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Network Council: Church planting, youth, and mission initiatives report
Leaders of the Anglican Communion Network’s Children and Youth, Church Planting and Anglican Global Mission Partners initiatives reported on their work to the Annual Council meeting the evening of July 31.
All three ministry initiatives are geared toward helping Network affiliates encourage Christian discipleship, mission and growth both in their local congregations and around the world.
The Rev. Jack Gabig, who directs the Network’s Children and Youth initiative told delegates that a full 84 percent of those who become Christians do so before their 20th birthday. And of those, a full 80 percent make a decision for faith before they are 12.
Those numbers make even more alarming recent figures released by the National Survey for Youth and Religion. Among all youth, the survey reports that 56 percent have made some commitment to “live for God.” Among Episcopalians, the figure is 32 percent. While some 40 percent of American teens claim to pray once a day, only 13 percent of Episcopal teens claim to do so.
According to Gabig, the figures should be a wake up call to all Episcopalians. “We’ve created a generation of kids who are consumers of God, not worshippers of him… This isn’t something that ECUSA has done to us. We are all involved in this,” he said.
As first steps to addressing the problems, Gabig has been gathering children and youth ministers from around the Network. The groups have tackled basic questions, such as “Just what is Anglican Youth Ministry,” and put a framework of values in place to guide future work . The goal, said Gabig, is to have future efforts be centered around the “Lordship of Christ, cradle to grave discipleship, biblical literacy and transformational ministry.”
Gabig told delegates to expect to see a Children and Youth-oriented website launched this fall “chock full of resources,” for those working at the parish level. Work is also going on to develop online training programs for professional and volunteer youth ministries as well as an interactive curriculum based on the historic catechism.
The Rev. Tom Herrick, who leads the Network’s Church Planting initiative, reported on continuing growth of that effort. “I’m having conversations with people every day and God is moving,” he said.
Herrick outlined the recent work of a single plant in Richmond, Virginia. The group, which is working in the inner city, just purchased a 45,000 square foot building and is successfully connecting with their neighborhood.
While a number of Network-affiliated church plants are under way, much of the work has “been going on behind the scenes,” said Herrick. At the core of that work is a search for qualified planters. “The bottle neck for planting new churches is finding people who will take the necessary risks,” he explained.
Looking to the future, Herrick said the Church Planting initiative is working to create regional church planting centers, often dioceses or large congregations, which can work purposely to provide training and resources for church planting. Other planting tools under development are a coaching network and supervision process for church planters as well as building partnerships with Christian groups already successfully church-planting. In many areas related to church planting, “we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I hate to say it, but in a lot of ways, we were the last ones to the party,” said Herrick.
The Rev. Cn. John Macdonald and the Rev. Herb McMullan spoke about the work of Anglican Global Mission Partners, a gathering of 33 mission-sending bodies that has some 200 full-time missionaries in the field and sends thousands of short-term missionaries around the nation and the world every year.
“God is saying to us no matter what context we find ourselves in, we are emissaries of the Gospel,” said Canon Macdonald.
According to McMullan, AGMP has helped connect the work of the different mission agencies in new and exciting ways. Specifically, AGMP members have been able to work together in sending, and training missionaries, as well as sharing educators and other resources. “These are really critical resources and we have access to them right now,” said McMullan.