GAFCON Australasia plans a youth-focussed conference
“GAFCON Australasia’s second conference has set its sights firmly on the future of the church in Australia, for the first time welcoming youth to be fully involved in the movement.
GAFCON, the Global Anglican Future Conference, began as a meeting in Jerusalem in 2008 and grew into a movement for reform and renewal in the Anglican Church across the world. The Australasian branch held its first conference in Canberra in 2022, where it announced the formation of the Diocese of the Southern Cross to cover congregations that had to withdraw from the Anglican Church in various parts of Australia because of teaching that went against the Bible. …”
– Russell Powell reports at SydneyAnglicans.net.
Photo: GAFCON Aust 2022 conference in Canberra.
Victorians gather to lift their eyes at Summer Under the Son
“Hundreds of people have gathered to lift their eyes to God’s work throughout the world at CMS Victoria’s annual Summer Under the Son conference in Melbourne. …”
Plans for Consecration of GAFCON General Secretary Paul Donison announced
Here’s an Announcement from The Most Rev. Dr. Laurent Mbanda, Chair, Gafcon Primates’ Council, Primate & Archbishop of Rwanda:
“Dear Brothers and Sisters within our Gafcon family,
On behalf of the Gafcon Primates, it is my joy to announce the upcoming consecration of our General Secretary, the Reverend Canon Paul Donison, as a Bishop in our Lord’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church on 4 February 2024 at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kigali, Rwanda.
At our November 2023 meeting in London, the Primates passed a resolution asking that Dean Donison be consecrated, as the role of General Secretary is episcopal in nature: guarding and expanding the mission and unity of the Church, and helping to convene the Councils of the Church.
In December 2023, the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Rwanda agreed to consecrate Dean Donison as Bishop if the ACNA College of Bishops approved. Furthermore, in January 2024 the synod of the Metropolitan Diocese of Gasabo unanimously resolved that Dean Paul be consecrated as assistant Bishop of Gasabo Diocese.
On 9 January, 2024, the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), consented to the proposal that following his consecration, Bishop-elect Donison will be transferred to the Anglican Church in North America, and Invested as Vicar General (Area Bishop) of the Texas Deanery of the Anglican Diocese of the South. A service of Investiture and Celebration of his New Ministry as Gafcon General Secretary will be held at Christ Church Cathedral, Plano, Texas, USA, on 17 February 2024.
One of Gafcon’s priorities is to raise up a next generation of global leaders, and the Primates are unanimous in our conviction that Paul is the right person to assume this office “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
I ask your prayers for Bishop-elect Paul, his wife, Monika, their daughters, and for our whole Gafcon movement. …”
– Source: GAFCON.
Riding the wave of significant growth — with Indian Ocean Archbishop James Wong
From The Pastor’s Heart:
“Gospel ministry in the Indian Ocean is growing rapidly.
Anglican Primate James Wong leads the ministry in Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius and is visiting Sydney, on a speaking tour of the Church Missionary Society Australian Summer Conferences.
Archbishop Wong charts a course for further growth in ministry in his region.
Plus he outlines the detailed back room work taking place to reset the Anglican Communion, following the failure of the Church of England leadership to repent, ahead of the significant Global South meeting in Cairo in June.
Archbishop Wong is an advisor to the Gafcon Primates Council and serves on the leadership group of the Anglican Global South Fellowship.”
Why CPAS is wrong on conversion therapy
“Following a large amount of criticism on social media for having declared its support for the Evangelical Alliance’s ten affirmations on human sexuality, the trustees of the Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) issued a clarificatory statement last Thursday in which they declared, among other things, that ‘CPAS is opposed to conversion therapy, and seeks to uphold the highest standards of safeguarding and pastoral best practice.’
This declaration by the CPAS trustees was an attempt to distance themselves from number eight of the Evangelical Alliance’s affirmations which states …”
– Martin Davie responds to the ‘clarification’ issued by the trustees of the Church Pastoral Aid Society in the UK.
Pray for Dr. Siegfried Ngubane as he prepares to become REACH-SA Presiding Bishop
Here’s today’s GAFCON prayer request:
“Rev. Dr. Siegfried Ngubane is the Presiding Bishop elect for the Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (REACH-SA), a welcomed new Gafcon province. Pray for Dr. Ngubane as he prepares to assume the role from Presiding Bishop Glenn Lyons.”
Related: REACH SA website.
Photo: Dr. Ngubane with Bishop Glenn Lyons.
