Attendance within the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) rebounded in 2023 to pre-COVID numbers, according to congregational report data released June 25 at the denomination’s Provincial Council meeting at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

The denomination in 2023 reported an increase of 36 congregations to a total of 1,013, an increase in membership of 3,115 (+2.5 percent) to a total of 128,114 and an increase in attendance of 9,211 (+12 percent) to a total of 84,794.

The 2023 attendance numbers are a full rebound, exceeding pre-COVID levels, and are broad: only four ACNA dioceses reported any attendance decline in 2023. One was the now-dissolved Via Apostolica Missionary District, which saw most of its congregations transfer to the Anglican Network in Canada, the ACNA’s Canadian diocese.

Read it all.

“I have been targeted to be kidnapped and killed,” Archbishop Ali Buba Lamido of Wusasa shares. “Kidnapping has become an industry in Nigeria.” A Muslim-background believer, Lamido shares testimony @The_ACNA Assembly. Anglicanism isn’t a country club: Christian faith is costly. pic.twitter.com/dBO1w0BOdk

— Jeff Walton (@jeffreyhwalton) June 26, 2024

[Darryl] Fitzwater was originally ordained in a Pentecostal denomination and served there from 2002–2013. After being ordained as an Anglican priest in 2017, he planted Church of the Ascension in Charles Town, West Virginia in 2018. He will continue to serve there. Ascension will transfer dioceses and become the cathedral for the Missionary Diocese of All Saints.

When asked about the process that led to his election, Fitzwater shared that he did not intend to consider the position but felt a strong conviction that he should let the Lord make that decision instead of himself saying no. Regarding the election, he said, “I know it happened, but I don’t believe it,” noting the act of faith he has taken. As a bishop, Fitzwater passionately said he is most excited about “sharing Jesus.”

Archbishop Foley Beach commented, “I am encouraged by Darryl’s election and the youth he brings to the leadership of the Missionary Diocese of All Saints. He will be a great addition to the College, and I look forward to seeing how the Lord uses him in episcopal ministry.”

Read it all.

On June 24, 2024, the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America consented to the election of the Rev. Darryl Fitzwater to serve as the bishop of the Missionary Diocese of All Saints.

Read more here: https://t.co/Wpmp8uSM7S pic.twitter.com/RQm3Spx1eI

— ACNA (@The_ACNA) June 27, 2024

In her book, Low, a Christian college graduate and daughter of a pastor, grapples with the lessons learned in what she calls the “last room” — a stage where she is close to dying but still here. It’s a room we all will enter at some point, she writes. But few of us think about our mortality before then.  The lessons she’s learned there have taught her life can be both beautiful and awful, often at the same time. That’s different from what she learned growing up in church or as a college student — where she heard that God had a wonderful plan for her life and if she was faithful, things would turn out for the best. She now sees that message as more prosperity gospel than actual Bible teaching. Sometimes terrible things happen, she said in a recent interview with RNS. Not because of a lack of faith but because life is hard. “One of the things that I’ve learned over the past decade is that hardship has nothing to do with God’s faithfulness,” she said. “God is, for me anyway, even more present through the hardship than through the mountaintops.” Read it all.

In a moving, heartbreaking and yet hopeful book, Amy Low writes of finding miracles in the mundane details of life, while dying of cancer. https://t.co/FrJd9H4t4u

— Bob Smietana (@bobsmietana) June 27, 2024

From here:

Not unworthy of record among these devoted servants of Christ is the name of the Rev. Cornelius Hill. He was the oldest and last of the Oneida Chiefs and from an early age had taken his seat in the Indian Councils. He bore the name of Chief Onon-Gwat-Ga, or Great Medicine, and was one of the most influential in the tribe. He became converted to Christianity, studied at one time at Nashotah, was the interpreter in the Church for many years until the day of his death; was ordained to the diaconate and priesthood by myself; at one time was sent to the General Convention from this Diocese and was ever a most earnest and devoted and faithful Christian and Churchman.

It is owing, in no small measure, to his example and teaching that the tribe has so progressed in temporal civilization and in its spiritual life. There is, as it is well known, no remaining party of heathen on the reservation. The Indians are for the most part loyal and devoted children of the Church.

By their zeal and devotion they are, in many ways, an example to us white Americans. I cannot speak of Father Hill’s loving loyalty to myself without much feeling. His name will ever be cherished amongst his people and held in high regard in our Diocese.

Everliving Lord of the universe, our loving God, who raised up thy priest Cornelius Hill, last hereditary chief of the Oneida nation, to shepherd and defend his people against attempts to scatter them in the wilderness: Help us, like him, to be dedicated to truth and honor, that we may come to that blessed state thou hast prepared for us; through Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

#OnThisDay Jan 25,
1907
Death in Wisconsin of Onangwatgo [Cornelius Hill], an Oneida chief and Episcopal priest. pic.twitter.com/Bn7ZUKeo6w

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) January 25, 2021

We beseech thee, O Lord Christ, to deliver thy Church from the worship of mammon, from bondage to the world, and from all complicity in social evil and silence at wrong. Bring all mankind into the glorious liberty of the children of God, and set the whole creation free from sin and corruption; for thy holy name’s sake.

—Parish Prayers, Ed. Frank Colquhoun (Kent: Hodder and Stoughton, 1967)

"Summer Breeze"#HistoricBandOPondPark #AlmostHeaven #WestVirginia #Highlands #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/VlvV5RhD5a

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) June 27, 2024

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.

–Romans 5:1-11

Polridmouth, Menabilly, Cornwall – Daphne du Maurier Country, Cornwall pic.twitter.com/nzKUs8Bmg5

— Michael Perry (@MikePer85818309) June 27, 2024