Meeting at the Kigali Convention Center in Rwanda, the opening session of the 17 – 21 April 2023 meeting featured entertainment from a local choir and dancers, and addresses by the host, the Most Rev. Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of Rwanda, the general secretary of GAFCON, the Most Rev. Ben Kwashi, the prime minister of Rwanda, Édouard Ngirente, and Archbishop Beach.

In a powerful address that was interrupted by applause in several places, Archbishop Beach began his address noting the five years since the last GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem had been difficult for the church. Covid-19 “shut down our ministries,” he said, adding that “many faced persecution,” “famine, drought, flooding, war and civil unrest” prompting him to wonder if GAFCON would survive.

However, “when God ordains something he sees it through,” he declared, stating GAFCON IV “may be one of the most important church gatherings in our time.”

“God had his hand on GAFCON,” he said, and was blessing the movement for “standing against those who conveniently or culturally stand against the word of God.”

The archbishop then turned to the core of his address, speaking about the “four marks of a continuing spirit filed movement:” a repenting church, a reconciling church, a reproducing church, and a relentlessly compassionate church.

“We” Anglicans “can go on playing church, being religious, and even making statements that make no spiritual impact on our world.” However, the desire of Christians today is to see “revival break out and spread to every part of the world.”

A repenting church was one that modeled the Lord’s call for all people to repent of their sins. It served no purpose to call out the sins of others if we ignored our own sins and shortcomings, he explained. The Holy Spirit “reveals” to a believer their sins, giving you a choice to turn away or to continue in sin.

Here the archbishop made his only comment on the situation facing the Church of England – not as a rallying cry for action, but as an example of reprobate behavior. He stated: “In recent days we have seen the Church of England led by the Archbishop of Canterbury walk away from the plain teaching of Scripture. We call on them to repent, to return to the teaching of the word of God. We call on them to stop blessing sin and return to the sanctity and holiness of marriage.”

He then called out the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales, the Episcopal Church of Brazil, the Anglican Church of New Zealand, the Church of Australia, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Episcopal Church of the USA to “repent and turn to the teachings of Holy Scripture.”

“Sadly,” he observed, “and with broken hearts, we say that until the Archbishop of Canterbury repents we can no longer recognize him as the first among equals and the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion.”

“It is time for the whole Anglican establishment to be reformed,” he declared, and then asked “Why does the secular government of only one of the nations represented in the Anglican Communion still get to pick the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion? This makes no sense in today’s post-colonial world.”

Archbishop Beach then turned to the question of personal and corporate holiness, speaking as forcefully and at equal length to “our provincial sins, our church’s sins, our personal sins,” as “some things we do are not of God.” We must repent.

A reconciling church was not a church that was reconciled to the world, or to sin, but first to God “based on the truth of the Scriptures.” Archbishop Beach argued “real reconciliation” needs to “remove the source of the quarrel, the root cause” of the hostility and anger between people. There could be “no reconciliation, without repentance,” he concluded.

A reproducing church was a church that consciously sought to make disciples and tell the whole world about the saving grace and love of Jesus Christ, he noted. A relentlessly compassionate church was one driven by the love of God to love one’s neighbor. “The love of God compels me” to love my neighbor, he argued.

While some of his examples touched upon the dysfunction within the Church of England, the tenor of the archbishop’s address dealt with the overarching call of repentance, renewal and revival. The agenda set out by the conference is likely to include a statement or call for action in response to the February decision by General Synod to bless same-sex marriage. However, Archbishop Beach made it clear the Anglican world had move beyond England and was now focused on all peoples, cultures and races around the globe.

For that reason, the Anglican Communion no longer recognises the Archbishop of Canterbury as first among equals and calls on him and other leaders in the Church of England to repent and return to the Biblical teachings of Christ. God does not bless what he calls sin.

“Both GSFA and Gafcon Primates share the view that, due to the departures from orthodoxy articulated above, they can no longer recognise the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Instrument of Communion, the ‘first among equals’ of the Primates. The Church of England has chosen to impair her relationship with the orthodox provinces in the Communion.”

The call to repentance was met with great sadness, but the Gafcon and Global South delegates who represent ±85% of Anglicans worldwide made it abundantly clear that they are not leaving the Anglican Communion, or even creating a new Communion, but that it is the Church of England which has moved away from the Communion. Gafcon and the Global South will now in essence eject the heretical Church of England until they repent and return to the Gospel. There will be a resetting of the governing instruments of the Anglican Communion.