The crisis of episcopal leadership in the Church of England
“We have a serious crisis in the episcopal leadership of the Church of England. It has more than one dimension to it, and, as with any crisis, it has been a long time coming. If your ceiling caves in because a water leak has weakened the structures, you can be sure that the water has been leaking for some while (as we found out in our kitchen a couple of years ago!). The dimensions of this crisis include questions of role, training and education, and selection and appointment—but also more fundamentally of theological vision.
These questions have been brought into sharp focus by the news, leaked to the BBC, that Paula Vennells, chief executive of the Post Office during the Horizon scandal when 700 postmasters were wrongly convicted of fraud, was shortlisted for the role of Bishop of London, historically the third most senior post after the two archbishops. …
She trained part-time on what was then the Oxford and St Albans course, and appears to have undertaken no further theological study. The idea that someone with so little theological understanding, and absolutely zero experience in stipendiary ministry, could be considered as a candidate for the third most senior position in the Church, is quite astonishing. It indicates a complete loss of faith in the importance of either ministerial experience or theological depth on the part of someone. And it does seem clear that she was put on the short list by Justin Welby…”
– Ian Paul pulls no punches at Psephizo.
Image: Ian Paul speaking at the Church of England’s General Synod in February 2023.
Gafcon Australasia Conference 2024
The Gafcon Australasia Conference is coming up in Brisbane at the start of July.
Reformational Anglicanism and a New Global Communion — Dr. Ashley Null
Dr. Ashley Null gave the Inaugural John H. Rodgers Lecture at the Trinity School for Ministry in Pennsylvania on Reformation Day 2023.
“At the first Gafcon conference in Jerusalem in 2008, the Rt. Rev. John Hewitt Rodgers, Jr., in whose beloved memory this new, annual lecture series is now held, gave a landmark address entitled Where do we go from here?
In his Zoom Memoirs, recorded with the Rev. Dr. Stephen Noll, who is with us tonight, John commented that he considered this address to be the high point of his ministry in the wider Anglican Communion after retirement. High praise indeed for its message to which we should pay attention.
John began by noting a need to define what authentic Anglicanism actually is. Here is his brief description …”
The American Anglican Council has now published his address here.
Photo: GAFCON.
Pray for St. Patrick’s Bible College
Prayer focus from GAFCON:
“Following a huge increase in the numbers of believers, St. Patrick’s Bible College (Madagascar) is expanding its capacity to train leaders.
Praise God for the increase in students and the new dormitories to accommodate them.”
Related:
The Rev Berthier Lainirina, Principal of St Patrick’s Theological College speaks at Moore College Chapel, September 2023.
Canadian Archbishop Linda Nicholls to retire by October 2024
“ ‘I am discerning the exact date of my retirement’, she says.
Anglican clergy have difficulty deciding things, they have to discern them instead. …”
– David Jenkins comments at Anglican Samizdat about the yet-to-be-determined date of Archbishop Linda Nicholls’ retirement.
Related:
Canadian General Synod ponders financial future as revenues drop – Anglican Journal.
Image from the 2023 Canadian General Synod.
O Joy! – New Year message from Church Society’s Lee Gatiss
“You know, as well as I do, that, being in the Church of England right now, can have a detrimental effect on one’s health. …
How can we cope with it all? What is the solution?”
– Church Society’s Director Dr Lee Gatiss has a message of joy, despite what’s happening in the Church of England.
Related:
Why the Global South will win the Spiritual and Culture Wars in the Anglican Communion – commentary by David Virtue:
“It’s like a sinkhole opening up before your eyes, slowly swallowing up churches, bishops and priests, while watching helplessly as the hole increases and more of the Church of England falls into it never to be seen again. …
Whatever happens, the Global South now owns the Anglican Communion and they don’t have to force schism, because they are the theological heirs of Thomas Cranmer and his legitimate heirs.”
Church Society review of 2023
Church Society has published a review of what they did, and the big stories in the Church of England, in 2023.
It’s in two parts – January to June, and July to December.
It’s been quite a year, and our friends at Church Society have been strenuously contending for the faith in an increasingly unfaithful Church of England. Do pray for them.
Misgendering and Misuse of Discipline
After the report Vicar Faces Official Rebuke From Church of England For Saying Trans Archdeacon is “Biologically a Bloke”, earlier in the week, the Rev. Brett Murphy has responded on his video blog.
