Dear friends in Christ,
With thanksgiving for their vital ministry and support for our Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), I write to invite you to give generously to the American Anglican Council. Why? Because their clergy leadership training and church revitalization workshops have transformed our clergy’s parish and small church Ministries. How? By providing the skilled leaders and training that our new dioceses and small congregations could never afford or organize.
After becoming Bishop of the new Diocese of Cascadia, I quickly and painfully learned that many of our clergy were feeling overwhelmed with the challenge of growing small congregations and struggling to adjust to the challenge of a rapidly changing ministerial landscape which they were unprepared for. I know this was not part of my seminary training. Where to turn? The ACNA is rightly putting resources into planting new churches. Who can help?
Enter the The Council. Canon Phil Ashey has led a three session Clergy Leadership Training Institute at our annual clergy retreats and the healing and equipping for ministry of our clergy have been, quite frankly, miraculous. So much so that the last conference unanimously requested he return this coming fall to train us in church revitalization. What makes these offerings so effective and invaluable is both Canon Phil’s and the Council’s gift and agility to appropriately adjust their programs to meet the needs on the ground where template-based workshops can entirely miss the mark.
I know that you, like me, have long valued that same agility and expertise which the American Anglican Council have used in engaging the liberal and revisionist movements both home and abroad.
We, in provincial leadership and local ministries, continue to greatly benefit from the The Council’s strategic and canonical counsel in dealing with these ongoing challenges to our local and global Anglican movement, particularly as we prepare for our upcoming ACNA Provincial Council and Assembly.
Missionary Societies and Mission organizations have traditionally held a vital place in our Anglican heritage and ministries for centuries. As you know, the work of provinces and dioceses has always moved with deliberate care for the wellbeing and support of our congregations and to honor long standing obligations. But when special challenges and needs arose that could not be easily responded to by the established Church structures, the Holy Spirit inspired lay and clergy to raise up the resources and leaders to fill the gaps in the seasons the Church needed it the most. (United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, Anglican Relief and Development Fund and Sharing of Ministries Abroad are but a few examples.) Through their excellent leaders and ability to sacrificially focus on specific areas of need, the American Anglican Council continues in this same tradition by providing vitally important local leadership training and regional defense of the Church that we could not otherwise provide for… in short, if The Council did not exist today, we would definitely need to invent it.
Please join me in giving generously so the American Anglican Council can continue to work for the current and future wellbeing of our Church
Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. Kevin Bond Allen
Diocese of Cascadia
