From Bishop Julian Dobbs (CANA)

The Greatest Challenge for Anglican Christians?

Since the beginning of the new millennium, Anglican Christians in the United States and around the world have faced significant challenges in our mission and doctrine. We have proven that we will not tolerate ungodly leaders leading the people of God on the path to destruction; we have proven that we 'put to the test' those who called themselves apostles' and found those in New Hampshire, Los Angeles, and elsewhere are morally reprehensible, therefore, not apostolic; we have persevered even to the highest Court in the United States; we have, by God's grace and in the power of His Spirit, not grown weary.  

Now, as the 'first wave' wanes and the 'second wave' waxes as we begin to build a new work for Christ and His Kingdom; the solidarity wrought by mutually shared challenge and adversity must be replaced by deep and lasting koinonia. The enthusiasm--though sometimes fraught with a little anxiety--of being pioneers must merge with the excitement of planting new churches and evermore creative and expansive evangelism. Even though America may still be a nation "under God," more Americans than ever before are finding their religion outside of church. And for the first time in the history of Christianity in the North American continent, protestants have fallen below 50 percent of the population.

The newness of our experiment in orthodox Anglicanism must be ever refreshed by drinking-in deeply the Word of God and unfailingly following His commandments with as consistent a fervor in our future as we stood unshakably upon them in the face of apostasy. 

In brief, as the Angel warned us through the Ephesian church in the Revelation, we must not lose our first love: that burning love for Jesus Christ and His Truth that brought us to this place, in this time.  

The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) will, by the Grace of God, create additional dioceses and new structures in 2013. Creating necessary institutions and organizing our life as the family of God must not dull our missionary zeal. Everything we have accomplished thus far has been an act of love: love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; love of His Church; love of the Faith once delivered to the saints; love for one another.  

The challenge in the days to come is to undertake the particulars of building His Church without allowing day-to-day expediencies and exigencies to ever take the place of our First Love.