Gafcon Chairman Foley Beach’s Advent Letter for 2020

In the Anglican Communion, we hope to see the restoration so pleaded for in the Scriptures,

“Restore our fortunes, LORD,
like streams in the Negev.
Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.” (Psalm 126:4-6)

This is the cry of our hearts. We lament the fractured church, and division between the followers of Jesus. We grieve for those in Australia, Wales, and England who have recently determined they will now embrace teaching which contradicts the clear laws of God. For we too, long for a unified, Christ-centered, orthodox, and missionary Church. We long for the impairment of broken promises, failed leadership, and relational walls to come down. We long for the Anglican Communion to be strong in Christ Jesus and abiding by the Scriptures. We don’t long for the glory days, but rather we long and wait for the Lord, as J.R. R. Tolkien quipped, to make all the sad things come untrue.

The irony of the Faith is that we wait. We wait for restoration. But our waiting is not without action. The most important activity of a waiting church is repentance – turning from our known sins and disobedience to God’s Word and walking from this day forward in holiness and righteous living in Him. In his great work, God is in the Manger: Reflections of Advent and Christmas, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says,

“God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past.”

This is why repentance is crucial.

Read it all.

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Posted in Advent, GAFCON