Shifting South: Asia’s Anglican Growth

Next week, I’ll be in Thailand for the Anglican Province of Southeast Asia’s mission roundtable. The periodic event brings together those ministering in more than a half-dozen Asian countries with Western churches seeking to partner in overseas mission work.

I’ve written before on the growing Anglican presence in Southeast Asia. Readers of this blog may recall my visit to Singapore and Cambodia at the invitation of the Anglican Province of Southeast Asia, where I reported in 2017 on growing Anglican congregations there.

Contrary to the western stereotype of Anglicans as the “country club set” at prayer, the global family of churches has been shifting south for decades. Emerging Anglican churches in countries like Nepal, Cambodia and Thailand may be a key part of its future.

Notably, alongside growing churches in some places like Rwanda, Angola, or Mozambique, most of these countries are not former parts of the British Empire where Anglican Christianity has a longtime presence.

Anglicanism is growing globally, part of a mosaic of Christian traditions reaching people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. As the third largest family of Christians, Anglicans are broadly represented across much of the globe. We are positioned to share the Gospel with unreached people in a way that not all groups presently are.

The Church of the Province of South East Asia, which has four dioceses in Singapore and Malaysia, is a younger province in the Anglican Communion. Launched in 1996, the province has grown to more than 98,000 adherents. It is geographically the most expansive: a flight from Nepal on the western edge of the province is 12 hours from the far side of Indonesia on the Eastern edge. In between, more than 500 million people live, most of which have never met a Christian, let alone have heard the Gospel.

In 1986, my fellow parishioner at The Falls Church Anglican, the Rev. Norman Beale, traveled to Nepal with his wife Beth in order to share the Gospel in a nation with few Christians and no indigenous Anglicans. God used their ministry among the Tamang people to form what in 1999 became the Anglican Church in Nepal: today more than 12,000 believers spread amongst 117 congregations. In November, the Anglican Church in Nepal celebrates 25 years of ministry.

God can use us as his partners. And his plans often are more ambitious than ours.

This October, I’ve again been invited to visit Southeast Asia, this time to the Anglican Church in Thailand, where I will meet with those ministering in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia and Nepal, places where the Diocese of Singapore (one of four in Southeast Asia) has a presence.

With the notable exception of Nepal, most of these are not large churches. But what they represent is a vibrant missional presence, churches that are outward facing and evangelistic, rather than chaplaincies of pleasant living that serve the upper classes. This is not “country club” Episcopalianism known for a level of normality and decorum rather than “getting into the muck” with fellow sinners in need of a hospital.

I will author articles for IRD that you’ll find here on Juicy Ecumenism, reporting on ministry work currently underway and on emerging opportunities.

An appeal to readers: the Diocese of Singapore is kindly paying for my meals and lodging. I must pay for travel. My trip will allow me to report on the great news of Anglican growth in Asia.

Can you help me get there? Can you help me serve the Anglican Communion by publicizing this important and inspiring Gospel work? We otherwise don’t have funds at IRD.

Will you consider financially partnering with IRD in order to send me to this gathering? It is through my work at the IRD that enables me to report on what is underway in the worldwide Anglican Communion. I hope you will say yes!

Give online here (please designate “Anglican” in the drop-down menu).

Your tax-deductible gift will empower me to report on the good work underway and to facilitate fruitful connections between faithful Anglicans in the West and in Southeast Asia.

More from IRD:

Cambodia Anglicans Chart a New Path

Amidst Half-a-Billion Unreached, Singapore Anglicans Embrace Mission Opportunity