You can listen directly there and and download the mp3 there. The sermon proper starts about 10 seconds in.

With thanks to Kevin Kallsen and George Conger at Anglican TV

Press Gazette: ‘Former Telegraph editor Moore would not have published Archbishop paternity story without his consent’
..Moore said he would not have pursued the story past the research stage without cooperation from Archbishop Welby.

“I think it is a good story to do but only with certain qualifications,” he said. “I thought to myself it would be wrong to front him up with the story and say I will do it whatever happens.”

He added: “In a sense he had power over the story because he could have behaved differently, he could have said go away and I think if he had done that I would not have been able to go further.”
………….
Moore said: “He is a very direct man, decisive, and said let’s have a DNA test because certainty is better than doubt. I said I will organise that and I was a bit surprised actually that he wanted to do that. I thought he might want to have a private chat with his mother in the first instance.”

But the Archbishop believed it was better to find out if the story was true first.

The Archbishop took the DNA test in front of Moore. “The result was undeniable and he immediately accepted it and spoke to his mother,” he said.

Moore understood it was unlikely 86-year-old Lady Williams of Elvel would want to give an interview, but she confirmed the story to her son and released a statement on Friday night.

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The council also elected five representatives to the communion’s Standing Committee. They are:

Diocese of Edmonton Bishop Jane Alexander, Anglican Church of Canada
Alistair Dinnie, Scottish Episcopal Church
Jeroham Melendez, Anglican Church of the Region of Central America
The Rev. Nigel Pope, Church of North India (United)
Bishop of Nairobi Joel Waweru, Anglican Church of Kenya

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‘The GAFCON Primates Council is meeting this week in Nairobi (18th-23rd April). As ever, they would value prayer as they seek to guard the Gospel so it can be faithfully proclaimed’.
Below are some points to guide your prayers as well as your praise to our God who is rich in mercy and grace.

Give thanks:

– for the Primates’ willingness to serve the Anglican Communion through the GAFCON Primates Council despite the heavy burdens they carry in their own Provinces.
– for the courageous and faithful leadership of Archbishop Wabukala as he stands down as chairman at this meeting.

Pray:

– for safety in travelling and at the venue, for visa arrangements to go smoothly and for everyone to arrive as scheduled.
– that the Primates will be united and strong in their love for God’s Word and their resolve to see the Church of God healed and renewed.
– for wisdom in the decisions that need to be made about GAFCON 2018 and the development of the GAFCON movement.
– for the Advisers, Consultants and Secretariat staff who will be supporting the Primates.
– for this meeting to be an encouragement to the Anglican Church of Kenya

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The basis for hope lies outside us and is centred in Jesus, writes Christopher Holmes.
Is there any hope?

That is the question confronting the thoughtful observer of the human condition.

The answer that the Christian faith gives is a resounding yes.

But why?

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Some 360 participants turned out for the first of two Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (NZ) conferences, held at La Vida, Christchurch (and the second begins tomorrow at St Chad’s Meadowbank). I estimate that 330 of the 360 were from the Diocese of Christchurch and 30 were from Dunedin, Nelson and Wellington Dioceses. By my count 30 Christchurch clergy were there, including vicars or priests-in-charge of 19 parishes, with 7 clergy from other dioceses. That is probably the largest Anglican conference held in NZ in a long decade. (I do not know how many are registered for the Auckland conference).
……
For readers here anxious about how the future of our church will unfold then the conference was a clear reminder that there are matters to be anxious about, all of which turn on whether General Synod comes to a decision or decisions which we can live with. The conference was a frank and robust reminder that synodical government can make decisions which cannot be lived with by the whole of an Anglican church. This was so especially when we heard from David Short (whose church, then St John’s Shaunessy Vancouver, tried to stay within the Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada when that Diocese first agreed to and then implemented blessings of same sex relationships, and found that, in the end, and to great personal cost to David as well as to his congregation, this was not possible).

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By Barton Swain
Recently I bought a copy of John Stott’s brief and famous exposition of the Christian gospel, Basic Christianity, which I intended to give to a friend. The book was first published in 1958 and has sold several million copies. It is at once simple and refined, gentle and uncompromising, and many people in the Anglophone world can trace their conversions to reading Stott’s little masterpiece. If any “spiritual classics” were published during the second half of the twentieth century, Basic Christianity surely is one.
…..
Clearly the editor wanted to introduce a new generation to Stott’s beautiful book; his intentions were noble. But the project was a mistake. The Basic Christianity people are buying and reading today is a bad imitation of the original. The editor and publisher had no right to transform Stott’s book as they did, whether or not the author granted his permission. Good books are precious things that belong as much to their readers as they do to their publishers and even their authors. That is doubly so in the case of Basic Christianity, a work that has engaged its readers at the most intimate levels.

