Garage Hymnal album launch
Garage Hymnal’s new album is being launched at St. Andrew’s Cathedral on Saturday.
Details here.
Parishes and New Westminster mediation unsuccessful
“After one and a half days of mediation with Chief Justice Donald Brenner acting as the mediator, the Diocese of New Westminster and four Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) parishes – St. John’s (Shaughnessy), St. Matthias and St. Luke, and Church of the Good Shepherd in Vancouver, and St. Matthews in Abbotsford – failed to reach an agreement. The dispute over church properties will now proceed to trial in the BC Supreme Court commencing May 25. …”
More in this PDF file (direct link) released by the Anglican Network in Canada.
(Photo: St. John’s Shaughnessy building.)
ACC 14 Alternative Press Conference
Earlier this week, Anglican TV recorded an alternative press conference at ACC-14.
Hear the frustrations felt by some of the good guys – here.
Diocese of New Westminster and ANiC parishes enter mediation
From the ANiC Newsletter:
“Earlier this year, the ANiC parishes served a “Notice to Mediate” on the Diocese of New Westminster but did not set a date for mediation until after the first batch of affidavits had been delivered by both sides. The parties began a two-day mediation session today and it is scheduled to continue tomorrow, Friday (May 15). The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of BC is acting as the mediator. Please keep the parties and this mediation process in your prayers tonight and tomorrow. …
The trial in New Westminster begins in only 11 days, on May 25.”
Vancouver: ANiC’s initial legal submission
The Diocese of New Westminster has placed online copies of its initial legal submission and also that of the Anglican Network in Canada – relating to St John’s Shaughnessy and other ANiC parishes in Vancouver.
Both are PDF files (direct links): The ANIC submission. The New Westminister submission. (Thanks to Ed Hird.)
From the ANiC submission –
“The Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the Parish Corporations of each of [these parishes] … hold the Parish property in trust for their congregations for the purpose of ministry consistent with historic, orthodox Anglican doctrine and practice…”
Tipping Point in Jamaica
“The sense that this meeting has become a tipping point for the future of the Anglican Communion is not simply to do with the failure of the Covenant, it is also to do with the way in which it has failed …”
– Charles Raven writes at SPREAD.
Listening process or Repentance?
“An Anglican council that advises member churches worldwide and works to facilitate cooperative work has announced the continuation of a listening process that seeks to open the ears of Anglicans to the experiences of homosexual persons. …
According to the Rev. Canon Phil Groves … trust must be based on the belief that ‘we’re not going to amend or betray the Gospel…'”
– A rather optimistic report on the ACC meeting from Christian Today.
For a more sober report, see the latest from Philip Ashey in Jamaica –
During his presentation of the Windsor Continuation Group Report and recommendations, Dr Williams spoke to us about a deficit in our Communion life, which he describes as an “ecclesial deficit.” I would like to suggest that a different deficit is at the heart of the Anglican Communion’s malaise. …
– read it all on The American Anglican Council website.
(Photo: Abp Phillip Aspinall, left, at the morning press conference, from the Anglican Communion News Service.)
Coming to a church meeting near you: Indaba funded from Atlanta, Georgia
Chris Sugden in Jamaica reports on Day 5 of the Anglican Consultative Council’s meeting:
The Lambeth centre continues to impose its hegemony by introducing into all the central meetings of the Communion, Lambeth, the Primates’ Meeting in Egypt and the ACC meeting in Jamaica, the indaba process. This is designed to maintain matters as they are and avoid all discussion and decision about Anglican identity, membership and morality. Worse, this process claims to use a deracinated process that those from the Global South are expected to acknowledge as a tribute to their cultural contribution.
– Via Anglican Mainstream.
See also this report on Day 5 by Robert Lundy, Communications Officer for The American Anglican Council:
On a day when the cloud of litigation surrounding The Episcopal Church grows darker, many couldn’t help but notice it even from the sunny shores of Jamaica. However this litigious church tempest seems to have escaped the sight of the 14th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council and some of the Anglican Communion’s top officials.
Today, a pastor and his wife are being evicted from their home in Colorado Springs. At the same time, the individual members of the vestry of Saint James Newport Beach are being sued by the Diocese of Los Angeles for $500,000 a piece in legal fees for a total of $6 million being sought by the diocese.…
– at The American Anglican Council. (Photo: AAC.)
