I have returned from the Gafcon “mini-conference” at Christ Church Cathedral in Plano, TX, where over 170 leaders—including 10 GAFCON archbishops, 83 bishops and other archbishops—from 25 countries across the world met from March 12-14 to renew their commitment to “reorder the Anglican Communion in joyful submission to Holy Scripture.” You can find the “Plano Statement” which summarizes the gathering here. I was invited as a new “soon-to-be-consecrated” ACNA bishop to receive an update on this movement, which has been at the heart of Global Anglican Realignment since its founding at GAFCON 2008 in Jerusalem, with the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration (2008).

I have been present at almost every GAFCON gathering since 2008—including frequent leadership meetings and consultations between the GAFCON once-every-five-year conferences. I am familiar with the history of GAFCON and contributed to several GAFCON Bishops Training Institutes before Covid shut them and all of us down for a time. But it was good to hear the founders of the movement and the current GAFCON leadership team remind us of the history and challenges that formed this clarion-calling renewal movement within the Anglican Communion.

But it was this phrase that touched my heart most: the Bible at the heart of the Communion. In every speaker’s theme and through the biblical teaching on Joshua every morning by Bishop Paul Donison, GAFCON General Secretary, we were reminded of the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that sets us free. Bishop John Guernsey parsed the scriptures brilliantly to explain the width and depth and breadth of the meaning of fellowship. Dr. Ashley Null, Bishop-elect of North Africa, reminded us that Jesus came to proclaim a message (the Gospel) which had the power to create the community that we call “the Church” and not the reverse. We heard deeply moving stories of how GAFCON is supporting missionary efforts to reach people groups that others cannot reach, with both New Testament power and the reality of relentless spiritual warfare and persecution. We had African archbishops and bishops declaring from God’s Word how the Gospel can free us from a “poverty mindset, a fear of scarcity” that makes Anglicans vulnerable to handouts from revisionist churches from the West. A Nigerian archbishop gave a powerful presentation from the story in 2 Kings 6:17, when God heard Elisha’s prayer to open the eyes of his servant when everything seemed hopeless and see God’s provision of the hosts of heaven all around them. This archbishop and others testified to God opening their eyes to see the resources within their own dioceses, and how they applied themselves to cultivate those resources and promote sustainable development, with specific concrete examples. 

In his closing address, Gafcon Chairman Archbishop Laurent Mbanda emphasized this particular Gospel imperative to steward what we have and trust God to multiply whatever we offer back to him. “Do we really want to be at the mercy of those who give out of one hand and then hand us in the other instructions on how we are to behave?” asked the Archbishop, targeting those revisionist Anglican churches of the Canterbury-TEC ordered Communion, and the NGO’s that require adherence to unbiblical teaching with regards to human sexuality, gender, marriage, and leadership in the Church, in exchange for grants. Archbishop Mbanda said, “We must find home-grown solutions for every problem we face.” He went on to describe some of the new initiatives GAFCON is rolling out in anticipation of the next GAFCON 2028 Conference: a theological writing group and commission that will address the challenges to Christian faith in our own contexts, provide written materials to support new believers in discipleship, and defend “biblical faith and order” within a renewed Anglican Communion. He reaffirmed GAFCON’s steadfast commitment to recognize, gather, and “authenticate” biblically-faithful Anglicans anywhere in the Communion facing heterodox teaching, order, and persecution. “We want to be known as a Gospel people,” declared Archbishop Mbanda, “a rooted people, a biblically orthodox people, without any compromise, who have memorized the scriptures so that we are not afraid to preach the Gospel!”

It was inspiring, especially as it reminded me of the global family of Anglicans in the Church of Uganda who welcomed me as warmly into their family as they would have welcomed and adopted an abandoned child. It’s not just the teaching and the worship that blesses. It is the fellowship of confessing Anglicans from all over the world whose life and witness challenge me to lead like they do, as Jesus would if he were in our shoes. 

Sunday, June 29, is Gafcon Sunday. However great or small our offerings to Gafcon may be, may we offer them in thanksgiving for this growing movement that restores the Bible at the heart of the Global Anglican Communion.