“We acknowledge their agreement that ‘communion’ between churches and Christians must be based on doctrine (Jerusalem Declaration #13; GSFA Covenant 2.1.6). Anglican identity is defined by this and not by recognition from the See of Canterbury.”

The Gafcon Primates extended the Anglican Communion by recognising new orthodox jurisdictions for faithful Anglicans, such as the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), the Anglican Church in Brazil, the Anglican Network in Europe (ANiE), the Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa New Zealand, and the Diocese of the Southern Cross.

Together in Christ, the Anglican Communion will better aim to serve the wider Anglican world. There was talk of persecuted Christians around the world who are in need of support both pastoral and practical.

Gafcon set out a plan for the future, including youth ministry, women’s ministry, mercy ministries, in what they are calling a decade of discipleship, evangelism and mission (2023-2033). But let it not be understated, the primary and most immediate objective must be to elect a new first among equals and replace the Archbishop of Canterbury as the figurehead of the Anglican Communion.

“Resetting the Communion is an urgent matter. It needs an adequate and robust foundation that addresses the legal and constitutional complexities in various Provinces. The goal is that orthodox Anglicans worldwide will have a clear identity, a global ‘spiritual home’ of which they can be proud, and a strong leadership structure that gives them stability and direction as Global Anglicans. We therefore commit to pray that God will guide this process of resetting, and that Gafcon and GSFA will keep in step with the Spirit.”

Support and prayer will be provided for those who have not yet left the apostate Church of England. May God guide them in their conscience. Christ died for our sins, he taught us to repent and have faith, may we all be reminded of that call to repentance.

God bless Gafcon and their biblically faithful, uncompromising preaching of the Gospel.

The Conference Committee did not work on the substance of the Statement prior to the Conference. It has always been the desire of the Gafcon Primates that the Statement arise out of the Conference.

On Monday 17 April the Conference Statement Committee met to work on the Statement Framework – ideas of things that could be included in the Statement. The Statement Framework, written in English, was then translated into four other languages – French, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili.

The Statement Framework was made available to the delegates on Tuesday 18 April via an online survey. The online tool enabled delegates to indicate which ideas they agreed ought to be included in the Statement, and to provide written feedback on areas they felt ought to be included that were omitted. In addition, on Tuesday afternoon in the Clergy and Lay Meeting, delegates were led in a discussion of the challenges facing the church and their hopes for the Anglican Communion.

Feedback on these hopes and challenges was delivered to the Statement Committee on Tuesday evening. The group reviewed the feedback and updated the Statement Framework. Further input was given by a number of the Gafcon Primates.

The Draft Statement was read to all the delegates at 4pm on Wednesday 19 April, and then delegates worked in Provincial Groups to review the Draft Statement and provide further comment. Approximately 600 suggested edits were reviewed by the committee overnight on Wednesday, and feedback incorporated into the Draft Statement.

The Chairman of the Statement Committee met with the Primates on Thursday to review the Statement and further edits were made.

A final Statement was prepared on Thursday afternoon and evening, in preparation for presentation to the Conference on Friday.

Members of the Conference Statement Committee:

Chair – Rt Rev Dr Michael Stead – Australia
Ven Kara Hartley – Australia
Rev Canon Dr Mark Thompson – Australia
Rev Anne Kennedy – Anglican Church in North America
Rt Rev Sammy Morrison – Chile
Rev Tim Anderson – Ireland
Rev Andrew Symes – Anglican Network in England
Rt Rev Dapo Asaju – Nigeria
Rev Canon Dr John Senyonyi – Uganda
Rt Rev Alfred Olwa – Uganda

Secretariat
Mrs Felicity Stead – Secretary
Rev Nigel Fortescue – Secretary

Greetings from Kigali, Rwanda, where the fourth Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) met from 17-21 April 2023, bringing together 1,302 delegates from 52 countries, including 315 bishops, 456 other clergy and 531 laity.

We were grateful for the extraordinary hospitality extended by Archbishop Laurent Mbanda and the
Anglican Church of Rwanda. We were deeply saddened to hear the news of the loss of Laurent and
Chantal’s son Edwin, and we continue to offer our prayers of comfort for the Mbanda family.
We were also privileged to be welcomed and addressed by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Rwanda, the Right Honourable Edouard Ngirente who spoke of the significance of our gathering.

