Ten Reasons to be Anglican

Over a decade ago, when I was debating whether or not to sign myself up for the Anglican Church, I was presented with some pretty crummy reasons in favour. Among the least inspiring was the suggestion that the Anglican Church was just the 'best boat to fish from'. That is, while there's not really a whole lot that comes to mind in favour of it, it's probably better than the alternatives. Another equally bland attraction was that the Anglican Church had good job security. Whereas baptist congregations can sack their ministers at the drop of a hat, you're safer in the Anglican system, so the argument went. Well, I joined up anyway...

In recent times, I've been encouraged to think about some non-Anglican jobs and this has given me fresh pause to think about why I really want to stay an Anglican. Is there anything more positive that makes me - and might make others - want to be a flag-flying, card-carrying, unashamed Anglican follower of Jesus?

Of course, I know that at one level, this is a marginal issue. On the last day, Jesus isn't going to line up everyone by denomination. Far less is he going to embrace any denominational construct for its own sake. (Although I suspect that there may be denominational sins for which members of denominations will be held to account.) At another level though, it's a practical reality for lots of people who are thinking about church life. And it's certainly an essential question for anyone who wants to consider, and be considered for, church leadership.

So then, here are ten things that I think Anglican Church has got going for it and that make me really want to invest in it. Maybe others will think of more.

1. Solid theological foundation. Starting with the basics, the authoritative, foundational documents of the church are deep, clear and helpfully nuanced. The position on key points of doctrine are not only well defined, but also even artfully embodied into the well-balanced liturgies. The focus is squarely on Jesus Christ and his gospel as revealed through the historic Scriptures.

2. Breadth in secondary matters. The flip side of the first point is that Anglicans are permissive on non-core matters. There are many different traditions and styles within the Anglican Church and that's completely fine. With the essentials pinned down, there's plenty of freedom for different expressions of the faith and even for different views on some doctrinal questions. (For those who think that the liturgies are too inflexible, my own experience is that wooden services are more often the result of services leaders who don't embrace all the freedoms that the liturgies give them and then put proper time and effort into planning their services well.)

3. High value on scholarship. Anglicans are thinkers (sometimes to a fault) and have never been satisfied with Sunday-school theology (except in our Sunday schools!) Anglicans have always been deeply engaged with matters of philosophy, history, ethics, science and any other area of human exploration and there's no sign that this is going to end in a hurry.

4. Well-recognised church. While this isn't everything and mustn't be overly relied upon, it does mean something important to lots of people. Some who encounter church either for the first time or at a significant junction in their life, feel a lot more comfortable hearing "We're Anglicans" than "We made up our own church".

5. Longstanding community connections. Following on from the last point, there are still many parts of the world where Anglican parish churches have significant relational networks that spread through their suburbs and even into other organisations. Add to this the existing reach and impact of the extra-parochial agencies that serve so many in our communities (eg. Anglicare, Brotherhood of St Lawrence, etc) and it's clear that there are lots of ways that Anglicans already have considerable and important social connections.

6. Worldwide fellowship. The connections aren't just local either. The Communion is worldwide (around 80 million people globally) which not only means that there's a good fellowship of Anglicans in lots of places you can visit, but also that Anglican Churches are highly multicultural. In Melbourne, Chinese and Sudanese make up two of the largest sub-groupings within the Anglican Church.

7. Participatory decision-making structures. Although the Archbishop of Canterbury is the worldwide figurehead, his role isn't like the pope's in the Roman Catholic Church. Anglicans are 'episcopally led and synodically governed' which means that the local bishops are charged with setting direction and with hiring and firing clergy to achieve it (see this post on the role of bishops), but the lay people have their voices heard and their questions answered and can hold various offices in their parish and diocese.

8. Focussing on opportunities. Most Anglican dioceses around the world are in agreement that there is great need to keep pioneering new ways of doing church and of ministering to more and more people. The Church of England's Mission-Shaped Church report lays out a very positive agenda for the church and most of the Communion have grasped this sort of thinking and are eager to find ways to make new things happen.

9. Lots of resources. Primarily people and buildings. Now, buildings aren't everything and it's very dangerous to think that just having the keys to some real estate is going to build the Kingdom. But, having a meeting place on the main street of pretty much every town (at least here in Australia) and then also living space for a minster to go with it is a fantastically useful thing.

10. Administrative support. A centralised system for managing banking, payrolls, insurance, superannuation, professional standards and so on is priceless and saves each parish church from having to comply in all of these areas on its own.


As I've been writing, more things have been springing to mind, but I'll leave it there for now.

Anglicanism is far from perfect and it certainly has its fair share of problems, both large and small. But it seems to me that while anyone can easily point out negative things, it would be a great shame to either use those things to characterise the Anglican Church or to sink all of our energies into dealing with them. It's very good to keep remembering some of the reasons that the Anglican Church is a particularly great and faith-filled part of Jesus' church with a huge amount of potential. I'm staying.

Royal Commission

Yesterday, Prime Minister Gillard announced a Royal Commission into both child abuse and also the covering up of that abuse. A primary focus of the Commission will be the Catholic Church, but it will have the power to investigate more broadly so that all church and not-for-profit organisations can be included.

Since the announcement was made, what's really encouraged and impressed me is the uniform welcome that the Commission has been getting from church workers. Pretty much everyone thinks this is a good thing. Followers of Jesus are rightly disgusted by child abuse and if it's happened (or is happening) in his church, it's doubly disgraceful. If it's been covered up (or is being covered up) by his church, that's completely reprehensible.