One discerns, too, a basic failure to understand the nature of a book. Except in bizarre circumstances, no book on any subject can come close to its original popularity a half century after it was published. Meddling with its text in an effort to make it popular again””dumbing its language down, making its pronouns gender-neutral””can only rob the book of what power it might still have. Anyone who picks up Basic Christianity today will do so because he wants something altogether different from the products available in his own age. He wants something from the past. What he gets instead sounds almost as if it were composed yesterday: chatty, choppy, bereft of much difficulty, with an improbable hint of political correctness.

In a sense, then, the updated book is a metaphor for the modernizing urge so typical of contemporary religiosity. Nothing achieves irrelevance quite so consistently as the feverish attempt to stay relevant.

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O Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning; who abidest steadfast as the stars of heaven: Give us grace to rest upon thy eternal changelessness, and in thy faithfulness find peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Blessed is he who considers the poor!
The Lord delivers him in the day of trouble;
the Lord protects him and keeps him alive;
he is called blessed in the land;
thou dost not give him up to the will of his enemies.
The Lord sustains him on his sickbed;
in his illness thou healest all his infirmities.

–Psalm 41:1-3

President Mugabe yesterday met Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby at State House in Harare. Archbishop Welby applauded relations between the Church and the State in Zimbabwe which he said were improving…

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O Heavenly Father, by whose gracious will we have been born again by the Word of truth: Make us ever swift to hear that Word and responsive to its saving message, that henceforth we may live as those who are partakers of thy new creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Because thy steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise thee. So I will bless thee as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on thy name. My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat, and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips, when I think of thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the watches of the night; for thou hast been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings I sing for joy.

–Psalm 63:3-7

When the Rev. Bob Honeychurch learned that the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop was calling for staff culture reform after firing two senior administrators for misconduct, he had a hunch what some of those cultural issues might be.

From 2008 to 2012, Honeychurch served on the national church staff, where he heard accounts of gender bias on multiple occasions. Women were excluded from important decision-making, Honeychurch said, even when they held high offices and had relevant skills and experience to offer. Respecting female colleagues as equals wasn’t the norm.

“They weren’t treated with the same level of respect as the men,” said Honeychurch, 59, who now teaches church leadership at Bloy House, The Episcopal Theological School at Claremont. “There are female members of the church center staff who expressed their concerns in my presence, and I have to take those concerns seriously.”

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When an intrepid IU student confronted the threat at a local frozen yogurt shop””that’s your first clue””he did not find a Klansman, complete with hood and whip. Instead, he found a Dominican friar, Father Jude McPeak, whose “hood” turned out to be his habit and whose “whip” was his rosary.

And far from looking for someone to assault, Father McPeak was on his way back from a meeting with students. It wasn’t the only time he had been on campus: He often walks around IU praying for students.

For his part, Father McPeak chuckled and said it wasn’t the first time his appearance had ruffled some feathers.

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Listen to it all here or you can find a download there.

The Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Steven Croft, is to become the 44th Bishop of Oxford in the summer, Downing Street announced on Tuesday morning. The see has been vacant for 18 months, since the Rt Revd John Pritchard retired in October 2014.

Dr Croft has been Bishop of Sheffield since 2009. He said that he was excited about his new position in one of the Church of England’s largest dioceses. “We have had seven really happy, fulfilling years in Sheffield. I will miss the people I work with the most. But I am looking forward to that new challenge.”

The three area bishops will free him to focus on strategy and a personal ministry of mission and evangelism, he says. “Initially, I will listen and discern what is happening locally, but I would hope to be engaged with adults and young people in places where they are ”” schools and workplaces.”

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Teach us, O gracious Lord, to begin our works with fear, to go on with obedience, and to finish them in love, and then to wait patiently in hope, and with cheerful confidence to look up to thee, whose promises are faithful and rewards infinite; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:1-4

Lord, for thy tender mercy’s sake,
lay not our sins to our charge,
but forgive that is past,
and give us grace to amend our sinful lives.
To decline from sin and incline to virtue,
that we may walk in a perfect heart before thee,
now and evermore.
Amen

This week, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), one of the four Anglican “Instruments of Communion,” is meeting in Lusaka, Zambia. In the life of a desperately compromised institution, it has been no surprise that the decision of the overwhelming number of Primates of the Anglican Communion has been ignored. The Episcopal Church (TEC) has not only led the rebellious charge to incorporate sexual practices that are proscribed by Scripture, but they (and a few other Anglican Provinces) also have gone a step further”¦they are blessing what God calls sin.

What is absolutely remarkable is the great absence of institutional voices to say that what TEC (and other similarly minded Provinces) is doing is wrong. It’s not really hard. W.R.O.N.G. Easy to say, but it isn’t being said.

