Delegates to the Anglican Communion Network’s fifth annual council meeting in Overland Park, Kansas, voted today to begin handing over ministries as well as financial and administrative support services to the forming Anglican Church in North America.
Network members spoke of how much the organization has meant to them since its founding in 2004. “This has been my lifeline. Without the Anglican Communion Network and you all, I don’t know what would have happened,” said Episcopal Church Bishop Jim Adams of Western Kansas.
During the approximately six months the hand over is expected to take, the Network office will continue to provide key organizational, administrative and other services for Network members and the Common Cause Partnership as it completes the creation of the Anglican Church in North America.
The hand over will not be complete until the summer of 2009. When it is complete, the Network as it is currently configured will cease operation.
I suppose since most current ACN personnel will wish to commit themselves fully to the work of ACNA that this is inevitable. I can’t help but feel that it’s a pity that some sort of nexus for confessing Episcopalians will not persist (I suppose one could argue that Communion Partners does that, but, as we all know, it’s not much help in unfriendly dioceses). Of course, it may push places like Central Florida and South Carolina into taking the final step (which, I
imagine is what most ACNA leaders wish to encourage).
I hope someone is going to take the time to archive the records. The Network deserves an official history.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
Jeremy,
I agree that there’s clearly a need for something like the ACN for those remaining as witnesses inside TEC. Theoretically, the AAC is a nationwide organization that supports people both inside and outside TEC, but it’s main energies are clearly dedicated to supporting the CCP/ACNA. I suspect the people outside CP dioceses or parishes will want and need more support and help than the AAC can realistically give them, with its divided focus.
I also agree that the ACN records should be preserved for future study and use. And not just for our sake as Anglicans. I wouldn’t be surprised if conservative Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Methodists wouldn’t like to review carefully the brief history of the ACN, to learn from both its ups and its downs, its successes and failures. It’s only a matter of time before the other so-called “mainline” denominations face their own civil wars when the heated, polarizing pressures that they too are contending with boil over.
David Handy+
It would not be appropriate for a supportive structure for the orthodox remaining within TEC to be established by those who are leaving or have already left TEC. ‘Handing off’ an ACN identity to either the Communion Partners or the AAC was discussed but rejected by a group of Council delegates currently still within TEC. The consensus of that group of 20+ delegates was to wait until GC 2009 to, at that point, see where things stood.
[i] The consensus of that group of 20+ delegates was to wait until GC 2009 to, at that point, see where things stood [/i] —ServantPrep [#3]
As Benjamin Franklin declared in 1776, “We must hang together, . . . else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”
The less organized the group is, the more likely its members will end up demoralized, defeated, and needlessly compromised.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
From a worldly standpoint, there will never be a perfect time to act. There will never be a perfect action to take. And some of the orthodox who say they’ll act in the future will prove too clubbable, too naive, or even too superior to act.
(I write this as someone technically still in ECUSA as part of a vibrant orthodox congregation. We are living on borrowed time.)