This June my denomination, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), held its Provincial Assembly in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The week was a series of three major meetings: the ACNA College of Bishops elected new Archbishop Steve Wood to a five-year term, the annual Provincial Council adopted a budget and held elections, and the larger Assembly, which meets at least once every five years, ratified canonical changes.
Each of ACNA’s 29 dioceses sends a four-person delegation to Council, while Assembly delegations are proportionately based upon the attendance of the diocese.
New Archbishop
The June 22 election of Wood, a South Carolina senior pastor (known as a rector in Anglican parlance) and diocesan bishop, after a two day bishops’ conclave is significant. In 2014, bishops were deeply divided with none of the most-mentioned names either eligible to serve or capable of securing a two-thirds majority to become Archbishop. That year, Bishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Diocese of the South was selected as a compromise candidate.
In 2024, the process appears to have been relatively smooth, with Wood (whose name had not been publicly circulated) selected on the second day. In a final vote held after it was clear Wood had secured the necessary support to become Archbishop, Wood received unanimous support from all diocesan bishops. This cannot be waived off as a mere courtesy vote: it communicated that every diocesan found Wood to be acceptable to serve as the top bishop in the ACNA. That was a stark contrast with social media catastrophists who fretted that the 15-year-old denomination was about to fly apart amidst long-standing disagreement.
Wood’s Diocese of the Carolinas, formed in 2012, has not only grown to be among the largest in the ACNA (it reported a 20 percent attendance growth in 2023), it has also done so through church planting. In a Q&A session with Assembly delegates following his election by the bishops’ conclave, Wood noted that only four churches in his diocese had a prior identity within the Episcopal Church. The other 36 were launched as church plants, several of which are now large, established parishes that have birthed mission congregations of their own.
That emphasis on evangelism and church planting has been not only espoused by Wood, his diocese has created structures and systems that advanced and supported new church starts.
“Once he saves us, he sends us,” Wood and his wife Jacqui shared with Assembly delegates, with the new Archbishop identifying the reaching of more than 130 million people in North America who have never heard the Gospel as among those things that most animate him. “I really like and spend a lot of time with non-Christians.”
Continue reading at Mere Orthodoxy here.
Comment by Tim on July 15, 2024 at 12:58 pm
Quote from the article: Signs of that movement include Anglicans now among the larger chaplain corps in the U.S. military (the ACNA endorses nearly 300, far surpassing the Episcopal Church) as well as more ethnically diverse congregations.
“I do not find country club congregations or chaplaincies to the elite,” Beach reported, listing Chinese, Nigerian, Karen, Ugandan, Persian, Kenyan, Mexican and Indian congregations. “Our people are serious about their relationship with Jesus Christ and sharing the message with a hurting and suffering world in which we live.”
“We are not perfect by any means, but we are moving forward in the worship of God, evangelism, and discipleship.”
I wish my family had this opportunity in my area of the USA.
Comment by Thomas on July 17, 2024 at 11:17 pm
You can`t ignore the elephant in the room that is C4SO. They have been infiltrated by moral relativism, bue to the mediocre leadership of Todd Hunter. I hope ACNA will nominate a sound, orthodox bishop, to replace him.
Comment by David Gingrich on July 20, 2024 at 7:47 am
Thankful for every corner of Christ’s Church. Thankful for growth.