Our conference theme for 2023 ‘To Whom Shall We Go?’ (John 6:68), along with our Bible studies in the
Letter to the Colossians, focused our attention on Jesus, the one in whom all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form, the Lord of all creation and the head of his body, the church (Colossians 1:15-19; 2:9).
Our Chairman in his opening address encouraged us to be a repenting church, a reconciling church, a
reproducing church and a relentlessly compassionate church. This is the church we want to be.

We were reminded that the purpose and mission of the church is to make known to a lost world the
glorious riches of the gospel by proclaiming Christ crucified and risen, and living faithfully together as his disciples.

Our Fellowship Together
We gave thanks for God’s goodness and faithfulness to the Gafcon movement since its inception in 2008, as we rejoiced in a new generation of emerging leaders. It is God who unites us to himself and to one other in the power of his Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). From the diversity of our different backgrounds and cultures we delighted in our unity in Christ and the love that we share.
Many among us are from contexts of persecution or conflict and we know that as one part of the body
suffers, we all suffer. Some were unable to attend the conference because of this. We prayed for our
brothers and sisters in Sudan, and for the suffering church. We also heard testimony of the power of the
gospel to transform lives even in these circumstances through the prayer, kindness and compassion of Christians.

The Authority of God’s Word
The current divisions in the Anglican Communion have been caused by radical departures from the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some within the Communion have been taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies of this world (Colossians 2:8). Such a failure to hear and heed God’s Word undermines the mission of the church as a whole.

The Bible is God’s Word written, breathed out by God as it was written by his faithful messengers
(2 Timothy 3:16). It carries God’s own authority, is its own interpreter, and it does not need to be
supplemented, nor can it ever be overturned by human wisdom. God’s good Word is the rule of our lives as disciples of Jesus and is the final authority in the church.

It grounds, energises and directs our mission in the world. The fellowship we enjoy with our risen and ascended Lord is nourished as we trust God’s Word, obey it and encourage each other to allow it to shape each area of our lives.

This fellowship is broken when we turn aside from God’s Word or attempt to reinterpret it in any way that overturns the plain reading of the text in its canonical context and so deny its truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency, and thereby its authority (Jerusalem Declaration #2).

The Current Crisis in the Anglican Communion

Despite 25 years of persistent warnings by most Anglican Primates, repeated departures from the authority of God’s Word have torn the fabric of the Communion. These warnings were blatantly and deliberately disregarded and now without repentance this tear cannot be mended.

The latest of these departures is the majority vote by the General Synod of the Church of England in February 2023 to welcome proposals by the bishops to enable same-sex couples to receive God’s blessing.

It grieves the Holy Spirit and us that the leadership of the Church of England is determined to bless sin.

Since the Lord does not bless same-sex unions, it is pastorally deceptive and blasphemous to craft prayers that invoke blessing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Any refusal to follow the biblical teaching that the only appropriate context for sexual activity is the exclusive lifelong union of a man and a woman in marriage violates the created order (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4–6) and endangers salvation (1 Corinthians 6:9).

Public statements by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other leaders of the Church of England in support of same-sex blessings are a betrayal of their ordination and consecration vows to banish error and to uphold and defend the truth taught in Scripture.

These statements are also a repudiation of Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which declared that ‘homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture,’ and advised against the ‘legitimising or blessing of same sex unions’. This occurred despite the Archbishop of Canterbury having affirmed that ‘the validity of the resolution passed at the Lambeth Conference 1998, I.10 is not in doubt and that whole resolution is still in existence’.

The 2022 Lambeth Conference demonstrated the deep divisions in the Anglican Communion as many bishops chose not to attend and some of those who did withdrew from sharing at the Lord’s table.

The Failure of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Other Instruments of Communion

We have no confidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury nor the other Instruments of Communion led by him (the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meetings) are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of Scripture. The Instruments of Communion have failed to maintain true communion based on the Word of God and shared faith in Christ.

All four Instruments propose that the way ahead for the Anglican Communion is to learn to walk together in ‘good disagreement’. However we reject the claim that two contradictory positions can both be valid in matters affecting salvation. We cannot ‘walk together’ in good disagreement with those who have deliberately chosen to walk away from the ‘faith once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3). The people of God ’walk in his ways’, ‘walk in the truth’, and ‘walk in the light’, all of which require that we do not walk in Christian fellowship with those in darkness (Deuteronomy 8:6; 2 John 4; 1 John 1:7).

