(Via email–KSH).

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Last week, lay and ordained leaders from around our province and throughout the world gathered in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, at St. Vincent’s College for the ACNA’s Provincial Council and Assembly meetings. The event began with the Conclave of the College of Bishops which resulted in the Right Reverend Steve Wood, bishop of the Diocese of the Carolinas, being unanimously elected as the next Archbishop and Primate of the ACNA. Thank you for your faithful prayers over the past months!

Next followed a week filled with teaching, worship, fellowship, prayer, and business meetings. Each day we were led in a study of 2 Timothy by the Right Reverend Rennis Ponniah (Retired Bishop, Singapore). I was so grateful for the large turnout of leaders from our Diocese with more than 50 participating.

Here are several highlights from the week:

• On Wednesday, we had a beautiful Eucharistic service in the Basilica, with a processional of almost 200 vested clergy including deacons, priests, bishops and archbishops!
• We approved a new Provincial Misconduct Policy for Children and Adults that will soon be available to our Dioceses and will serve as a minimum template for diocesan policy. Of note, it puts the onus on the bishops to ensure the policies are enacted. Thankfully DOMA already has a strong foundation in the protection of her people. 
• A Spanish-language Book of Common Prayer will soon be available.
• Our ACNA Catechism is being adopted by Anglican churches throughout the world and will soon be available as a downloadable app. 
• Attendance at ACNA churches has rebounded to pre-Covid levels. About 85,000 are now attending Sunday services with a total ACNA membership of more than 128,000. We’ve added 36 new congregations in 2023.
• ACNA now has 265 military chaplains serving our U.S. military.
• At the closing Eucharistic service, Bishop Wood received the Provincial Cross and the transfer of spiritual authority to take up his office. +Steve will be installed at a provincial service later this fall. 

You may also enjoy this video interview from Provincial Assembly of Archbishop Steve and his wife, Jacqui (interview at 1:41:00). Please continue to pray for Archbishop Steve and his family during this time of transition into his new role as archbishop.

Blessings,

(The Rt. Rev) Chris Warner is Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic

A wonderful end to a great week of @The_ACNA Provincial Council and Assembly! Praying for God's continued guidance for Abp Wood and the province moving forward. pic.twitter.com/LNQQF5u5ot

— American Anglican (@AnglicanCouncil) June 28, 2024

I found myself staying up late with my fellow attendees each night of the assembly—on the first night, getting pizza with other clergy, ministry leaders, and lay representatives from my diocese; on the rest, spending time with new friends from throughout our province and observing the camaraderie that quickly developed. What hath Kentucky (my home) to do with California, Louisiana, Alabama, or Hawaii? The love of Christ and his Church. The mission carried forward. It’s a beautiful thing.

Finally, the truth of Christ unites us, as does the faith we confess in the creeds each time we gather. As more than one person pointed out, we prioritize a reliance on the truth revealed in Scripture above all else. We stand together in this emphasis, even on issues on which our interpretations disagree. Resting on Scripture, supported by the historic formularies, our constitution, and canons, we have the grounding to stand firm for the faith. We shouldn’t dismiss our differences but should unite around truth.

Ultimately, we expressed this unity as the Body of Christ by coming together and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in our two Eucharist services, one on Wednesday and one on Friday. The opening Eucharist service (in which many of the assembled clergy sweated through our vestments) featured a powerful message by the Rev. Vaughn Roberts of St. Ebbs Church, Oxford. The British clergyman’s presence, along with that of numerous Anglicans from around the globe, reminded us of the unity of orthodox Anglicans worldwide. After the consecration of the Sacrament by Archbishop Beach, we all processed forward to receive Christ: to be united in the one to whom we belong.

Read it all.

It was wonderful to have the opportunity to meet so many of you at Provincial Assembly last week! Our editor, Jacob Davis, saw one beautiful aspect that he wanted to reflect on: our unity. https://t.co/ZAxoffSJtY

— Anglican Compass (@AnglicanCompass) July 3, 2024

As Vice-Chair of the GTF and a Trustee for the American Anglican Council, I’ve been honored to be part of the work we did to improve our canons over the last five years. I’m particularly thankful for the now-ratified canon that places a canonical duty upon our diocesan bishops to ensure that protection plans are in place to prevent abuse to both children and adults within our churches and ministries. Sample protection plans are available through the Executive Committee of the ACNA to aid bishops in developing protection plans that fit their diocesan contexts. Perhaps even more “province-changing” are the now-ratified canons requiring diocesan bishops to develop clear processes and procedures to report misconduct by priests, deacons, and even laity. These new canons seek to improve consistency and fairness to both accusers and the accused across the province, providing easy on-ramps and off-ramps for accusations of misconduct and increasing the transparency with which such allegations are handled.

