Archbishop Nzimbi: Prayerful Process Will Shape Future Direction

From The Living Church:

Posted on: June 24, 2008

Participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) have begun responding to a series of questions that were distributed June 22, the start of the conference in Jerusalem.

There is no advance text of a final statement, or plans in place for future organization or action after the meeting concludes. No final statement or course of action will be issued until the 1,200 bishops, priests and laity have contributed their thoughts to a committee charged with reviewing the submissions.

“The final statement is going to emerge as the work of all the participants of GAFCON,” said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, Primate of the Anglican Church of Kenya and chair of the statement committee, in a news release. Archbishop Nzimbi said the committee is especially interested in hearing what people’s concerns and fears are about the conference. “We are looking for the weaknesses so that we can deal with them at the very beginning … unless we give people a chance to evaluate us … we have a problem,” he added.

A participant feedback form is one way that information will be collected to be used by the drafting committee. The committee also will be paying attention to what conference small groups discern in prayer and discussion during the week. This information will be passed on to the drafting committee each day through June 25.

Archbishop Nzimbi expects the statement committee will present the first draft of the statement before the conference’s plenary session on June 26. Leaders will continue to be open to prayer, discussion and discernment until a final version comes before the conference on Saturday or Sunday.

On Tuesday, Archbishop Justice Akrofi, Primate of the Anglican Church of West Africa, began a series of daily scripture meditations, speaking on God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12. Comparing conference pilgrims with Abraham, Archbishop Akrofi urged participants to trust God with the task of setting the future direction of the movement.

The GAFCON media service contributed to this report.