The Conduct of Ministry Under the Highest Standards

By the Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson

Growing up in the Episcopal Church USA, I came to love the Anglican liturgy and the sense of decency and order that seemed to govern how things were done. About the time that I answered a call to ministry and ordination in the Episcopal Church, things began to change. New trial prayer books came out, then a new hymnal. Long-standing rules about the requirements for ordination were significantly modified, and moral standards began to move with the culture rather than stand as a guide apart from culture.

As I began my ministry, I wanted to reach the highest level of competence possible, and so I devoured books from the Alban Institute and from authors such as Arlin J. Rothauge, Roy M. Oswald, Speed B. Leas, and the truly prolific writer Lyle E. Schaller. Many of these books are still relevant, since they touch on basics of church operation and human nature, redeemed and otherwise.

I served in the Episcopal Church for 62 years until the theological trajectory of my old denomination was going where I could not and did not wish to go, so I moved my Presbyteral letter to the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion. This body decided in 2007 to include me in a small group of men who were to be consecrated as Anglican bishops for duty in North America, and today my affiliation as a bishop is with the House of Bishops of Nigeria and the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA)...Read more.