Conclusion of first Task Force meeting

The Task Force this afternoon concluded its first-ever meeting, held in the Ft. Worth offices of Christ the Redeemer (the ACNA parish headed by TF chair Fr. Chris Culpepper). We had six (of the nine) task force members present (one virtually), as well as three visitors.

Left to right: Fr. Bill Wilson, Bp. Win Mott, Fr. Michael Brooks,
Cn. Dan Alger, Fr. Lee Nelson, Fr. Chris Culpepper.
Not shown: Bp. Keith Ackerman, Mr. J. West

Anchored in the context of today’s America, the two-day meeting focused on the intersection of vibrant Anglo-Catholic churchmanship with best practice in Anglican (or other Christian) church planting.

Our special guest was Cn. Dan Alger, who is the church planting canon for both the Anglican Diocese of the South and the ACNA. He discussed their new website (Always Forward) and new framework for church planting. From the AF website:

Canon Dan Alger

A healthy church planting network has four primary components for the support of church planting:

• Conviction. … A church planting diocese holds the conviction that church planting is a normative function of the diocese and pursues it with intentionality and passion.
• Culture. A diocese with a church planting culture values healthy risk and celebrates the work of entrepreneurial ministry; it celebrates its church planters and naturally raises up new planters from its ranks. …
• Collaboration. A church planting network does not see the work of planting as solely an individual endeavor, but rather the shared work of the diocese. …
• Constructs: … Always Forward will help to educate on the importance of the proper core systems … We define these core constructs as: A Leadership Pipeline, Planter Assessment, Planter Training, Coaching, Ongoing Support, Funding, Mission Oversight

We look forward to sharing the AF resources with our church planters, and also helping the AF explain Anglo-Catholic church planting to the broader ACNA audience.

On the second day, we focused on planning our session for Forward in Faith’s 2016 National Assembly in July. As with AF, we see our goal as both helping individual church planters, and also helping sponsoring diocese and parishes build infrastructure (and culture) that empowers these planters.

Bp. Stephen Scarlett from his California study