If it's Wednesday, we're at Ridgecrest

View of Ridgecrest as I walked to session.

Today the Provincial Council met and I spent most of the day working on some videos and meeting up with delegates as they arrive for the Provincial Assembly tomorrow.  Kevin Kallsen and George Conger are here, as well as delegations from dioceses all over the country.  I am running into old friends from Truro which is a great delight - you never know who you are going to run into as you walk around a hallway corner!

Bishop-elect Steve Wood

Great news as good friend Steve Wood is elected bishop of the brand new Diocese of the Carolinas.  Steve is one of the original Alpha Course Regional Advisers when Holy Trinity Brompton brought the Alpha Course over to this side of the big pond in the mid-1990s and we met at one of those early gathering of advisers back when when he was still in Ohio.  It is very exciting to see someone so committed to evangelism rising up from the next generation of leadership.

Please do keep him and his family and the wonderful folks at St. Andrew's Mt. Pleasant in your prayers.  To God be the Glory!

Archbishop Bob Duncan's address from this morning is now online and you can read it all here.   Among the things he reports on is this:

"Yesterday, the College of Bishops adopted a three-way protocol (PEAR, ACNA, and PEARUSA) that effectively gives PEARUSA participation as if it were a diocese of this Church.  Moreover, today this Council will be asked to approve a diocese in formation (called Christ the King and centered at Houston, Texas) composed of former AMiA congregations. In other parts of our two countries (Canada and the US) congregations that have been AM congregations are associating with existing dioceses of the Anglican Church in North America. Bishop Todd Hunter of Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO) has joined us as a bishop with special mission and two of our dioceses have given “cover” to two other Anglican Mission bishops and their congregations – with a third bishop and network in conversation – as their relationships to the AM gets sorted out."

Archbishop Duncan talked of the "deepened commitment to repentance and reconciliation" recognizing how "PEARUSA has modeled this behavior for us all."  He went on to say:

"We owe an immense debt to Bishops Glenn and Barnum and those who have led alongside them, for breathing this into our common life in a new way. I am not faultless in the AMiA breakup. We are not faultless in the sad events of these last years. The Anglican Church in North America emerges from the challenges of this last year with repentance on our lips and a desire to restore broken relationships in our hearts. Any Church with these desires stirred up within it is a Church wonderfully blessed. To God be the glory."

Here is Archbishop Duncan's Presidential Address: