A cross section of American, British, and Australian Anglican groups met face-to-face across four days this month with partners ministering within Southeast Asia, including clergy and deans from a half-dozen countries with budding Anglican churches.
Themed “Planting Future Dioceses,” the Diocese of Singapore’s October 22-25 Missions Consultation Roundtable in Bangkok, Thailand aimed to coordinate support for Anglican ministries in a region with an historically sparse but steadily growing Anglican presence. Churches that were previously expat chaplaincies or only recently came into existence are now chiefly ministering through local people.
Among the most geographically expansive churches in the Anglican Communion, the Province of South East Asia stretches from Nepal to Indonesia and ministers amidst a population of nearly 497 million. It includes four dioceses located in Malaysia and Singapore, alongside ministry in six mission deaneries overseen by the Diocese of Singapore including Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Nepal. A seventh deanery in Timor-Leste is set to be admitted to the diocese in November.
While none of these deaneries except for Nepal are large, they in aggregate count 167 different local churches and 16,899 baptized members, and notably are in places outside of the British Commonwealth. Nepal, in particular, had no local Anglicans until 1999.
Groups present at the conference included the Church Mission Society (CMS), Anglican Frontier Missions (AFM), the New Wineskins Missionary Network, Crosslinks, Anglican Aid, Relay Trust, the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders (SAMS), and the Intercontinental Church Society. Parishes of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) were also represented.
Continue reading at The Living Church here.
Comment by Thomas on October 30, 2024 at 4:31 pm
I`m a bit perplex about the reference to a parish in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto. Is that parish theologically sound, I hope? With all due respect for Jeff Walton, that I`ve been reading for a long time, and I think its shared by most ACNA readers, he should leave The Living Church website for good. Its still a TEC supportive website and there are better places to publish your articles.
Comment by Jeffrey Walton on November 4, 2024 at 10:13 am
Hello Thomas, Thanks for your note. Yes, Kim Beard is an evangelical clergyman at The Anglican Church of St. Paul, L’Amoreaux, which is among the more sound parishes in the Diocese of Toronto. Kim has been a recurring participant in the roundtable and has visited different mission deaneries in Southeast Asia (we first met in 2017) so I determined that he’d be an informed mission partner to quote for the piece alongside the deans themselves.
In regards to The Living Church, I had a bit of a chuckle when I read your line about publishing at TLC. The editorial staff there has been similarly critiqued from the revisionist side of TEC for covering ACNA at all. The editorial staff at TLC sometimes come to different conclusions than IRD, but I’m grateful for the independent journalism they provide in a space that would otherwise be dominated by the Episcopal News Service and the Anglican Communion News Service, which are official mouthpieces. Here at IRD we welcome an assortment of outlets to share our work — TLC, The Roys Report, Christian Post, WORLD, Mere Orthodoxy, the Gospel Coalition, etc. If I can produce good work and get it out to a broader number of readers, I’ll take that opportunity, as will my colleagues.
Comment by Thomas on November 6, 2024 at 9:41 pm
Thanks for you answer, Mr. Walton. My concerns were realised judging that all the negative reception anytime that ACNA or GAFCON related news appear in The Living Church Facebook page. Its up to you but I still think we should avoid the company of heretics, or those who remain in communion with heretics.