At last Episcopal Church in America passes resolution D025 and C056

Just read down. Homosexuality has been officialy accepted as a way of life for ECUSA.
D025: Both gays and lesbians can now be leaders and be ordained into the orders of Deacon, Priest and Bishops. This was done without any recourse to all the concerns the other members of the Anglican Communion have been expresing over the years.

C056: The Book of Common prayer is going to be revised to include "theological resources and liturgies of blessing for same-gender holy unions". This will likely be accomplished in the next two years.

It is most likely that very soon, persecution of the faithful will start. Let he that is faithful continue to be faithful still.

Read all here.

Final Resolution on the Anglican Communion Covenant

The ACC:

• thanks the Covenant Design Group for their faithfulness and respons­iveness in producing the drafts for an Anglican Communion Covenant and, in particular, for the Ridley Cambridge Draft submitted to this meeting;

• recognises that an Anglican Communion Covenant may provide an effective means to strengthen and promote our common life as a Communion;

• asks the Archbishop of Canter­bury, in consultation with the Secre­tary General, to appoint a small work­ing group to consider and consult with the Provinces on section 4 and its possible revision, and to report to the next meeting of the Joint Standing Committee;

• asks the JSC, at that meeting, to approve a final form of section 4;

• asks the Secretary General to send the revised Ridley Cambridge text, at that time, only to the member Churches of the Anglican Consultative Council for consideration and decision on acceptance or adoption by them as the Anglican Communion Covenant;

• asks those member Churches to report to ACC-15 on the progress made in the processes of response to, and acceptance or adoption of, the Covenant.

This is real confusion. Just like one commenter at anglicantv.org said:

"We can take heart that in MANY places around the globe there are VERY DEAR brothers and sisters in Christ who are focused, that is GOSPEL FOCUSED, and going about the Masters business pointing people to the
Saviour of the world, in accordance to the Great commission.
Sadly there are others who are navel gazing big time while in the area
where they could be reaching a harvest 'of souls'there are men and women dying in there sin.
We need to be going to the scriptures DAILY with an open mind seeking to
WALK in obedience to the Masters leading."

The church must march on and the gates of hell will not rpevail against it.

Apostacy and Deception

"We cannot afford to pin our hopes on ecclesiastical structures or even on individual leaders. The hope for a vibrant, robust, faithful Anglican witness to the gospel of Christ in this century rests in God and his work to bring about genuine repentance and faith in the lives of men and women."

This is a wonderful write up on the Anglican Consultative Council ging on in Jamaica currently. The earlier we begin to put our trust in God instead of men (even men of God) the better for us. See more here.

Tension in the LAMBETH Conference as Sudan addresses the press

On Tuesday 22nd of July, the conference experienced a shake up when the Archbishop of the Sudan released a statement calling for the Episcopal Church of the United States to repent, and to cease “with immediate effect” its advocacy of gay bishops and blessings.

Rebuffed by conference organizers in releasing his message, Dr. Daniel Deng, Archbishop of Juba and Primate of the Sudan, went round them and held an impromptu press conference in the media room, and issued a call for Gene Robinson to step aside to save the Communion.

If [Gene Robinson] were a real Christian he would resign” Archbishop Deng said on July 22, as the Episcopal Church’s media handlers looked on in shock. A number of American bishops were taken aback by the Sudanese statement, as Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and a number of her colleagues spent the days before the opening of Lambeth with the Sudanese bishops in Salisbury.
From here, here and here

Read the full address of the Primate of Sudan Dr Daniel Deng Bul here

GAFCON Petition

I love what some folks in the Church of England are doing right now. Thank God for the GAFCON conference and all the people that God used to draft the final statement that has given a lead to what I see will bring sparks of revival in the Anglican Communion.

A petition is available for online signature for those individuals who wish to indicate their solidarity with the GAFCON movement. The wording of the petition is,

"I stand in solidarity with the Jerusalem Declaration and Statement on the Global Anglican Future."

Just click here to sign online

Remember the GAFCON Statement is here

8 Mistakes the American Church made

This is a sermon by Lee Grady of Charisma Magazine in Nigeria in 2002. It was reproduced in The Nigeria Anglican, the official magazine of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion. I'm convinced it worths repeating in this blog.

Eight Mistakes the American Church Made That I Hope You Don’t Repeat

When in 2002 I was in Nigeria conducting interviews, I was invited to speak at a growing Church that meets near a University in Lagos. Knowing that future Church leader would be in the audience that Sunday morning, I wanted to deposit something that could shape the destiny of Africa. My message was title “Eight Mistakes the American Church Made That I Hope You Don’t Repeat”. I don’t have the kind of pulpit savvy that gets people shouting ‘amens’ and waving handkerchiefs. Yet this sermon struck a chord not only with my Nigerian friends, but also with Americans who heard about it when I returned. I am sharing the gist of the message with you because I know it’s not too late to learn from our blunders. Here’s my list of the American Church’s all-time biggest goofs:

1. We made unbelief a doctrine:

While Christians in Chine, Latin America and Africa were casting out devils and healing the sick, we were teaching seminary students that the Holy Spirit doesn’t do miracles any more. That’s really bad theology.

2. We tolerated division:

Who needs the devil when Christians are perfectly OK with hating one another in the name of denominational loyalty? Why should the world listen to us teach about family values when the family of God is so fractured?

3. We cultivated a religious spirit:

We taught converts that Christianity is all about daily Bible reading, Church attendance and avoiding cigarettes and beer. Genuine faith became drudgery. Christians trapped in dry legalism lost their joy because they thought intimacy with God could be achieved by their performance.

4. We encouraged “superstars:

We elevated ministers to celebrity status, and some of them actually believed they deserved the titles, the pedestals, the grand entrances and the first-class seats next to Jesus’ throne. They stopped modeling servant hood and as a result the Church forgot that Jesus washed the feet and rode on a donkey.

5. We equated money with success:

We taught that biblical prosperity could be obtained by inserting our tithes into a heavenly slot machine. LOTTO fever spread throughout the Church and we found a way to legitimate greed and materialism when we should have been using our wealth to feed the poor, adopt orphans and fund missionary ventures.

6. We wouldn’t release women in ministry:

We let gender prejudice have more control of the Church that the Holy Spirit. He is ready to send an army of dedicated women to the front lines of spiritual battle but He is waiting for us to bury our stinking male pride.

7. We stayed in the pews and became irrelevant:

We insisted on letting a group of older white men in dark suits represent our faith in the marketplace, and we freaked out when somebody tried to use rap, punk or metal music to reach the younger generations. Instead of engaging the culture, we hid from it.

8. We taught people to be escapists:

Jesus told us to occupy the planet until He returns. But most of us were reading rapture novels when we should have been praying for our brothers and sisters who were on the verge of martyrdom. They were willing to suffer and die for the cause. Why can’t we have that kind of faith?