we thank God that he has raised up the Anglican Church North America as a new wineskin in that continent. Now our concern is increasingly with the British Isles. A line has been crossed in the Church of England itself with the appointment of Bishop Susan Goff, of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, as an Assisting Bishop of Liverpool. The false teaching of the American Episcopal Church has been normalised in England and this divisive act has meant that the Church of Nigeria’s Akure Diocese has had no alternative but to end its partnership link with Liverpool Diocese.

At our recent Primates Council meeting in Nairobi we reaffirmed our solidarity with the leaders of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the UK and the Anglican Mission in England at this testing time.

When the GAFCON movement began in 2008 with our first conference in Jerusalem, my predecessor as Primate of All Nigeria and former Chairman, His Grace Peter Akinola, declared that GAFCON was a rescue mission for the Anglican Communion. His words were prophetic and they are being fulfilled. Let us be confident of all that is yet to come. Let us work and pray for the reform and renewal of our beloved Communion. Let us trust in our God who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.

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Anglican bishops on Friday had a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari where they sought to know what his administration is doing to tackle the spate of insecurity, particularly vandalism of oil facilities in the Niger Delta and herdsmen’s attacks in parts of the country.
The Primate, Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Most Rev’d Nicholas Okoh, who led the bishops to the meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, disclosed this while interacting with State House correspondents.

“We told him (the President) many things but part of it is that we are all looking for solutions to issues of the herdsmen; the issue of vandalism; on security in one way or the other because the people are asking us and we want to have explanation for the people whom we lead,” Okoh said.

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For the second year in a row, Bishop David Edwards of the diocese of Fredericton will spend the first two weeks of June walking the streets and highways of his territory, visiting parishes, praying with Anglicans and witnessing to the communities he visits along the way.

“As a church, we need to be getting outside our walls and proclaiming the good news of Jesus in all kinds of ways,” he said in an interview with the Anglican Journal. “In a sense, this is a symbolic gesture on my part: to say to folks that we can’t sit in our buildings, the gospel is something to be proclaimed in the streets and on the hillsides.”

The pilgrimage, which began May 29 and ends June 12, will take Edwards through the geographically large but sparsely populated archdeaconry of Chatham along New Brunswick’s rugged north shore.
– See more at: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/bishop-s-pilgrimage-about-getting-outside-our-walls#sthash.20Ry8Fe8.dpuf

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The release of Church of England ministry statistics this week confirms once again the “ageing crisis” of Anglican clergy. Signs of change are evident, but it remains the case that there are almost twice as many clergy aged over 60 as under 40.

You would be forgiven for questioning the veracity of that data after walking into the church where I serve, however. St Luke’s Kentish Town has a clergy stock blessed with a vicar in his mid-30s, a curate just shy of 30, and me, as ordinand, aged 26. At the last count, the average age of the 200-strong congregation was 27. This is perfectly in keeping with our young north London location, but pitches us ”“ clergy and congregation ”“ as significantly more youthful than the Church of England as a whole.
Vicars needed: the Church of England’s fight to fill its vacancies in the north
Read more

While the church realises that there are unusual enclaves such as ours, misconceptions are common about what really goes on in them. To be clear, this is not just the young leading the young. We (and many like us; we might be uncommon but are in no sense unique) are normal parishes, seeking to present and represent Jesus Christ faithfully to those around us, irrespective of age.

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Falling numbers of stipendiary clergy in the Church of England, reported in the latest statistics, show the urgent need for more ordina­tions, the Director of Ministry for the Archbishops’ Council, the Ven. Julian Hubbard, has said.

The statistics, released yesterday, reveal that, while the total number of ordained ministers has remained at around 20,500 from 2012 to the end of last year, the number of stipendiary bishops, priests, and deacons fell from 8006 in 2012 to 7661.

The number of stipendiary women clergy has risen slightly every year, but has not offset the decline in numbers of men.

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O God, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: Grant that we who remember before thee the blessed martyrs of Uganda, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they gave obedience even unto death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Martyrs of Uganda https://t.co/ZPT0kKtweR pic.twitter.com/j0v1DN6xKj

— St Augustine's House (@staughouse) June 3, 2016

The Church of England is facing a growing crisis of ageing clergy, with a quarter of its ministers aged over 60.

Although the number of people being ordained has increased in the past four years, new figures published by the church show that only 13% of its ministers are under the age of 40.

“While the number of stipendiary ordinations showed a welcome increase between 2012 and 2015, this is not sufficient to redress the gathering effect of clergy retirements predicted over the next 10 years,” said Julian Hubbard, the C of E’s director of ministry. “With 25% of stipendiary clergy aged 60 or over, at present rates of ordination this trend will have a material and growing impact on the number of those available to serve in ordained roles across the dioceses.”

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In these times of flux and challenge, when Britain’s post-imperial place in a globalized world has rarely been so minutely scrutinized and the nation’s very identity can appear to be little more than a work in progress, pity the poor parish priest.