Brett was also interviewed by Kevin Kallsen at Anglican TV.
GSFA Chairman’s 2023 Christmas Message and Year-end Review
The Chairman of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches, Archbishop Dr Justin Badi Arama, has released this Christmas message and year-end review:
A FAITHFUL WITNESS IN ALL SEASONS
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.”
John 1:6-7
To be a faithful witness to the light of Jesus Christ is GSFA’s self-identity under God.
The work of a person who is a witness is to establish the truth beyond a reasonable doubt. May all of us continue to be strong witnesses of the God who has revealed Himself in the holy scriptures. John the Baptist was the faithful witness and the voice in the wilderness who announced the coming of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings who rules and defends us, and restrains and conquers all of his and our enemies.
In the week when we are about to celebrate our Lord’s incarnation, let us resolve to be like Him by giving ourselves sacrificially in service to those in need. Let us all resolve to share what God has given us with the poor, the suffering, the destitute as well as with all our fellow men and women who have yet to confess Jesus as Saviour & Lord.
The Year in Review
In many ways, 2023 was a momentous year for GSFA. The Lord gave us three special blessings:
1. Courage to stand for the truth
We thank God for the luminosity and the courage He gave to the primatial leadership of GSFA to stand for the truth by issuing the GSFA Ash Wednesday Statement. The Statement declared that by taking this action, which followed closely on several revisionist-leaning actions by Canterbury since Lambeth 2022, the Archbishop of Canterbury had forfeited his role as primus inter pares (“first among equals”) of the Communion.
The Ash Wednesday Statement emphasised that despite this departure from the ‘faith once for all delivered’ by the founding Province of our Communion, GSFA is not abandoning the ship. We are not leaving the historic Anglican Communion. We are stewards of all the good gifts the Lord has given our Communion through the centuries. We are therefore prepared, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to help re-set the Communion on its biblical foundation and continue our common life as God’s faithful people, rooted in the Word of God and expressed in common worship, distinctive liturgical formation, mutual care and accountability, and collective mission and ministry.
Events that have unfolded since the February 2023 Church of England General Synod Resolution, including prayers of blessing for a same sex couple for the first time on 17th December confirm GSFA’s reading of the situation and the timeliness of our response. A similarly dangerous innovation in pastoral practice on same sex blessings just announced by the Roman Catholic Church only serves to underline the depth of the spiritual crisis.
2. Love to build unity with other orthodox leaders
Looking back, I am grateful to God that He was pleased to use the Ash Wednesday Statement as a catalyst for unity. GSFA was privileged to host the gathering of Anglican Orthodox Leaders (AOL) in Cairo from 17th-19th October 2023 in which a total of 13 orthodox Primates participated, and they were joined by 10 Anglican leaders who were invited as Observers.
The purpose of the meeting was to consult and to develop a collective response to what it means to be a faithful Church in these unprecedented times. What emerged was a commitment to stand together for the truth of God’s word and to work together to take the gospel out to a needy and pain-ridden world (AOL Communique). This wider circle of Anglican primates recognised the viability of the GSFA Covenantal Structure as a locus of unity for the orthodox in the Communion which enables the full flowering of communion life. Importantly also, the Primates at AOL pledged that they would stand with orthodox Anglicans in revisionist and revisionist-leaning provinces.
3. Joy in God’s provision for the work of GSFA
We marvel at God’s faithfulness in not only providing the human resources for the work of GSFA but in granting us in 2023 an operational centre in Cairo for our growing ministry. We are especially grateful to Archbishop Samy Shehata of the Province of Alexandria for the provision of a beautiful office space in the All Saints’ Cathedral compound in Cairo. The opening of the Centre on 20 October 2023 captures the joy of this great step forward in our life and mission.
Plans for the coming year
GSFA plans to start the new year by conducting a Bishops Formation Retreat for new bishops and their wives in Uganda in February 2024.
We are getting ready for our first GSFA Assembly from 11th – 15th June 2024 in Egypt. Please be in prayer for this Assembly that it might be a time of spiritual refreshing and growing momentum. May we be like John the Baptist, fearless in the declaration of God’s truth and preparing the hearts of many to be faithful disciples of Christ. To our God and King be all majesty, power, authority, honour and glory, world without end.
I take this opportunity to wish you all the joy of Christmas and the blessings of the newborn King and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen
The Most Rev Dr Justin Badi Arama
Primate of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan and
Chair of GSFA.
Source (with images): GSFA.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…