Successive Archbishops of Canterbury have failed to guard the faith by inviting bishops to Lambeth who have embraced or promoted practices contrary to Scripture. This failure of church discipline has been compounded by the current Archbishop of Canterbury who has himself welcomed the provision of liturgical resources to bless these practices contrary to Scripture. This renders his leadership role in the Anglican Communion entirely indefensible.

Call for Repentance

Repentance defines and shapes the Christian life and the life of the church. Each day at the Conference, in response to God’s Word in Colossians, we were led in a time of repentance.

Recognising our own sins, and in humility as forgiven sinners, we pray that those who have denied the orthodox Christian faith in word or deed would repent and return to the Lord (Jerusalem Declaration #13).

Since those who teach will be judged more strictly (James 3:1), we call upon those provinces, dioceses and leaders who have departed from biblical orthodoxy to repent of their failure to uphold the Bible’s teaching.

This includes matters such as human sexuality and marriage, the uniqueness and divinity of Christ, his bodily resurrection, his promised return, the summons to faith and repentance and the final judgment.

We long for this repentance but until they repent, our communion with them remains broken.

We consider that those who refuse to repent have abdicated their right to leadership within the Anglican

Communion, and we commit ourselves to working with orthodox Primates and other leaders to reset the Communion on its biblical foundations.

Support for Faithful Anglicans

Since the inception of Gafcon, it has been necessary for the Gafcon Primates to recognise new orthodox jurisdictions for faithful Anglicans, such as the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), the Anglican Church in Brazil, the Anglican Network in Europe (ANiE), the Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa New Zealand, and the Diocese of the Southern Cross. We encourage the Gafcon Primates to continue to provide such safe harbour for faithful Anglicans.

In view of the current crisis, we reiterate our support for those who are unable to remain in the Church of England because of the failure of its leadership. We rejoice in the growth of the ANiE and other Gafconaligned networks.

We also continue to stand with and pray for those faithful Anglicans who remain within the Church of England. We support their efforts to uphold biblical orthodoxy and to resist breaches of Resolution I.10.

Appropriate Pastoral Care

Aware of our own sin and frailty, we commit ourselves to providing appropriate pastoral care to all people in our churches. This is all the more necessary in the current context of sexual and gender confusion, made worse by its deliberate and systematic promotion across the world.

Appropriate pastoral care affirms faithfulness in marriage and abstinence in singleness. It is not appropriate pastoral care to mislead people, by pretending that God blesses sexually active relationships between two people of the same sex. This is unloving as it leads them into error and places a stumbling block in the way of their inheriting the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
We affirm that every person is loved by God and we are determined to love as God loves. As Resolution I.10 affirms, we oppose the vilification or demeaning of any person including those who do not follow God’s ways, since all human beings are created in God’s image.

We are thankful to God for all those who seek to live a life of faithfulness to God’s Word in the face of all
forms of sexual temptation. We pledge ourselves afresh to support and care for one another in a loving and pastorally sensitive way as members of Christ’s body, building one another up in the Word and in the Spirit, and encouraging each other to experience God’s transforming power as we walk by faith in the path of repentance and obedience that leads to fullness of life.

Resetting the Communion
We were delighted to be joined in Kigali by leaders of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches
(GSFA) and to host a combined Gafcon-GSFA Primates meeting. Together, these Primates represent the overwhelming majority (estimated at 85%) of Anglicans worldwide.

The leadership of both groups affirmed and celebrated their complementary roles in the Anglican
Communion. Gafcon is a movement focused on evangelism and mission, church planting and providing support and a home for faithful Anglicans who are pressured by or alienated from revisionist dioceses and provinces. GSFA, on the other hand, is focused on establishing doctrinally based structures within the Communion.
We rejoice in the united commitment of both groups on three fundamentals: the lordship of Jesus Christ;
the authority and clarity of the Word of God; and the priority of the church’s mission to the world. We
acknowledge their agreement that ‘communion’ between churches and Christians must be based on
doctrine (Jerusalem Declaration #13; GSFA Covenant 2.1.6). Anglican identity is defined by this and not by
recognition from the See of Canterbury.
Both GSFA and Gafcon Primates share the view that, due to the departures from orthodoxy articulated
above, they can no longer recognise the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Instrument of Communion, the
‘first among equals’ of the Primates. The Church of England has chosen to impair her relationship with the orthodox provinces in the Communion.

