Source:  American Anglican Council Weekly Email Update

The following is from the June 18 edition of the AAC's Weekly Email Update. Sign up to receive this FREE email here. 

By The Rev. Phil Ashey, J.D.
Chief Operating and Development Officer, American Anglican Council

Dear Friends in Christ,

The American Anglican Council has been surveying clergy in the Anglican Church in North America over the last eight months to assess the challenges facing existing congregations and their clergy, and what resources are needed to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.  As of June 7, 2010, we had 145 responses from twenty-six states in the US and four provinces in Canada.  

The respondents - rectors (and in some cases, assisting clergy) from ACNA congregations - were asked five questions, each with multiple categories regarding the training and educational needs for each area (congregations, vestry, staff, lay leaders, and themselves).  In this multiple choice, online survey, respondents were asked to rate each category (for example "Attracting young families") by level of importance, i.e. not important, fairly important, important and very important.

Let me share with you a snapshot of some of the results, and then pose a question.  Here is the snapshot, what a large majority of the clergy identified as important or very important needs for the congregations they serve:

1. How to attract young families (87.4%)
2. Raising up lay leaders (86.7%)
3. Strategies for effective evangelism through the local church (85.2%)
4. Defining vision and direction (83.7%)
5. Small group strategies (68.9%)

We are holding this online survey open to clergy until July 1.  If you have been contacted by your bishop and asked to fill out this survey and have not yet done so, or if this is the first time you have heard about it and would like to participate, please contact Carol Frederick at cfrederick@americananglican.org.  She will be happy to give you the link to the survey.  It should take you about 15-20 minutes to complete it online.

I am sure we will have more to share about the results of our survey in the weeks and months ahead.  I am also sure that the results will enable us to dig deeper as we shape the resources we are offering to develop faithful leaders and equip the local church for evangelism, discipleship and ministry.

But here is the question I would like to pose:  What kind of Anglican church will produce the kind of Christ-followers who will lead their friends and neighbors to Jesus, attract young families, raise up and disciple other leaders, lead effective small groups for ongoing evangelism and discipleship, and communicate clear vision and direction for the church and its ministries?

Such a church would be a transforming church!  Yes, we have a goal of planting 1,000 new transforming churches in the next five years.  But what about our existing ACNA congregations?  As others have observed, we have gotten ourselves and our churches out of Egypt - but have we gotten Egypt out of us??  We have a narrow window of opportunity in the infancy of our new Anglican province to rebuild the foundations of our existing churches with a new missional DNA that draws the very best from our evangelical, catholic and charismatic traditions as we seek to transform lives, our communities, and the world with the love and power of Jesus Christ.

In response to this need, the American Anglican Council has partnered with Acts 29 Ministries in developing The Sure Foundation, an 18 month curriculum that will enable your church to grow in the areas identified in our survey.  The Sure Foundation includes six teaching sessions and four consultations that will address the following topics:  strategic planning, church growth dynamics, clergy role in shaping vision, strategies and models for evangelism through the local church, new member incorporation, how to equip people to live their lives as Jesus would (discipleship), baptism and ministry in the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts for every member ministry, developing a prayer driven church, outreach to transform your community and church planting basics.  This list is not exhaustive.  In fact, it will be shaped to address the specific challenges and needs that surface in the consultations.

The Bible has a lot to say about foundations.  "When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3)  For over 100 years the foundations of Biblical authority, Christian formation and Anglican Communion teaching have been systematically weakened and damaged by the leadership of TEC.  Now is the time to rebuild those foundations.  "You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."  (Eph. 2:19-20)  We must rebuild our congregations on the foundation of the apostles' teaching, the faith once delivered.  But let's not stop there.  Let's make the foundation as sure as the cornerstone - let's work with the Holy Spirit to equip every Anglican not only with head knowledge, but with hearts to live their lives as Jesus would!  "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Christ Jesus. . ." (I Cor. 3:11)  Can we raise the horizon of our hopes so that our churches would not just be comfortable, orthodox places to worship, but life-changing missionary outposts where people are actually doing the same things Jesus did (John 14:12) - including signs, miracles, healings and wonders? (Acts 2:42-47)  Can we lay a precious foundation for our churches that will bear the heat and refining fire and reveal a quality that includes lives transformed by Jesus with eternal and enduring significance? (I Cor. 3:12-15)

The goal of The Sure Foundation is to enable each participating congregation to develop a strategic growth plan with core values, Kingdom vision, a mission that focuses the ministries, and specific time phased objectives that will result in individual lives and whole communities healed and transformed through the love of Jesus Christ.  Our goal is to enable every participating congregation to:

1. Help people live their lives as Jesus would through a clearly defined process of Christian formation/discipleship
2. Transform the community where their church is located through a need-meeting outreach
3. Partner with an overseas orthodox Anglican diocese to constantly refresh their missional DNA and New Testament, Kingdom perspective
4. Plant a new church

We will launch the first Sure Foundation project this fall in the newly-formed Anglican Diocese of the South.  The Rev. Alan Hansen from Acts 29 and myself will be teaching the sessions and consulting with each participating congregation.  We are also in conversation with several ACNA dioceses about the possibility of offering The Sure Foundation in their region.  If you have ten congregations in your area who would be interested in learning more about The Sure Foundation, please contact me at (770) 414-1515 or pashey@americananglican.org
 
God willing, we would like to videotape our Sure Foundation teaching sessions and make them available by DVD to every Anglican church in North America, with workbooks, discussion questions, exercises and consultations as needed.  This would enable clergy and congregations in remote locations, as well as those who cannot afford six weekends away, to use this curriculum on a schedule that maximizes participation of the whole congregation.  As you can imagine, the cost of videotaping these sessions, editing and reproducing DVD's with a high degree of quality is considerable.  The AAC is raising funds to multiply this resource for Anglican churches in North America.  We need your help.  If you would like to contribute, please donate online and designate your gift as for the "Sure Foundation" fund.

Rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit,
                                         
Yours in Christ,
Phil+