At the conclusion of the January, 2012 Sacred Assembly in Raleigh, NC, Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje established a temporary Steering Team on behalf of the Anglican Church of Rwanda to serve in directing its ongoing missionary efforts in North America. The Steering Team was commissioned to both respond to immediate needs and also to prepare the way for future long” term mission and structure. The immediate task of the team was to provide pastoral care and oversight for clergy canonically resident in Rwanda, as well as those congregations desirous of continuing affiliation with Rwanda, all under the auspices of an interim organization known as PEARUSA (Province de L’Eglise Anglicane au Rwanda en USA). In preparing for the future, the team was charged to explore and develop plans for long”term ecclesiastical structures. Toward this end, a working group of laity, clergy and bishops met in a retreat center outside of Washington, DC, on Feb 26”28, 2012, to consider future possibilities. This communiqué reports the outcomes of this working group retreat….
Read it all (another from the long queue of should-have-already-been-posted material).
Some additional recent PEARUSA documents which are important (and if I may say, encouraging and edifying) reading for those following this story.
Bishop Barnum’s commentary on the Sacred Assembly and his acknowledgement of how his heart had become hardened such that he had not understood the degree of pain caused by some of AMiA’s earlier actions and decisions.
http://www.pearusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Apology-Received-11.pdf
Bishop Glenn’s most recent update on the options for PEARUSA clergy and congregations in moving forward:
http://www.pearusa.org/updates/pearusa-update-from-bishop-glenn/
Both seem to me to be very helpful documents and I appreciated the tone of humility and the commitment to pastoral care and accountability that is evident in Bp. Glenn’s update.
I am somewhat of an interested party in these matters since in 2010, I moved my US residence, and now worship in an AMiA church in my new hometown during my visits Stateside. (That church is choosing to stay with PEARUSA rather than follow AMiA in splitting from Rwanda). My 20+ year affiliation with Truro (and thus ties to CANA and ACNA) has led me to hope for closer unity between AMiA and ACNA, and it seems that out of this tragic and chaotic split in AMiA, that such unity MAY be possible for those former AMiA congregations that choose to stay under PEAR. I am continuing to hope and pray for “beauty from ashes” and for God to bring good out of what has appeared to be a sordid ugly mess…. These two documents give me hope that God is indeed working some things out for good.
I hope Joel at a Living Text blog is correct in his quite optimistic assessment of the PEAR USA Communique:
http://livingtext.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/thoughts-on-the-pear-communique/
He writes:
[blockquote]The canons of Rwanda are being revised with the recognition that they currently do not reflect the faith and practice of PEAR. The travesty authored by Kevin Donlon will be undone, and this is a great thing for the future of GAFCON. A real disaster was averted.
Also, the Missionary District asks for “conciliar episcopal oversight†from Rwanda. This is a clear difference from the language of “reverse colonialism†and Egypt used by both Bishop Murphy and former Archbishop Kolini.
Anyone who wants to simply move to ACNA, CANA or the REC can do so with Rwanda’s blessing. This isn’t a power grab. The existing, interim structure will go out of business soon and churches will be back on track to disciple the nations. [b]God has wrought wonderful things out of a tough situation.[/b] (emphasis mine) [/blockquote]
I hope and pray he’s right!