We welcome the GSFA’s Ash Wednesday Statement of 20 February 2023, calling for a resetting and
reordering of the Communion. We applaud the invitation of the GSFA Primates to collaborate with Gafcon and other orthodox Anglican groupings to work out the shape and nature of our common life together and how we are to maintain the priority of proclaiming the gospel and making disciples of all nations.

Resetting the Communion is an urgent matter. It needs an adequate and robust foundation that addresses the legal and constitutional complexities in various Provinces. The goal is that orthodox Anglicans worldwide will have a clear identity, a global ‘spiritual home’ of which they can be proud, and a strong leadership structure that gives them stability and direction as Global Anglicans.

We therefore commit to pray that God will guide this process of resetting, and that Gafcon and GSFA will keep in step with the Spirit.

Our Future Together

As we considered the future of our movement we welcomed the following seven priorities articulated by the General Secretary and endorsed by the Gafcon Primates.

We will engage in a decade of discipleship, evangelism and mission (2023-2033).

We will devote ourselves to raising up the next generation of leaders in Gafcon through Bible-based theological education that will equip them to be Christ-centred and servant-hearted.

We will prioritise youth and children’s ministry that instructs them in the Word of the Lord, disciples them to maturity in Christ and equips them for a lifetime of Christian service.

We will affirm and encourage the vital and diverse ministries, including leadership roles, of Gafcon women in family, church and society, both as individuals and as groups.

We will demonstrate the compassion of Christ through the many Gafcon mercy ministries.

We will resource and support bishops’ training that produces faithful, courageous, servant leaders.

We will build the bonds of fellowship and mutual edification through interprovincial visits of our Primates.

Arising from our conference we encouraged the Primates Council also to prioritise discipleship for boys and men.

In order to pursue these priorities and to grow the work of the Gafcon movement, we endorsed the establishment of a foundation endowment. We also encouraged the Gafcon provinces to become financially self-sufficient, not only to advance mission but also to avoid being vulnerable to economic manipulation.

Most importantly of all, we commit ourselves afresh to the gospel mission of proclaiming the crucified, risen and ascended Christ, calling on all to acknowledge him as Lord in repentance and faith, and living out a joyful, faithful obedience to his Word in all areas of our lives. We will explore fresh ways to encourage each other, to pray for one another and to hold each other accountable in these things.

We commit ourselves into the hands of our almighty and loving heavenly Father with confidence that he will fulfil all his promises and, even through a time of pruning, Christ will build his church.

‘To whom shall we go?’

We go to Christ who alone has the words of eternal life (John 6:68) and then we go with Christ to the whole world. Amen

Kigali, Rwanda 21 April 2023

DOWNLOAD THE PDF HERE: Kigali Commitment 2023

GAFCON IV, Kigali, Rwanda

Right Honorable Prime Minister, Archbishop Mbanda, Mr. General Secretary, my fellow primates and bishops, and all delegates to this 4th Gafcon Conference, greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ!.

As the Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America, and current chair of the Gafcon Primates Council, it is a joy to join others in welcoming you here to Kigali. I bring you greetings from my dear wife, Allison, and from laity, clergy, and bishops of the Anglican Church in North America.

Actually, we owe our existence to Gafcon. In 2008 Gafcon called for a new Province in North America, and in 2009 we were received into the Anglican Communion by the Gafcon Primates.

Thank you!

It has been an honor to have been selected by the Primates to serve in this capacity for the past five years. We have seen the Lord do some amazing things throughout the world to advance the Gospel of Jesus. But I have to admit it has been quite a challenge! We have had to face together a world-wide epidemic of COVID-19. Not only did we lose many people who were precious to us, but we literally had to shut down our ministries. We weren’t able to have church. We weren’t able to travel.

Many of us have faced persecution with the killing of fellow Christians in our villages. Many of us have faced famine and drought and flooding which caused all kinds of hardship, including starvation and sickness. Many of us have faced war and civil unrest, and many of us have had to face economic challenges. Frankly, I wondered if Gafcon would survive, but when God ordains something, he sees it through! Romans 8:28 tells us that God works out all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

Here we are, the largest gathering of Anglican leaders since Gafcon III in Jerusalem in 2018, and maybe, one of the most important Church gatherings in our life-time. God has had his hand on Gafcon –not because we have charismatic leaders, not because we have a great organization, and not because we are Anglicans. No, God has had his hand on Gafcon because we are honoring him by standing against those who conveniently and culturally disregard the Word of God.

