Sometimes concerns arise in the life of the Church and we tend to think that it is a brand new issue for the Anglican Communion. Questions around the integrity of the environment may feel relatively new but in fact it was the sixth meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting twenty – five years ago in Badagry Nigeria (1984) Anglican concern led to the formation of The Anglican Communion Environmental Network.
On the eve of the closing of the Anglican Consultative Council 14 meeting in Kingston, Jamaica the Archbishop Of Canterbury delivered his presidential address. The Council has a chair and the Archbishop functions as the president. The address came after the evening worship and was followed by an opportunity to express thanks to Bishop John Paterson who retires as the chair at the end of this meeting,
The Anglican Consultative Council is moving into its last few days of meetings. On Sunday all of the delegates were sent in teams of three or four to every parish on the island of Jamaica- in some cases to celebrate and preach and in all cases to engage in conversations about mission and the opportunities to share the gospel.
The word family evokes a wide range of emotions. For some it is a very loving and supportive word that is the centre of their being. For others it is a place of distance anxiety and frustration with people who are closely related failing to talk or listen to one another. We use the term in many ways, thinking of the Church as a family and even the Anglican Communion as one family under our Lord and Saviour.
If you type the letters CUAC into a computer search engine you will discover that it can mean Credit Union Acceptance Corporation or the Cambridge Union Athletic Club. As important as those fine organizations might be for Anglican CUAC has a very special meaning- it is the Colleges and Universities of the Anglican Communion.
An important part of the Anglican Consultative meetings being held in Kingston Jamaica is the opportunity for Ecumenical conversations. In times past our ecumenical partners came as guests and often kept silent during the meetings and offered a reflection at the end. At the Lambeth Conference 2008 Archbishop Williams invited our ecumenical partners not as guest but as members. That same invitation has been extended here
“We fear most what we do not know”. That statement appears on the website of NIFCON, The Network for Inter Faith Concerns of the Anglican Communion. Interfaith issues first appeared in a limited way at the 1988 Lambeth Conference. Five years later NIFCON was founded.
Resolutions were passed on ‘The Bible in the Life of the Church’, Network on Inter-Faith Concerns and from the APJN (Anglican Peace and Justice Network on the Middle East.
At the ACC-14 meeting in Kingston Jamaica the concept of An Anglican Covenant was a central theme on this, the 6th day of the meetings. Over the past few days the delegates had a number of sessions in Discernment Groups discussing the Covenant and the resolution that would be presented.
On Friday May 8, 2009 the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Kingston, Jamaica moved into a decision-making plenary session on the Windsor Continuation Group Report. Earlier in the meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury had made a presentation on this final report ...
Resolutions were passed on the Windsor Continuation Group, The Anglican Communion Covenant and the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (from APJN).