Dear friends in Christ,

Thank you for the texts, emails, phone calls and posts I received from so many of you upon my election Saturday October 19 as the 3rd Bishop of the ACNA Diocese of Western Anglicans. Julie and I are deeply blessed by your congratulations and your prayers–which we pray you will continue for us as we step into this great calling! We are honored by the people of the diocese who affirmed this calling, and I am looking forward to working with Diocesan Bishop Keith Andrews, Suffragan Bishop Mark Zimmerman (Yellowstone Missionary District), the Executive Committee, clergy, and people of the DWA to continue to reach neighbors and communities among us with the transforming love of Jesus Christ!

Let me share two lessons and a reminder that I learned through this robust discernment process…

God is always on time. 

Almost two years ago, the Lord laid on my heart the need to have the Trustees of the American Anglican Council (AAC) plan for my successor. Almost two years before our call to the Diocese of Western Anglicans, the AAC board and staff worked with me in retreats and meetings on a new five-year strategic plan, the beginning of a profile for the next CEO, and what steps we would need to begin a search. Julie and I laid down any thoughts of being in a diocesan search process. The call from the Diocese of Western Anglicans came as a complete surprise in May, literally as I was on the way to Wittenberg Germany with the Anderson-Trane Fellows. We had no idea… But God did!

No doubt the AAC Board of Trustees will now begin the search for a new CEO in earnest. While I devote my full attention to the diocese in 2025, Canon Mark Eldredge, our Chief Operating Officer, will assume operational leadership of the AAC until a new CEO is called. I will continue as President, with vastly reduced responsibilities, most of which will overlap my role as a diocesan bishop. This anticipates the second lesson…

There is no success without a successor. 

Isn’t this one of the lessons we have been learning in our Daily Office readings in 1 and 2 Kings, in the sorry stories of the failed kings of Judah and Israel? Julie and I planted St Simons Anglican Church as part-time, bi-vocational church planters from 2021 to the present. In 2022, by God’s extraordinary mercy and provision, we were able to call the Rev. Josh Lake to be a full-time associate who would eventually succeed me as rector. In 2023, the Diocese of the Carolinas approved us for congregational status—and we continue to grow! Three weeks ago, we rejoiced as Fr. Josh was installed as the rector of St. Simons Anglican. It was a singular joy and blessing for me to work with Fr. Josh, to see our church grow under his leadership, and now to have him as one of our first AAC Anderson-Trane Fellows. St. Simons Anglican is in good hands for its next season of healthy growth and mission.

I expect the same will be true for the American Anglican Council as we trust God’s mercy and provision in our search for a new CEO. I will be as committed to coaching and encouraging whomever that will be as I have been with Fr. Josh.

But before ANY bishop-elect takes office, we must remember…

Bishops are elected to the whole Church, not just the diocese. 

We have learned this lesson with tears in the last 50 years of global Anglican realignment, when bishops in TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada acted unilaterally, in defiance of both the Bible and the Traditions of the Church in 2002-2003, to bless same sex unions and consecrate a bishop in a same-sex partnered relationship. These actions tore the fabric of the Anglican Communion at every level, and led to where we are today. 

For this reason and more, the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America provide that before a bishop-elect is permitted to function in a diocese, he must receive the consent of the ACNA College of Bishops. This is not a mere formality. I will be among the  suffragan and diocesan bishops recently elected in the Special Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy and the REC who will be examined by the ACNA College of Bishops at their next meeting, January 13-17, in Melbourne, FL. We will be examined to see if we fulfill all of the criteria and requirements for the office of Bishop in ACNA Canon III.8, and whether as presbyters we have “managed our own family well” (1 Tim. 3:4-5; Titus 1:6) and have served “as wholesome examples and patterns to the whole flock of Christ.” (see ACNA Canons III.2.4-6 and III.8.5). If we pass the examination, the College will then give consent for the archbishop to take order for the consecration and/or installation of a newly elected bishop (ACNA Canon III.8.6).

Please pray for the ACNA College of Bishops as they undertake this solemn duty and discernment. God bless you one and all—it is a great honor to serve you in Christ through the American Anglican Council!

In His Service,

Canon Phil