It is now over five years since that fateful week in the summer of 2007 when the Anglican Church of Canada decided at its General Synod ”that the blessing of same-sex unions is not in conflict with the core doctrine (in the sense of being creedal) of the Anglican Church of Canada”. It was a landmark decision that hastened the preparation of a new ecclesiastical structure – the Anglican Network in Canada. It was a time of fervent prayer, personal sacrifice and a counting of the cost for individuals and parishes alike.
Four years ago this month, we held ANiC’s first synod in Burlington, and no one who was there will forget the gracious video message from Archbishop Gregory Venables offering us the episcopal oversight of the Southern Cone as we took our first fledgling steps with two bishops, two priests, two deacons and two parishes. Our moderator, Bishop Don Harvey said, “It is a day of great joy as we begin a new expression of Anglicanism in Canada to freely proclaim the transforming power of the Gospel, and it is also a day of great sadness that this structure became necessary.” Again, fervent prayer was offered asking the Lord for His protection on this small and highly vulnerable movement of Biblical orthodoxy. We prayed for wisdom as to how to handle conflicting claims of ownership of disputed church buildings, and we asked the Lord to provide many new venues for our Sunday worship. We were desperate – in that place of living in the centre of a miracle on the brink of disaster. The most appropriate posture for us as a desperate people was on our knees!
During these past years, I have been afforded the opportunity to travel across the country presenting weekend seminars for ANiC congregations – some just emerging. It has been a great privilege for me to spend time in many of your parishes, getting to know you personally and the unique DNA of each congregation. The single most frequent question that I am asked goes something like, “How do we stay vigilant in prayer so that we don’t slip back as a church to just doing “business as usual” and squabbling over all the same things that we used to squabble over?. How do we stay desperate for God?”
There are aspects of “peacetime”, when the immediate crisis is over, that are harder than when we are in the heat of battle. In his farewell sermon to the Israelites recorded in Deuteronomy, Moses exhorted,
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Deut. 6: 10-12 ESV
Moses understood well the perils of no longer being in desperate need of the Lord for survival. For many of our ANiC churches, the immediate crisis has passed. We have settled into a more normal routine in our church life, and it would be all too easy for us to forget how the Lord has faithfully met our needs time and time again. We need to be stirred once more to a sense of desperate dependence on the Lord, day by day, moment by moment.
Bishop Don has chosen as the theme for Synod 2012 a passage from Romans 13. Let’s look at it in the context of the verse preceding it:-
You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Romans 13: 11-12 ESV
There is a clarion call here for us to shake off the slumber that so easily besets us, and wake up. There is still an urgency to our call to proclaim the Gospel. The night is almost over, so let’s throw off any “works of darkness” that have sought to ensnare us once again, and be beacons that reflect the transforming light of God’s glory to a hurting and devastated world.
One of the most obvious ways that we can “wake up” is to restore an urgency and priority to pray for ANiC and its role in the purposes of God. Here are a few suggestions as to what we should pray for:
- Bishop Don has urged us to pray daily for our Electoral Synod this month. You can use the prayer above on page one, the prayer for synods in the Book of Common Prayer (see below) or your own prayers. But please pray regularly for this important event in our unfolding history.
- Let me also encourage you to pray for Unity. ANiC was formed from a great variety of expressions of Anglican worship, polity and theology, and that makes us vulnerable. But we know from Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 that He deeply desires unity in His Body, His faithful Church:-
“. . that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17: 21 ESV
Jesus prays that we might embrace a unity that is a reflection of the unity that the members of the Trinity experience – that we might be one, just as the Father and Son are one! How amazing is that! But it’s not just for our benefit. Jesus says that it is so that the world will believe that the Father sent him. He’s giving the world permission to check us out and He is putting the credibility of His word on the line. Please pray that the Lord will foster and protect our unity because it is always the first target of the enemy. Pray that we will cherish our unity as a priceless treasure and see its evangelistic importance.
- Finally, pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s power upon our church. Just before His return to His heavenly Father, Jesus urged the disciples to wait inJerusalemfor the Promise of the Father – the Holy Spirit. Then He told them;
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8 ESV
We cannot be what God has called us to be, and do what He has called us to do, in our own strength. Yet the pages of church history are replete with accounts of the Church’s feeble attempts to do just that. Such reliance on our own abilities, intellect and resources inevitably lead to liberalism, heresy and ultimately, apostasy. The closer our personal walk with God, the closer will be our unity with others who are also wholeheartedly pursuing Him.
Pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our synod this month and upon each of our parishes in the weeks and months ahead. The only thing that will keep us from slipping back to “business as usual” is a desperate dependency upon the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to respond to the Lord’s call upon us to reach our generation with the liberating, transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ! Amen.