How BBJ came to Christ
Over at SydneyAnglicans.net, past President of the ACL, Bruce Ballantine-Jones shares how he came to Christ at the 1959 Bill Graham Crusade in Sydney.
Connect09 Prayer Day planned
A Day of Prayer for Connect09 is being planned for Friday May 22nd in the Chapter House of St. Andrew’s Cathedral – from 10:00am–2:30pm.
As the Lord Jesus reminded his disciples, ‘apart from me you can do nothing’. Details here. Video message from the Archbishop here.
The Disappearance of God
“Has God disappeared? The tragic reality is that we are living in an age that is marked by so much spiritual and theological confusion that the God of the Bible has largely disappeared from view — replaced by less imposing deities that are more amenable to the modern mind. …”
– Albert Mohler provides an extract from his new book, The Disappearance of God: Dangerous Beliefs in the New Spiritual Openness.
Report from Day 4 of ACC meeting
“In essence it would appear that the Archbishop is preparing himself and the communion for a significant change. He admitted it could no longer be the communion it was 20 years ago. Therefore the proposals are not an attempt to put the clock back, put Humpty Dumpty back together again or the toothpaste back in the tube. …”
– Chris Sugden and Philip Ashey (declared to be guilty of ‘cross border intervention’ and denied a seat representing Uganda) give their perspective on the Anglican Consultative Council’s 4th day of meeting in Jamaica, yesterday.
ACC refuses to seat Ugandan delegate due to his ‘cross border intervention’
Background: At the Anglican Consultative Council’s meeting in Jamaica one of the elected representatives of the Church of Uganda has been refused a seat because he is involved in ‘cross border intervention’ in the US.
Here’s a Statement from the Church of Uganda —
“On the first day of the ACC-14 meeting, the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council made an unconstitutional decision to refuse to seat the clergy delegate from the Church of Uganda. The Church of Uganda is entitled to three delegates – a Bishop, priest, and lay person. …”
– from the Church of Uganda via Anglican Mainstream.
And the Anglican Communion News Service has released this statement justifying the decision – there’s also the audio of a press conference with ‘Secretary General of the Anglican Communion’ Canon Kenneth Kearon. Some questions from the press allege inconsistencies in the decision.
Canon Dr Chris Sugden sums it all up –
“We see here what appears to be a lack of fairness, evenhandedness and consistency applied to the advantage of those who have caused the current problems by departing from the teaching and practice of the Communion in faith and morals and to the disadvantage of those who have adhered to the teaching and practice of the Communion in faith and morals.”
Read the full text of his commentary here.
And the correspondence between Archbishop Orombi and Canon Kearon has been made available.
Archbishop of Sydney in rallying call to Church of Ireland evangelicals
Delivering an extensive survey and commentary on the current inter-Anglican crisis over human sexuality last week at an open meeting of the Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy (EFIC), the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Revd Peter Jensen, issued a rallying call to Church of Ireland evangelicals to be vigilant that no “official act which endorses sin” should take place in the Church of Ireland. …
– The Church of Ireland Gazette. (Photo: Joy Gwaltney)
Cathedral to celebrate Graham Crusades
Chris Moroney, Senior Minister at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, writes –
“[W]e are holding a special Thanksgiving Service for the Billy Graham Crusades in Australia. This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the first Billy Graham Crusade in Sydney. It was a very exciting and significant time in the life of our churches, here in Sydney and in many other parts of Australia. Many of our key leaders were converted at the Billy Graham Crusades. Our own Archbishop, Peter Jensen, and his brother Phillip Jensen, the Dean of Sydney, were among those converted at that time.
This will be a special time to gather with people from all our Anglican Churches and fellow Christians from other denominations and give thanks to God for his gracious work of gospel proclamation and personal conversion.
The service will be led by the Dean and the Archbishop will be preaching. We will also be praying for ongoing gospel outreach, and taking up a collection specifically for evangelism. Copies of the DVD Remembering ’59 will also be available for sale.”
2:00pm Saturday 9th May 2009, St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney.
Download a PDF advertisement (with thanks to the Cathedral). Please pass on this news.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…