We have stood firm in our biblical convictions summed up in the Jerusalem Declaration. He has been honoring our efforts to call the Anglican Communion to repentance, to renewal, and to reform. Jesus is our Lord and we are seeking to honor him as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

I want to thank our General Secretary, Archbishop Ben Kwashi, who has been fighting serious health challenges. He has not compromised in his dedication to Gafcon and to serving us. He continues to be the evangelist God has called him to be, and to keep us focused on the mission Jesus gave to us all.

I want to thank my fellow primates: Archbishop Henry Ndukuba of the Church of All Nigeria, Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit of the Church of Kenya, Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba of the Church of Uganda, Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of the Church of Rwanda, Archbishop Stephen Than of the Church of Myanmar, Archbishop Miguel Uchoa of the Anglican Church of Brazil, Archbishop Tito Zavalla of the Church of Chile, Archbishop Justin Badi of the Church of South Sudan.

I want to thank our new primates: Archbishop Andre Titre of the Church of the Congo, Archbishop Samy Shehata, from the Province of Alexandria.

I want to thank our Advisors: Archbishop James Wong of the Province of the Indian Ocean, Archbishop Ezekiel Condo of the Province of Sudan, and Archbishop Kaniska Raffel from the Diocese of Sydney.

These men have stood tall amidst challenging events in their own Provinces, but they have also been tremendous leaders in facing the challenges laid down for all of us by the Anglican Establishment. They have each been a source of encouragement to me personally, but also examples of faithfulness to the Word of God! Thank you, my brothers!!

We are joined this week by some of the leaders of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches: Justin Badi, the Chairman, and Tito Zavala, the Vice Chairman, are also Gafcon Primates, and the General Secretary, the retired bishop of Singapore, Rennis Ponniah is also here. Welcome my brothers. I look forward to ways we can collaborate for the sake of the Gospel.

As we gather this week from all over the world, I want to encourage you to keep the following in mind as we travel together this week, and then return to our provinces.

I would like to share what I call the “Four Marks of Continuing a Spirit-filled Movement” or rather we could say, the “Four Marks of Modern Anglicanism.” You see, we could go on playing Church, being religious, and even making bold statements and make no spiritual impact in our world. What a tragedy this would be! No, we want to see true revival break out and spread to every part of the world.

The First Mark of Modern Anglicanism is that we must be a repenting Church. After all, this is the message we have received in the Gospel. Remember the message of John the Baptist: Repent.  Matthew 3:2 – “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Remember the message of Jesus: Repent.  Matthew 4:17 – “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

Remember the message of the Apostle Peter – at the end of his Pentecost sermon and the people were asking, “what must we do?”  Acts 2:38 – “Repent and be baptized every one of you in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  This promise is for you and your children.”

Remember the words of the Apostle Paul when he was addressing the people of Athens in Acts 17:22 – “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands people everywhere to repent.”

We are called to be a repenting Church.  That is, we must call people to repent of their sins,

and also be a repenting people ourselves; a group of repenting followers of Jesus. When God shows us our sin, we must turn from it and return to the Lord. Isn’t this what repent means? Literally, to change your mind. Illustrate repentance.

St. John of Damascus said, “Repentance is returning from the unnatural to the natural state, from the devil to God, through discipline and effort.” I know…people will say that this is how you become a believer – and it is – we repent of our sins, believe, and follow Jesus.

Because of God’s love for us, because of Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins, and because of his resurrection and the promise of eternal life, we change our minds (repent) about living for me, myself, and I, and begin to live for Jesus. But this repentance doesn’t stop when one is born again or comes into a relationship with God through Jesus. It is a day by day, moment by moment reality.

When a person comes to faith in Jesus, God does a wonderful and amazing thing – he places within the person the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit begins to teach you, guide you, reveal to you the ways of God, and he begins to reveal to you your sin.

As God the Holy Spirit reveals to you your sin – usually through His Word, the Bible, – you then have a choice: continue in the sin or change your mind (repent). That is, begin to believe the behavior or attitude is a sin – and turn from it! This is repentance.

He is constantly showing me my sin and unless I repent I quench the Holy Spirit in my life and in my ministry. (1 Thess.5:19) As God shows us our sin, we must turn from it and return to the Lord.

