Anglican group plans to request new network for evangelism, church growth
Episcopal News Service. February 18, 2009 [021809-02]
ENS Staff
A group of Anglicans "involved in evangelistic and church growth ministry" plan to ask the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) to set up a network to "enhance collaborative work and mutual support" in those ministries.
A "small but diverse" group of people from around the Anglican Communion met February 10 and 11 at the communion office in London at the invitation of the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, the secretary general of the Anglican Communion, according to a release from the Anglican Communion News Service.
The news release said that the meeting was meant follow-up on part of the reflections document from the 2008 Lambeth Conference in which the bishops said (in paragraph 42 of the 161-paragraph document) that the communion is "called to develop a worldwide vision and strategy of church planting, growth and mission." The Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and the Primates later supported that call, according to the release.
The group, whose members were not announced, said a network is needed to promote "evangelism and church growth in parishes, dioceses and provinces of the Anglican Communion, in order to bring people to Christ as Lord and Savior and that they might become life long disciples within the community of God's people." Such an effort, the group said, fit squarely into the communion's Five Marks of Mission, which are proclaim the good news of the kingdom; teach, baptize and nurture new believers; respond to human need by loving service; seek to transform unjust structures of society and strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
A network would aid in this work, the release said, by:
- facilitating prayer and mutual encouragement;
- developing evangelism strategies;
- recommending resources and sharing good practices;
- encouraging training;
- sharing stories, news and strategies;
- identifying key issues for specific consultation; and
- building links with other evangelism and church growth networks within and beyond the Anglican Communion.
The group also agreed, the release said, that "a biblical and theological basis for evangelism and church growth should be developed and shared widely within the Communion."