Instead, the emphasis is on “positive” contributions from TEC and on apologizing to “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,Transgendered, ”˜Questioning,’ and ”˜Inquiring’” (LGBTQI) people. Most of the apologies center around asking for forgiveness for not fully incorporating those with leanings or behaviors of LEBTQI into the life (and leadership) of the Church.

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The Archbishop and Primate of Hong Kong, the Most Revd Dr Paul Kwong, has been elected as the new chair of the Anglican Consultative Council ”“ the legally constituted body that brings together Anglican churches from around the world.

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‘The “Umbrella Man” photo as police dispersed peaceful demonstrators with tear gas’

Tomorrow, across the city & nation, please join us in a moment of silence at 2:49 p.m. on #OneBostonDay. pic.twitter.com/1BmGWKAKGi

— Mayor Marty Walsh (@marty_walsh) April 14, 2016

..Let me speak very personally. One of the most painful elements of the present crisis for me has been the lack of leadership in places from which one could have expected it. I can understand TEC; her leadership make no secret of their theology or the reasons why they take the stand they do.

But what I find most painful is the silence or prevarication of those who don’t agree with the new sexual ethic, who understand that our ministry is the ministry of the word of God, but who say nothing except to distance themselves from a movement like GAFCON.

Where is Elijah?

I have sat in the room with Primates who have spoken with evident deep pain about the way in which the ones they have looked to for clear teaching and leadership, have failed to say publicly what God’s word says.

More, when I mix with ”˜the ordinary person in the pew’, people who have always understood that we are meant to obey the word of God, when these people seek to live and speak for Christ in a culture which has abandoned God, they too are bewildered and dismayed by a leadership which has not given them voice and hope…

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Advancing the Kingdom of God includes establishing justice, love and good works, but is not limited to these things, according to speakers at a major conference of Anglican missionaries.

“We also need to ”˜tell the story’: minister the power of the Gospel and disciple new believers,” declared Anglican Bishop of Singapore Rennis Ponniah. “It is a story that grips and transforms hearts.”

Ponniah spoke April 9 at the New Wineskins for Global Mission conference, a triennial gathering of more than 1,000 participants near Asheville, North Carolina..

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..A recent wave of church developments, similar to what has happened in New York, has at least three of them rebuilding sites, sparking debate about urban planning and heritage preservation, as well as whether religious institutions are exploiting land intended for non-profit use.
….
The Anglican Church plans to build two towers of 18 floors and 11 floors as part of a redevelopment near Lan Kwai Fong. The land currently has historic buildings, including the 166-year-old bishop’s house and a church that was used by Japanese soldiers during the second world war as a training school.

In the deal reached and approved by the government in 2011, the Anglican Church will preserve the heritage buildings at its own cost. The two new towers will be used for facilities including a church, kindergarten and a medical centre, according to a June 2011 government document.

A representative of the church was unavailable for comment on the development.

The Anglican Diocese’s St John’s Cathedral built in 1849 sits on the only freehold plot of land in the city in the shadow of Central’s soaring office towers. Other land in Hong Kong is owned by the government and sold for long-term leases.

“Those land sites that they acquired in colonial times have become their biggest assets today,” said Ng Cho-nam, a former member of the Antiquities Advisory Board, a government body advising on heritage issues in the city. While maximising the value of their land, churches should take heritage into consideration as they had close relationship with the city during its development as a former colony, he said.

Previously, the church partnered with Li Ka-shing’s Cheung Kong (Holdings) in 1993 to build a residential complex on a site it was using as an orphanage, which was set to be relocated, in a suburban district. The church and its foundation earned about HK$1.1 billion from selling homes and parking spaces at the project, a legal document showed.

Read it all and there is an update here

Because of the vast distances involved in servicing the central-west, the Anglican Church says it is physically impossible for one ordained person to minister to the whole region.

The church says it can also be difficult to attract people to serve in more isolated locations.

As a result a different approach is being trialled…

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One of Liverpool’s historic churches is set to be sold to the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox church.

St Paul’s in Old Swan has become too expensive to be retained by the Church of England – but locals are angry at the plans which would also see the graveyard moved.

The last service was held in St Paul’s Stoneycroft on Easter Sunday and services have now been joined with the neighbouring St Anne’s parish.

A note on the St Anne’s website from vicar Emma Williams said they now hope the Egyptian Coptic Church (ECC) will take over the St Paul’s site.

The church was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, who at the time St Paul’s was built had been appointed to design Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral.

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On Wednesday April 13, 2016 Archbishop Foley Beach, Bishop Philip Jones, Bishop Bill Atwood, Bishop Sandy Greene, Canon Phil Ashey and the Rev. Allen Hughes met in Dallas to continue conversations about our relationship, history, and ministry.

Our conversations over many months have yielded substantial progress. Poignant times of sharing have led to meaningful expressions of forgiveness and reconciliation. Coming to a good place of personal relationships has allowed us to begin to address our ongoing ministry relationship and foster ways of cooperating.

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