It was a week of moving forward in North American Anglicanism with some 350 church planters meeting in Plano, Texas, vowing to plant hundreds of new churches. The Rev. Daniel Adkinson told VOL in an exclusive interview that the Anglican Church of North America has 673 congregations plus 293 ministry partner congregations in the works. "On the Anglican 1000 website, we have about 120 new works featured. These are new works of various sizes that have begun since 2009. We are also hearing about lots of works presently in the pipeline. So, we are steadily moving towards the goal. Most importantly, we are seeing that people are catching the vision for church planting in a way that will result in the multiplication of new leaders and new congregations being embedded in our DNA for the foreseeable future."
Asked, if when they reach 1,000 new churches, will there be a plan to plant 2,000 churches, Adkinson replied, "Well, we won't stop at 1000, that's for sure. We have strong leadership from the Anglican Mission, CANA, REC, and others in the ACNA. If everyone gets the vision for church planting...and clearly many, many have...I don't see why we can't keep planting."
To make the point that growth is in the air, the newly elected bishop from Northern Virginia, Julian Dobbs told VOL that the Anglican District of Virginia currently has 33 member congregations and 9 mission fellowships in Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC and North Carolina. "Churches are being planted, clergy are being raised up and many lay people in our parishes are excited and enthused about the mission to declare the gospel once for all entrusted to the saints."
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