St. Paul of the Cross said, “Should we fall into a sin, let us humble ourselves sorrowfully in his presence, and then, with an act of unbounded confidence, let us throw ourselves into the ocean of his goodness, where every failing will be cancelled and anxiety turned into love.”

We are called to be a repenting Church. In recent days, we have seen the Church of England, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury and their bishops, walk away from the plain teaching of Scripture. We call on them to repent – to return to the teaching of the Word of God. We call on them to stop blessing sin, and return to the sanctity and holiness of Marriage.

We call on the Scottish Episcopal Church to repent. We call on the Church of Wales to repent. We call on the Episcopal Church in Brazil to repent. We call on the Anglican Church in New Zealand Church to repent. We call on the Church of Australia to repent. We call on the Anglican Church of Canada to repent. We call on the Episcopal Church to repent. Repent and return to the teaching of Holy Scripture!

Sadly, and with broken hearts, we must say that until the Archbishop of Canterbury repents, we can no longer recognize him as the “first among equals” and the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion. It is time for the whole Anglican Establishment to be reformed anyway. Why does a secular government of only one of the nations represented in the Anglican Communion still get to pick the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion? This makes no sense in today’s post-colonial world.

But let us not only call on those “out there” to repent. Some of United States need to repent of our sins – of our provincial sins, our church’s sins, and our personal sins. Sexual sins are not the only sins in the bible. Some of us have practices in our provinces, in our ministries, and in our lives which are not of God. We need to repent.

We Anglicans pray this prayer each time we pray confess the General Confession, “We are truly sorry, and we humbly repent…” (Or some version of this – depending on the liturgy.) As we confess our sins, we tell God that we are sorry, and that we humbly repent. Yet, do we? The question each of us must ask ourselves: “Is there something in my life which the Lord has shown me of which I must repent?” If we are going to be the people of God that the Lord wants us to be, we must be a repenting Church. If we want a true spiritual awakening, we must be a repenting Church.

The Second Mark of Modern Anglicanism is that we must be is a reconciling Church. When I speak of reconciliation, I am not talking about being reconciled with the world, or with sin, or with sinful behavior, or giving up one’s principles, or compromising Biblical Truth in order to be reconciled.

The Scriptures do tell us that we are all ministers of reconciliation and that we are to be reconciled with each other. This reconciliation is based on the cross of Jesus, on the Truth in the Scriptures, and on the tradition handed down to us by the Church Fathers, but this reconciliation does not compromise the teaching of Scripture.

To be reconciled means there was “once” a problem. The Australia Anglican scholar, Leon Morris, wrote “Reconciliation properly applies not to good relations in general but to the doing away of an enmity, the bridging over of a quarrel.  It implies that the parties being reconciled were formerly hostile to one another.” This is true with us individually with The Lord.This is true with too many of God’s people with each other.

For real reconciliation to take place, you must remove the enmity, the source of the quarrel. We may apologize for our actions, we may pay back money we owe, we may return something which we borrowed, or we may make restitution for the damage we have done. In every situation, there must be a dealing with the root cause of the enmity. In other words, there is no true reconciliation without repentance.

Jesus died on the cross to put away our sin; he removed the enmity between humanity and God. He opened the door for all human beings to come back to God.  He made it possible for us to be reconciled to God through faith. However, there is another aspect of reconciliation, and if this is not addressed in our lives and in our congregations, the Holy Spirit is grieved.

The Apostles John addresses this in 1 John in several ways.  Here is one, I John 4:20 says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” God has called us to be a reconciling church; a people who are reconciled with God through Jesus Christ and who are reconciled with one another.

Doesn’t Jesus tell us that this is one of our biggest witnessing tools to unbelievers – our love for one another? And yet people wound us, people get mad and say bad things, family members hurt us, friends go back on their word. Godly people get out of the Spirit and in the flesh do things or say things which offend us. This happens in congregations, too.  We are all human and too many times our sinfulness is brought into spiritual situations, and we can make a big mess of things. I know I have.

The biggest problem we have in being reconciled with others is our unwillingness to forgive. Unforgiveness sets in, resentment begins to grow, bitterness creeps in, and before long, unforgiveness has so grieved the Holy Spirit in your life that there is no joy or peace,

and it affects everything you do. Brother and sisters, this must not be! We are called to be a reconciling Church.

