Network Council: Celebrating Ministry, Looking to Future as Council Ends
Anglicans and Episcopalians from around the United States ended the Anglican Communion Network’s Annual Council meeting today the way they began it, with worship in Pittsburgh’s Trinity Cathedral.
The meeting of 80 delegates and an equal number of guests July 31 – August 2 dealt with everything from the elections to the Network’s steering committee to a proposed theological statement that would bring closer together eight different groups of orthodox Anglicans.
“Much of what we dealt with was simply the nuts and bolts of building and maintaining an orthodox Anglican witness and ministry, from budgeting to the election of officers, but we also spent time addressing our own need for what Bishop Robert Duncan is calling a ‘reformation of behavior,’” said the Rev. Canon Daryl Fenton, chief operating officer for the Network.
“Of course we have called on them [the majority of the Episcopal Church] to repent, but we, too, are every bit as much in need of repenting. Our struggle is not about sexuality, it is about sin. The ‘fix’ is not about them, it is about us. The whole world is drawn to the Body of Christ when the Body of Christ looks like Jesus, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else,” said Bishop Duncan, Network moderator, during his opening address.
Delegates from the Network’s ten dioceses and six convocations spent time in task groups on August 1 discussing what that reformation of behavior would look like in a number of areas, including holiness in personal life, worship, constitutional and legal positions, relief and development, church planting, cross-cultural mission, and children and youth ministries. As the Network continues its work to lay foundations in these areas, the reports generated by those groups will be put to good use,” said Canon Fenton.
After discussing the current draft, delegates also moved to support ongoing work on a “Covenant Declaration of the Common Cause Partners.” The intent of the declaration is to outline basic and unifying theological commitments that the eight groups in the Anglican tradition join together in making. The document will be further refined at the Common Cause Roundtable meeting, scheduled for August 16 – 18 in Pittsburgh. “We do not want to get ahead of you in your process, but we do want to make you aware of what we are doing,” said Bishop Ray Sutton of the Reformed Episcopal Church, who presented the draft and led discussion on its content.
As the Network’s primary governing body, the Annual Council also received reports on the Network’s funding system, its mission initiatives and elected officers to its steering committee.
Delegates voiced approval for a voluntary system of support that asks each affiliated parish and diocese to give to the work of the Network as a whole. Under the guidelines, Network affiliated parishes are asked to give five percent of their operating budget to the Network. Dioceses are asked to give ten percent of their operating budget to the Network’s national office.
“We fully understand that there are many different situations and obligations in our parishes and dioceses,” said Canon Fenton. “Our goal here is simply to set a standard expectation of support that shares the cost of the work of the Network equally among its affiliates.”
Leaders of the Anglican Relief and Development Fund, Church Planting, Children and Youth, and Anglican Global Mission Partners brought delegates up to speed on the work of the Network’s ministry in these areas over the last year as well as laid out goals and challenges for the year ahead. Bishop Duncan also reiterated the Network’s commitment to “spending at least as much on mission – in all its forms – as we spend on ourselves.”
As business concluded on August 2, delegates also approved the election of eight new members of the Network’s Steering Committee. The steering committee, which includes eight clergy and eight laity from the Network’s dioceses and convocations, functions as the Network’s governing body between meetings of the Annual Council. Members are nominated by their convocation or diocese and serve two-year terms. Eight open seats were filled by the Council. New members are the Rev. Shaw Mudge of the Diocese of Albany, Dana Pope of the Diocese of Dallas, Bill Roemer of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Tad Brenner of the Diocese of Quincy, the Rev. Felix Orji of the Diocese of Rio Grande, Debra Tenney of the Mid-Continental Convocation, the Rev. John-Michael van Dyke of the Southeastern Convocation, and the Rev. Russell Martin of the Western Convocation.
As Annual Council concluded, Bishop Duncan told delegates. “We don’t know what God is going to do. We do know that God is faithful to his people and that God has a purpose for Anglicanism in the World.”
The full text of Bishop Robert Duncan’s opening address
Information on the work of the Network’s Anglican Relief and Development Fund