The church should be safe and transparent. If the Commission brings justice to those who have suffered where the church has failed and helps to set a better culture for the future, it will be an excellent thing.

An on-line poll from today's article in The Age shows overwhelmingly

that the majority of readers also feel positive about the Royal Commission.

What Difference Will He Make?

In his first press statement after being confirmed as the Archbishop of Canterbury designate, one of the things Justin Welby recognised was that the members of local Anglican parishes are the real front line in the church's ministry. In a denomination that's distinguished by its hierarchical nature, it's really encouraging to hear leaders speak this way as it not only directs local churches to their on-the-ground mission, but it also helps to dispel any ideas that there's going to be an institutional salvation that will come down from above.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how liberal, catholic, evangelical or charismatic the AbC is, most parishes will continue going about their business in very much the same ways as they have been up until now. That is, outside his own diocese of Canterbury, the AbC does not make a great deal of difference to what most Anglicans do week to week. I don't say this to disparage the AbC in any way at all, just to recognise the reality - as Welby has - that the front-edge of the life and work of the church happens in local neighbourhoods.

Perhaps the place where the AbC's influence will be most widely felt is within high-level conversations about international Anglican relationships. As everyone knows, there are some huge issues affecting the worldwide Anglican Communion right now and Welby is likely to be an important voice in the years ahead as these are worked through. However, even in this we must remember that over the last decade, it's become crystal clear that some national churches and local bishops will not take their direction from the AbC, nor any of the other 'Instruments of Communion'. Therefore, it would be naive to think that any AbC could have the capacity to resew the torn fabric of the Communion and I think it would be pretty unfair to place that expectation on them. Again, the AbC may be able to have significant input, but ultimately, he only has the power of influence and cannot demand that the world's Anglicans do whatever he tells them, be it good or bad. He's not a pope!

So, as we welcome / assess / question / investigate / speculate about / pray for Welby, let's not kid ourselves into thinking that time and energy given over to those things are all that's necessary to build the Kingdom. We certainly ought to pray that he serves as a great and faithful leader and that he has a really positive influence in the Communion. But we must remember that the lion's share of the work in the Anglican Church will not be done by him.

New Archbishop of Canterbury

According to the Telegraph, Justin Welby has it. Check this link:

Bishop of Durham to be Archbishop of Canterbury

Execution

A couple of weeks ago, City on a Hill celebrated its birthday. This Authorised Anglican Congregation is really noteworthy for lots of reasons: the growth in attendance from nothing to something heading towards 1,000 in just five years with many of those people being new believers in Jesus, the embracing of a new model of Anglican church without property, the fast-footed approach to new gospel opportunities, the young leadership team that's overseen the ministry... there are endless points of interest. From all accounts the birthday celebration was excellent too: the band launched a CD that went to number one on the 'Inspirational' list in the iTunes store, a bunch of people were baptised into the faith, a second CoaH church was announced and some pretty exciting and ambitious plans were laid out for the next three years. Lots of stuff! However, just now, it's particularly this idea of churches making big plans that I'm interested in.

In recent years, more and more churches and Christian organisations have adopted some key ideas from the business world and have put tons of energy into producing mission statements, visions, strategic plans and so on. I think all of this can be really important in focussing and kick-starting those churches that might otherwise have been relatively passive in their ministry. If God's plan is to use his church to take the message of Jesus to the world and to make disciples of every nation, then the church had better get well organised because there's a whole lot of work to be done!

However there are, of course, risks if churches just blindly embrace this business-think. The most obvious is that they could start acting like companies that ultimately only care about their bottom lines and not about less tangible things like faith and faithfulness, hope and humility, life and love which are all central for followers of Jesus. But the other risk I see is one that's common to the business world too and it's that thinking that just having a vision, plan or strategy is the main thing or is even a satisfactory end in itself.

Recently, I was talking to a good friend who's just started working for an international para-church organisation and he told me that the key lesson he's been learning there is execution. That is, he is not just expected to develop grand visions and plans, but to actually make them happen; to get results. This is in recognition that anyone can have an amazing vision or plan - to triple the membership, to start fifty new churches, to raise a billion dollars, to fly a shiny rocket to Jupiter - but unless the execution is good, they can just be showy aspirations that ultimately aren't worth the paper they're written on. (Or worse. They could actually be a grand waste of paper and also of time, money and energy.) "What we were going to do" never added up to Kingdom growth.

This sort of thinking freaks me out a bit. My first response is to jump in defensively and say things like "at least we shot for something", "sometimes success is out of our control", "God is not impressed with results" and so on, and there's something very right in all these statements. Certainly, I know lots of faithful labourers who have worked really hard in very tough situations for extended periods of time without seeing much fruit and so I simply cannot stomach an unqualified "just go and get the results". But with that said, I do also want to sit with the idea of 'execution' for a bit and think about what it is that makes the difference between just being a dreamer and being a doer, between being a planner and an achiever.

At this stage, I've got a bunch of thoughts that have to do with prayer, leadership, context, patience, focus and communication to name just a few things. But as yet, I don't have any neat, proverbial answers. However, as I'm chewing it over and I see churches like City on a Hill repeatedly converting their big ideas into reality, I want to pay some attention. Sure, they have shortcomings like any church does, but God is clearly doing something through them. I reckon for us Anglicans who aren't always making great headway these days, it's really worth us watching them and seeing what we can learn.