Ever since Henry VIII broke with papal authority in the 16th century, the Anglican Church has stood at the nation’s core. In towns and villages across the land, churches offered formal services and a deeper succor for those seeking life’s meaning or, perhaps, just companionship among the like-minded.

Still, at the highest levels ”” ecclesiastical as much as political ”” 26 Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament, where they are known as the Lords Spiritual

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The Church of England has released new Ministry Statistics giving trends in ministry over the period between 2012 and 2015.

The statistics show that total ordained ministry over the last 4 years has remained stable, with over 20,000 ordained people serving the church in various roles.

The number of stipendiary clergy has fallen from 8,300 to 8,000 between 2012 and 2015.

The proportion of stipendiary clergy who are women increased from 24% in 2012 to 27% in 2015. And 19% of senior staff in 2015 were women, up from 12% in 2012.

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…today, we witness a growing interdependence of nations in a globalising world and an increasing number of interconnected political challenges far exceeding the capacity of nation-states to handle them. Because the common good is increasingly trans-national, clinging to maximum sovereignty at the national level won’t always be the right way to promote the goals of justice, peace, freedom and solidarity, even within the UK.

To address these adequately, we need not only inter-governmental cooperation among independent nation states but also effective trans-national institutions.

I submit that the EU, for all its numerous failings and limitations, is one of these necessary institutions.

In the face of an increasing number of border-defying challenges such as security threats, structural and regional deprivation, environmental degradation, threats to peace on Europe’s eastern borders and the immense challenge of the refugee crisis on its southern borders, we need a robust authority with a remit for the common good across European public space.

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The 2015 report (due out quite soon) will be much more specific about the particular operational issues, and lists

Failure to recruit sufficient new clergy and lay leaders
Failure of new initiatives to deliver church growth
Failure of safeguarding processes, and impact of national enquiries (such as the Goddard report)
Failure to gain support for the Renewal and Reform programme
Financial insolvency in a significant part of the church
IT capacity and security.
I wonder how that compares with your own list? I suspect most people would suggest that there is one very significant strategic risk for the church as a whole which isn’t covered by the above list of operational risks: the danger of schism over a major issue of belief or practice. Reading newspaper headlines, or attending to the internal workings of the Church, it would be hard not to notice that the debate on sexuality and its outcome is the ”˜major issue’ currently threatening the future of the C of E as we know it.

If that is the case, why would any diocesan bishop act in a way to exacerbate this risk? Yet in the last month, two appear to have done just that.

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We were twinned with The Diocese of Akure in Ondo Sate of Nigeria.They have broken their ties with our diocese over the appointment of the Rt Revd Susan Goff as a Hon. Assisting Bishop in our diocese. We remain open to resume this link as we seek to walk together with all parts of the communion.

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Reports that the Acting Bishop of Oxford, Rt Rev Colin Fletcher, gave his permission for Revd Charlotte Bannister-Parker to lead a celebration of a same-sex wedding raise a number of questions to which answers are not forthcoming. A photograph showing Revd Charlotte Bannister Parker officiating, as the couple exchanged rings and made vows, was published in a South African newspaper more than two weeks ago, yet Reform have been told that Bishop Colin is having to take advice before commenting on the following:

Was the Acting Bishop of Oxford aware of the nature of the ‘celebration’ when he gave permission to Revd Charlotte Bannister-Parker to lead it?

Has the Acting Bishop of Oxford seen the liturgy/ order of service used?

Does the Acting Bishop of Oxford believe that a ‘celebration’ of a marriage that re-enacts the giving and receiving of rings and the making of promises to one another and according to the report the ‘pronouncement that we now ‘recognise you as wife and wife’ falls within the terms of the Bishops’ Pastoral Guidance on Same-Sex Marriage?

Does the Acting Bishop of Oxford believe that a ‘celebration’ of a marriage that re-enacts the giving and receiving of rings and the making of promises to one another and according to the report the ‘pronouncement that we now ‘recognise you as wife and wife’ is consistent with the express terms of Lambeth 1:10?

If so, what would else would need to happen for this to be considered a ‘blessing’?

Meanwhile, the House of Bishops have been discussing plans for the forthcoming ‘shared conversations’ at General Synod.

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It has come to the attention of Reform, that the Bishop of Liverpool, The Right Reverend Paul Bayes, has appointed Bishop Susan Goff as an Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Liverpool. Susan Goff is a Suffragan Bishop in the Diocese of Virginia in The Episcopal Church. In July 2016, she voted in favour of changing the definition and purpose of marriage according to in Canons of The Episcopal Church. This alteration to the Canons was the action that led the Primates of the Anglican Communion, gathered in Canterbury earlier this year, to require The Episcopal Church to step down from representing the Communion or being involved in decision making on matters pertaining to doctrine or polity.

Susie Leafe, Director of Reform said, “The Bishop of Liverpool has chosen to bring the conflicts that have torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion in to the heart of this diocese. The long standing link with Akure Diocese, in Nigeria, has been severed for the sake of closer ties with The Episcopal Church. The decision to appoint Susan Goff as an Honorary Assistant Bishop is a provocative and divisive step which is obviously unacceptable from someone who holds themselves out as a focus of unity. Members of the Dioceses of Liverpool are entitled to expect that their bishop should respect and not simply ignore the settled will of the Communion.”