Additional changes to our disciplinary canons were ratified as well and, by God’s grace, will act to increase the tools available to our province to protect the flock of Christ from abuse and misconduct. Importantly, these changes include granting the archbishop (with the consent of a panel of senior bishops) power to give a godly admonition or inhibit a wayward bishop. They also grant the dean of the province the same power towards any wayward archbishop. God forbid such powers will need to be exercised, but discipline for every level of the Church leads to greater discipleship, as we all seek to glorify God in his Church.

Please pray for Archbishop-elect Steve Wood as he takes the provincial crozier tomorrow and carries on the good legacy of leadership begun by Archbishop Duncan and Archbishop Beach. Pray for the Governance Task Force as we continue to work on further revisions to the disciplinary canons of the ACNA. And pray for the ACNA in general, that we might continue to proclaim the Good News of Christ with boldness and vigor. What an honor it is to see God’s Spirit on the move in this branch of his body, as we seek to express the English Reformation in a way that is orthodox, evangelical, catholic, and, with the help of good canons, disciplined in all our doings.

Read it all.

Canon Andrew Rowell of the ACNA Governance Taskforce breaks down the developments in the new canons affirmed at Provincial Assembly, the difference between Assembly and Council, and what it all means moving forward: https://t.co/ZaaTTSIwe7

— American Anglican (@AnglicanCouncil) June 27, 2024

One of North America’s largest areas of interconnected glaciers is melting twice as quickly as it did before 2010, a team of scientists said Tuesday, in what they called an “incredibly worrying” sign that land ice in many places could disappear even sooner than previously thought.

The Juneau Ice Field, which sprawls across the Coast Mountains of Alaska and British Columbia, lost 1.4 cubic miles of ice a year between 2010 and 2020, the researchers estimated. That’s a sharp acceleration from the decades before, and even sharper when compared with the mid-20th century or earlier, the scientists said. All told, the ice field has shed a quarter of its volume since the late 18th century, which was part of a period of glacial expansion known as the Little Ice Age.

As societies add more and more planet-warming carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, glaciers in many areas could cross tipping points beyond which their melting speeds up rapidly, said Bethan Davies, a glaciologist at Newcastle University in England who led the new research.

“If we reduce carbon, then we have more hope of retaining these wonderful ice masses,” Dr. Davies said. “The more carbon we put in, the more we risk irreversible, complete removal of them.”

Read it all.

Study Finds Alaskan Ice Field Melting at an ‘Incredibly Worrying’ Pace https://t.co/MjBzzo3n4G

— Sarah Pickman (is also on Bluesky) (@sarahmpicks) July 3, 2024

 Vice President Kamala Harris is the top alternative to replace U.S. President Joe Biden if he decides not to continue his reelection campaign, according to seven senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee with knowledge of current discussions on the topic.

Biden’s fumbling, sometimes-incoherent and widely-panned first-debate performance against Republican rival Donald Trump last week set off a wave of panic within the Democratic party over concerns that he may not be fit enough to serve a second term, and prompted calls for top aides to resign.

Read it all.

Kamala Harris is the #1 choice to replace Biden if he steps aside in the presidential race, seven sources with knowledge of discussions on the subject tell ⁦@nanditab1⁩ https://t.co/cBexGqAkRo

— Heather Timmons (@HeathaT) July 3, 2024

Almighty God,
send down upon your Church
the riches of your Spirit,
and kindle in all who minister the gospel
your countless gifts of grace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

The Anglo-Saxon Priory Church of St. Mary, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire – with Priory Farmhouse (once part of the original monastery). This area was the scene of the treaty between Canute and Edmund Ironside in 1016AD. pic.twitter.com/BPOlCqCDdI

— Andy Marshall 📸 (@fotofacade) July 3, 2024

“Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first; and they did the same to them. Afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The very stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes, because they held him to be a prophet.

–Matthew 21:33-46

Good Wednesday morning #limhamn #photofrommyheart pic.twitter.com/XSwWfuTIR2

— Lisa von Steijern🇸🇪 (@LisavonSteijern) July 3, 2024