Pope Francis begins a three-nation visit to Africa later on Wednesday.

It will be his fourth visit to the continent since he became the head of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013, compared to the two his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, made during his eight-year papacy.

The importance of Africa to the Catholic Church can be summed up in a word – growth.

Africa has the fastest growing Catholic population in the world, while Western Europe, once regarded as the heartland of Christianity, has become one of the world’s most secular regions, according to the US-based Pew Research Center.

And many of those who do identify themselves as Christian in Western Europe do not regularly attend church.

In contrast, Christianity, in its different denominations, is growing across Africa. The Pew Research Center predicts that by 2060 more than four in 10 Christians will be in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read it all.

Pope Francis in Africa: Is the continent the Catholic Church’s great hope? https://t.co/n3SfiI3LUW

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 3, 2019

A Welcome Message about Consecration Day on Sept. 8 from The Falls Church Anglican on Vimeo.

Watch it all.

Read it all and make sure to look at all the accompanying data sets there also.

I was an accidental delegate to Assembly 2019, and if I’d had my way, wouldn’t have been there at all. Although I hadn’t investigated Assembly, I declined nomination as a delegate because I don’t like “cast of thousands” events. Plus, it meant going to Texas—in July. There I was, anyway, having been sent as an alternate to the prior Provincial Council meeting that coincided with the biennial Assembly. When flight cancellations kept the South Carolina Assembly delegates in South Carolina, those of us already in Texas were quickly deputized.

I’m confessing my self-serving spirit to emphasize that I was prepared to be underwhelmed by Assembly, but I was wrong. It was a tiny bit of business that gives way to a surfeit of ministry equipping and inspiration with the 2019 theme of Renewing the Call to the Great Commission. I was unprepared (see “hadn’t investigated”) for the quality and variety of the speakers and offerings. The execution of events and meals was flawless for a cast of one thousand, both North American Anglicans (anyone can register and attend all of Assembly) and global guests.

The Plenary session videos are posted on the ACNA app Media Center and two of these are among the best of their kind I have ever encountered….

Read it all (pages 1,7).

Thanks to private-school choice—vouchers, tax-credit scholarships and education savings accounts—this year nearly half a million children in 29 U.S. states and the District of Columbia will attend schools their parents selected.

8am advisory on Dorian. Still a cat 2 with 105 mph winds. Windy and wet along the Florida coastline, but conditions could be much worse from Savannah, GA north through NC as the storm gets really close to land. pic.twitter.com/sS5AUyn8dq

— Storm Alert 3 (@WRCBweather) September 4, 2019

From there:

The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Glenn Davies, has issued a statement in response to a vote by the Synod of the Diocese of Wangaratta to authorise a service to bless civil marriages. The Bishop of Wangaratta has claimed this service would allow for a blessing of same-sex unions and that he personally intends to use it for that purpose.

Archbishop Davies said “It is highly regrettable that clergy and lay people in the Diocese of Wangaratta have chosen to follow their Bishop rather than the clear words of Scripture concerning God’s design for human sexuality (Matt 19:4-12).

The doctrine of our Church is not determined by 67 members of a regional synod in Victoria nor is it changed by what they may purport to authorise.

Time and time again, the General Synod has affirmed the biblical view of marriage as the doctrine of our Church. To bless that which is contrary to Scripture cannot, therefore, be permissible under our church law.

The circumstances of this event are reminiscent of the actions of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada in 2003. It is now universally acknowledged that those events were the beginning of the ‘tear in the fabric of the Anglican Communion’.

Moreover, to claim the authority of our Church to carry out a service of blessing contrary to the biblical view of marriage and the doctrine of our Church will certainly fracture the Anglican Church of Australia.”

Archbishop Glenn Davies delivers “Mission Focused” Presidential Address https://t.co/TSqWhPmlHy pic.twitter.com/Y9GCBY0XnJ

— David Ould ن (@davidould) October 9, 2017

Merciful God, who didst send thy beloved Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Raise up in this and every land witnesses, who, after the example of thy servant Paul Jones, will stand firm in proclaiming the Gospel of the Prince of Peace, our Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today in @iamepiscopalian calendar we remember Paul Jones (1941), bishop and activist, and Prudence Crandall (1890), teacher and activist https://t.co/b9bEqdwBWe https://t.co/mm8qq0zr01 #GreatCloudOfWitnesses pic.twitter.com/olJmewywO5

— TrinityColumbusOH (@TrinityCapSq) September 3, 2018

Almighty God, who resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble: Deliver us when we draw near to thee from all self-sufficiency and spiritual pride; and grant us an ever deepening sense of our own unworthiness and of thy unfailing mercy; through him who is our only righteousness, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness. For we all make many mistakes, and if any one makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses that they may obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Look at the ships also; though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!

And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish? Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

–James 3:1-12