COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue in Plano
www.virtueonline.org
February 25, 2010
The raw energy of a new movement was visible this week in Plano, Texas, when 325 church planters trimmed their evangelical sails and caught the winds of change, promising to plant 1000 new Anglican churches over the next five years in North America.
Gone is the anger. Gone are the feelings of betrayal. Gone, too, are millions of dollars of pensions and properties. Also gone is the compromise with sexual sin, bad theology and a Saul Alinsky mindset of Episcopal priests, many of whom have become little more than social workers with a veneer of religion wrapped in fine robes and a whiff of incense.
Here in Plano it was a kairos moment, not only for these dynamic, committed church planters, but also for Archbishop Robert Duncan who could hardly contain his excitement. His vindication was at hand. He stood regal in the pulpit. His trademark bushy eyebrows could not conceal his obvious joy that the Anglican Church of North America, his brainchild, had finally been birthed and, with the pain of labor gone, a beautiful, faithful child is in the world for all to see.
Among the planters were some 40 Canadians indicating that ecclesiastical boundaries, so precious to revisionist Episcopalians and liberal Anglicans, had, like the Berlin Wall, been torn down, never more to rise.
A new day has dawned. Like a Phoenix rising, these church planters, many in their 30s, have sworn to uphold the historic gospel contextualized to the place, with no compromise to the message. Large 80s Boomer-led church buildings are slowly becoming irrelevant, a thing of the past. They are like Dinosaurs that will one day be ancient ruins for tourists and shrieking monkeys.
The new places may well be rented, perhaps even as Starbuck style coffee houses. The Devil might wear Prada, but X and Y generations are in jeans and T-shirts. The word is casual, but the Word of the Lord is not. The converted Hard Rock Café in Dallas, for example, was once a Greek Orthodox Church. The next generation will hear the Word of the Lord over double shot Latte's and cucumber sandwiches.
A perfect example of this was the sight of the once dapper, bow tie, Southern yuppie, Rev. Ellis Brust, now a laid back, barely recognizable Californian in jeans and open flapping shirt, with modestly spiked hair. He is a church planter, commanding respect from Muslim women and younger generation kids known more for pot smoking than Bible reading. His wife Cynthia now dresses in chic jeans and cowboy boots. No one will really be surprised if they have a cross cultural, multi-lingual, diverse, gospel preaching church of a 100 within a year.
The transformation of the old order has begun. In truth, the old order has been discarded. The broken cisterns of The Episcopal Church can neither contain truth nor proclaim it. It has run out of salvific steam through paroxysms of emotional and theological incontinence. I feel therefore I am, might be TEC's motto, but not to these young church planters.
Archbishop Duncan put it about as succinctly as anyone could, "We have an identity", he roared. "The charisms of Catholic, Evangelical and Pentecostal have been brought together in one church to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ." Preach it brother. And he did.
The Episcopal Church is a spiritual septic tank, lethal to one's soul, but there is hope for 130 million unchurched Americans when these young church planters are let loose on them. The thrill of proclaiming Christ and him crucified by these evangelical Anglicans is manifest for all to see.
Testimony after testimony gave witness to what God has already started and what He will one day complete. What listeners heard was this; most congregations can be multi site gospel operations. One speaker after another gave permission for rectors to step out and experiment with new styles of worship, meeting at odd hours and "do church" where people can find God and find authentic committed community.
Instead of being in a structure that is hostile or restrictive to the gospel, they heard the call that the canons and structures must serve the mission of the gospel and not the other way round. They learned that churches can easily be shaped to serve the gospel with creative second track leadership development.
The first track is described as classical clergy development, a second track sees serious lay leadership with lay evangelists and lay catechists put in charge with second and third site missionary efforts of established congregations working under the oversight of a pastor. Listeners heard stories of the kinds of Anglican experiments running in multiple cities with great success.
At the heart of all the talks and speeches was the passion for the life-changing Good News of gospel. On that point, there was no compromise. The message was clear and unalloyed. Men and women are spiritually lost and in need of a redeeming Savior, all else is secondary to that. Good works flows from gospel proclamation.
The result: across North America larger Anglican churches are birthing new smaller churches with names like Restoration Anglican Church and Vintage Church. Some parishes have congregants of mostly 20 to 30-year olds, reaching out to the vulnerable and lost, making church a community with small groups where people feel safe. Most are unchurched people mostly from non-Anglican traditions where people can bring non-Christian friends and where people can reach their non-Christian friends.
Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church does business the same old way and wonders why it is dying. As writer Walter Russell Mead put it so succinctly Episcopal bishops have put too much weight on making vapid and useless political statements that contribute to the inexorable decline of the churches entrusted to their charge. "Neither Stalin nor Hitler nor Reinhold Niebuhr could convince us of the power of original sin; neither Hiroshima nor the Holocaust shook our faith in the ability of good government programs to remake mankind," he wrote.
These young church planters believe in sin and they are out to offer the Good News of God's grace to pardon and forgive. Mrs. Katharine Jefferts Schori has charged in on the white horse of Millennium Development Goals to save humanity, telling us that this is God's recipe for deliverance from all human ailments while ignoring the deep spiritual hungers of a generation that knows not the Lord.
TEC has mistaken MDGs for the transcendent Kingdom of God and it is committing the sin of idolatry. TEC is worshipping the work of its hands. TEC along with other mainline churches have replaced faith in the scripturally based and historically rooted doctrines and values of the Christian heritage with faith in progressive social thought.
Instead of proclaiming a gospel of salvation that still brings lost sinners streaming through the doors, TEC preaches a gospel of inclusion where nobody changes and all remains the same. Churches just keep on emptying out.
TEC issues statements urging the federal government to fulfill its contributions to the Millennium Development Goals and to raise the minimum wage while these church planters are going forth to preach and plant churches. TEC has professional development workshops for diocesan employees that do nothing to make churches grow. So TEC is slowly withering and dying.
ACNA, on the other hand, which proclaims a clear gospel of salvation, is growing by offering an alternative Anglican vision for North Americans. The Episcopal Church cannot halt its disintegration and decline and regain the strength to play their role in the American religious system. It is over. Time has run out.
This ambitious outreach to plant one thousand new Anglican churches in North America might well be the biggest single ecclesiastical slap in the face to the leadership of The Episcopal Church and its leader Katharine Jefferts Schori.
In the words of Isaiah the prophet (61:4), "They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations."
END
No comments:
Post a Comment