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An historic moment in the lives of the dioceses of Virginia and Liverpool occurred Monday, May 2, 2016 at Shrine Mont Retreat Center when the Rt. Rev Susan Goff was commissioned by Shannon S. Johnston, bishop of Virginia, and Paul Bayes, bishop of Liverpool, as Assisting Bishop of Liverpool.

Bishop Bayes presented the letters commissary to Bishop Goff and both Bishop Bayes and Bishop Johnston prayed over her while the room spontaneously rose to its feet with applause, love and affection.

The dioceses of Liverpool and Virginia are companion dioceses, focusing on Jesus and Justice, that together, a bigger church might make a bigger difference in the world. This exciting appointment is more than just in title. As part of the link, Bishop Goff has visited Liverpool and her ministry of teaching and support has been very much welcomed not just by women in the diocese but by all.

“The link with the Diocese of Virginia has been important to us in Liverpool for many years,” said Bayes. “At my installation eighteen months ago it was a privilege to welcome Bishop Shannon Johnston as a guest of honour. Now, with Bishop Susan Goff’s appointment as one of our assisting bishops, we are able to strengthen our bond still further. Bishop Susan is no stranger to Liverpool and we look forward to being enriched by her wisdom as a teacher and pastor of pastors whenever she visits us.”

Among Bishop Goff’s first responsibilities in Liverpool, she will be leading the retreat and preach at the ordination of priests with Bishop Bayes in June and speaking at the clergy conference in July.

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10 May 2016 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Charles Ryle, the 1st Bishop of Liverpool.

Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister of the day, invited John Ryle to become Bishop of Liverpool in 1880.

The new Bishop was from the Evangelical wing of the Church of England. He was surprised to receive the invitation and was concerned that he was too old for the task. Disraeli assured him that he would live for a few years yet and was proved correct.

He began his ministry on July 1st 1880 and came to live at the Bishop’s Palace in Abercromby Square, Liverpool with his wife and daughter Jessie.

Every third year he delivered his Episcopal Charge to the clergy of the Diocese and held a Diocesan conference annually. The charge in 1881 set the tone for his future ministry; throughout his episcopate – he made it a priority to recruit more clergy and lay ministers and built many more churches. Before clergy were ordained they attended a retreat at Bishop’s Palace and the Bishop gave a series of addresses. Diocesan clergy could call on their Bishop on any Tuesday morning.

The Bishop valued the work of the Scripture Readers who were paid lay workers. There were about 50 licensed Readers in the Diocese.

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Behind the scenes, this development alarmed church elders. They understood the potential for the church to end up being divided amid the nation’s polarised politics.

So work began to find consensus between the candidates and when a pre-election deal could not be struck, according to reporters who were tracking the poll and were in touch with delegates, word was quietly sent out to delegates that they should pick a compromise candidate.

That is how Jackson Nasoore ole Sapit, the Bishop of Kericho and a member of the Maasai community, which is not directly implicated in the major tussle of Kenya’s “high politics,” emerged as favourite and eventually took the main seat.

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St. John’s Anglican Church is getting a much-needed makeover in the latest effort to revitalize Windsor’s west-end neighbourhood of Sandwich.

For more than a century, the church sat proudly at the corner of Brock and Sandwich streets, but the property has fallen into disrepair in recent years.

While mowing the lawn of the cemetery one day, Peter Berry, harbourmaster with the Windsor Port Authority, decided to take on the challenge of restoring the church grounds.

“It’s a community project we should all get behind,” he told CBC news.

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Only two per cent of Anglicans in England and Wales are converts, a new study suggests.

The director of the Benedict XVI Centre at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, Dr Stephen Bullivant, has gathered statistics on religious affiliation from the annual British Social Attitudes surveys. His report, Contemporary Catholicism in England and Wales, launched on Tuesday in the House of Commons, deals mainly with the Roman Catholic Church, but looks at other denominations for comparisons.

His deduction is that, in a group of 100 Anglicans, 93 will have been brought up as such, five will have started life in another Christian denomination, and only two would have belonged to no religion. (The sample group was 1681 Anglicans.)

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In 2008, Christine was appointed Vicar of St Mary and St Lawrence, Goring-by-Sea, and it was during this period that her middle daughter died from cancer. Within a year of being at Goring-by-Sea, she was recruited as Archdeacon of Chesterfield in 2010.

Christine is also a non-executive director of Ecclesiastical Insurance, and has held several national church posts, including membership of the General Synod, the Anglican Communion Indaba conversations that seek to energise mission and build the international community of Anglican Christians through respectful listening, one of the eight female participant observers on the House of Bishops, and as a vocations consultant and selector, helping to discern those who are to be recommended for ordination. Christine has also been a member of Derby Cathedral Council.

“I was thrilled, and a little daunted, to be offered the post of Dean of Lincoln,” said Christine.

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