Let’s be honest. Lay leaders often don’t get the credit they deserve. Yes, clergy are entrusted with a vision and the execution of that vision in the churches they serve, but they couldn’t do it at any level of the Church (local, diocesan, or provincial) without the resources, the helping hands, and above all, the hearts of our gifted and committed lay leaders.
For this reason, the American Anglican Council (AAC) has worked to help laity engage the difficult cultural milieu today; we are closer to Babylon than we are to Jerusalem. For many families within the local church, the most deeply felt issues have nothing to do with governance or ordination to the priesthood, but rather with the brokenness they find in their own children and grandchildren. This brokenness is often rooted in the radical autonomous individualism that has been identified as the chief symptom of a deteriorating culture. To put it another way, the dominant cultural worldview says there is no single narrative that makes sense of life on earth. There are 8.1 billion people on earth today, and according to this worldview, there are 8.1 billion different, but equally valid, points of view. The only agreed upon unifying factor is the struggle for power. What results is the tearing down of what exists in hope that some utopian culture will emerge.
The Formed Conference (a ministry of the Daniel Leadership Institute) offers members of the Anglican Church in North America and their families a better story—a single, biblical narrative from Creation to Fall to Redemption to Restoration. This better, four-chapter Gospel story enables ordinary followers of Jesus Christ to engage those who are wounded and searching in our fractured culture.
At a Formed Conference on March 2- 3, the Rev. Randy Forrester, Associate Rector at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Mt. Pleasant and Director of the Ridley Institute, and the Rev. Canon Phil Ashey shared how the four-chapter Gospel is the better story to reach future generations. An audience of over 70 people composed of parishioners from St. Michaels, Charleston; St. Andrew’s, Mt. Pleasant; and St. Paul’s, Summerville attended the conference hosted by St. Michael’s. There were panel discussions based on questions from the audience, as well as teachings from both Canon Phil and Rev. Randy. The Rev. Al Zadig, rector of St. Michael’s, said the conference “gave our people clear language to respond in a good news way to the secular confusion of our day.”
On Sunday, Canon Phil taught the adult St. Michael’s Sunday school on the power of the four-chapter Gospel, and he carried this theme through his sermons at each of the parish’s Sunday morning services. He addressed the manner in which Jesus engaged the politics of his day on the road to Jerusalem. You can watch the service and hear the sermon online here.
If you would like more information about Formed Conferences and how you can host one in your area, please contact the Rev. Bev Mueffelmann, Director of the Daniel Leadership Institute, at bmueffelmann@americananglican.org.