To be reconciled doesn’t mean you are going to agree about everything. To be reconciled doesn’t mean you necessarily even agree about the facts of what happened. To be reconciled means that you value the Lord and each other so much, that you are willing to acknowledge your own part in the situation, repent, and you are willing to forgive and move on.

This is what we confess each week. When we pass the peace each Sunday, what are we symbolizing? We are not just greeting our neighbor. I am visibly saying that before I come to the Table of the Lord, I am reconciled with my brother or sister to the best of my ability.

We are called to be a reconciling Church.  If not, we grieve the Holy Spirit. You may not think it affects your life. You may not think it affects your relationships with others. You may not think it affects your ministry. But it does! Ephesians 4:30 says, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.”

So the question which must be asked:  Is there someone or a “bunch of someones” with whom you need to be reconciled? God is calling us to be a reconciling Church.

A Third Mark of Modern Anglicanism is we are called to be a reproducing Church. Just as in the creation story when God told humanity to be fruitful and multiply, Jesus commissioned his disciples before he ascended to do the same. Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you to the end of the ages.”

We are called to be a reproducing church, a disciple-making church. This is the major reason God gives us the Holy Spirit. Remember his words after this in Acts 1, “Go into Jerusalem, and wait for the gift of My Father.”  And then, says Acts 1:8, “But 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 end of the earth.”

The power of the Spirit is related to the commission to Go and make disciples. Do you think that God will continue to pour out his Spirit if we are not obeying his commission? Jesus says here that we are to GO. They will rarely come to us. We must go. We must get out of the four walls of our church and go. We must get out from in front of the television or the computer screen and go.

The theme of this conference is “To Whom Shall We Go?” And we will hear a lot of this, but please know that at this moment there are over 3 Billion people in our world who don’t know Jesus. You and I need to go.

We need to go to people in our world, our sphere of influence: the people we work with, the people we have fun with, the people down the street, the people in our villages, and the people in the next village or town. We are called to go share the Good News of Jesus and make disciples of ALL Nations. Brothers and Sisters, We are called to be a reproducing Church

The 4th Mark of Modern Anglicanism is that we are called to be a relentlessly compassionate Church. 2 Corinthians 5:14 says, “The love of Christ compels us!” 1 Timothy 1:5 says, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Galatians 5:22 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Jesus, in the second Great Commandment, said “Love your neighbor as yourselves.”

Do you know what most unbelievers out there think we feel toward them? They think we hate them. They think we despise them. They think we judge them. They think we don’t care about them. Now, obviously, they don’t know us very well because that is not true. But this is our problem, not theirs. God calls us to be relentlessly compassionate to the people in our world.

Let me challenge you to pray a very dangerous prayer: “Lord, open my eyes to see the hurt and the pain in the people around me.” Don’t pray this unless you are ready to be compassionate. Don’t pray this unless you are ready to care. People all around us are suffering immensely. People have wounded family relationships People are living in sexual brokenness and misery.

People are financially burdened and overwhelmed. People are addicted to alcohol, drugs, sex, porn, and money. People are exhausted and can’t get off the merry-go-round, and the black-hole just gets deeper and deeper with no way out. People have medical conditions which sap all their strength and creativity. They are craving a little compassionate care. They are craving a better way.

We have the answer for their needs. We have the answer for the drug addict. We have the answer for the porn addict, the financially broken, emotionally and physically abused, those living a life of poverty.  His name is Jesus.

He cares for them and desires to help them. He deeply wants a relationship with them and to lead them into meaningful life. However, this Jesus expects his body to be His Body in the towns, villages, cities, and neighborhoods in which we live. He expects us to be His arms, His legs, His voice, His ears, and His heart.

We are not and cannot be the Church as we have known it.  We must be a living Body engaged with the people around us.  We must be the Temple of the Holy Spirit exhibiting the fruit and gifts of the Spirit in all we do.

May it not be said that we did not pray and fast for our nations. May it not be said that we did not reach out to our neighbors in love. May it not be said that we did not love our enemies into the Kingdom of God. May it not be said that we did not do all we could do to reach our friends, neighbors, family members, and co-workers with the transforming love of Jesus. We are to be a relentlessly compassionate Church.

As we go throughout the week with our theme, “To whom shall we go?,” and we eventually return back to our homes and ministries, let us remember that God calls us to be a repenting people, a reconciling people, a reproducing people, and a relentlessly compassionate people.

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.