ACNS 4827 The 2011 Standing Committee Daily Bulletin - Day 1

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Posted On : March 26, 2011 7:00 PM | Posted By : Admin ACO

ACNS:

<http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2011/3/26/ACNS4827>http://w 
ww.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2011/3/26/ACNS4827

> Related Categories: ACC ACC - SC  ACO

> (For more information about the Standing
> Committee click
> <http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/scac/index.cfm>here
> and about the members click
> <http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/scac/scac_members.cfm>here)
> In brief:

·         Members from five continents attend
this year's Standing Committee meeting
·         Persecution continues against Anglicans, bishops in Zimbabwe
·         Communion speaking out against
gender-based violence "displays our common life"
·         "All Communion members deserve to be
heard and to hear from fellow Anglicans"
·         Continuing Indaba resources "guided by local culture"

Chair of the Standing Committee Bishop James
Tengatenga opened the meeting by welcoming
everyone and by inviting all members to introduce
themselves. Those present on the first day were as follows:

·         Bishop of Southern Malawi Bp James Tengatenga (Chair)
·         Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church
Bp David Chillingworth (Primates? Standing Committee member)
·         The Primate of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui
Abp Paul Kwong (Primates? Standing Committee member)
·         The Chancellor of The Church of the
Province of West Africa Mrs Philippa Amable (ACC appointment)
·         Bishop of Connecticut, USA, Bishop Ian Douglas (ACC appointment)
·         Dr Anthony Fitchett of the The Anglican
Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia
·         The Revd Maria Cristina Borges Alvarez
from the Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba (ACC appointment)

·         The Revd Canon Janet Trisk, Rector of
the Parish of St David, Prestbury in
Pietermaritzburg, in the Diocese of Natal (ACC appointment)

·         Bishop Paul Sarker, moderator of the
Church of Bangladesh and Bishop of Dhaka
(Primates? Standing Committee Alternate member)

·         Primate of The Church of the Province
of the West Indies, Archbishop John Holder
(Primates? Standing Committee Alternate member)

Canon Elizabeth Paver (Vice Chair) was unable to
attend today?s meeting as she had to chair a
meeting of her diocesan synod. Dato? Stanley
Isaacs sent his apologies and explained he was
unable to attend this year?s meeting. The
Archbishop of Canterbury, the President of the
Anglican Consultative Council and himself an
Instrument of Communion, traditionally attends
the last two days of the meeting.

Bp James explained it was always a challenge to
ensure all areas of the Communion are represented
on the committee, so he was particularly pleased
that The Revd Maria Cristina Borges Alvarez from
Cuba had accepted the invitation to become a committee member.

Kenneth Kearon explained that because the

elections to the Primates? Standing Committee had
happened so recently, several Primates already
had commitments over the dates of this Standing
Committee. Therefore the following Primates had
given their apologies on this occasion:

> ·         Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi
> ·         Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul Yak
> ·         Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
> ·         Bishop Samuel Azariah

Alternates for the Primates' Standing Committee
appointees were Bp Paul Sarker and Archbishop John Holder.
The Committee then noted that Bp Kumara
Illangasinghe of The Church of Ceylon has retired
from active ministry and therefore has vacated
his place on the committee. A decision on next
steps was deferred until later in the meeting.

> Secretary General?s report

In his report Secretary General of the Anglican
Communion Canon Kenneth Kearon said the biggest
event of the last year had been the Primates?
Meeting in Dublin. His Communion visits this year
were to The Church of Ceylon in Sri Lanka and
also the Diocese of Harare where he participated
in a church service held outside because
Anglicans in Zimbabwe have been barred from their
churches by the police. He and Bp Tengatenga both
expressed their concern at the situation facing
Anglicans in Zimbabwe and the real personal danger faced by bishops there.

Canon Kearon also informed the meeting that Mrs
Sally Keeble had been appointed as the Director
of the Anglican Communion?s Anglican Alliance for
Development, Relief and Advocacy.

> Primates? Meeting report

Reporting back to the meeting on the January
Primates? Meeting Abp John Holder began by saying
a key moment had been the presentations on
gender-based violence. Bp Ian Douglas said he
thought the Primates? statement on this issue and
the fact that the issue had also been addressed
at the Lambeth Conference was a good example of
the ways the Communion worked together on important issues.

?Ecclesiologically this is very important and we
shouldn?t lose sight both of the urgency of this
topic and what it means for us as church,? he
said. ?For those critics who want to say the
Communion just goes from meeting to meeting, this
is a great manifestation of our common life.?

Abp John Holder then referred to the working
document
<http://www.aco.org/communion/primates/resources/downloads/prim_scpurpose.p 
df>Towards
an Understanding of the Purpose and Scope of the
Primates' Meeting, one of several documents
issued by the Primates following their meeting in
Dublin. ?The document captures the spirit of the
meeting,? he said. ?You read it and realise
there?s a sense of openness, that it?s not
exclusive. You get the point of how Primates see
themselves and their ministry. The picture is not
of lines drawn and barriers, instead it?s
open?This is a document that can take us forward.?

Bishop David Chillingworth said of the Primates?
Meeting, ?It seemed to me that the gathering of
Primates worked out that as a group we needed to
reflect and express the polity and the attitudes
to the use of authority that each of us exercises
in our own Province. That?s a significant change.
It became clear the differences [between
Primates] were not primarily differences of views
on certain issues but rather differences of views
about the exercise of authority.?

> Director for Communication's report

In his presentation, Jan Butter the Anglican
Communion?s Director for Communications shared a
vision of a future in which members of the whole
Communion were equally able to communicate their
stories of their life and ministry regardless of
their location or language. Effective sharing of
such news and information from all Anglican
Communion Churches would, he said, ultimately
create stronger bonds of friendship,
understanding and co-operation between Communion
members at all levels. This would in turn promote
greater pride in being twin citizens of their own
Church and of the Anglican Communion.

Mr Butter said telecommunications experts

believed that getting Africa online ?is happening
faster than anyone could have imagined?. He
stressed that the Communion needed to be prepared
and be willing to work out how best to capitalise
on this rapidly growing online global network.
"Effective communication is a vital tool in
enabling all Anglicans to carry out their part in
God?s mission. Communicating the Gospel is our
baptismal mandate,? he told the meeting, ?and as
individual Churches and as a global community we
need to have communication as part of the Communion's DNA.?

He also laid out some future plans for

strengthening and building on global Communion
communications. These included constructing a new
and improved Anglican Communion website,
employing additional staff for the Anglican
Communion News Service, and launching an Anglican
Communion quarterly magazine translated into several languages.

> Continuing Indaba

Presenting on the progress of Continuing Indaba,
Canon Phil Groves and Miss Angharad Parry Jones
shared with the committee just how many resources
had been produced over the past year. These were
produced by theologians from across the Communion
involved in the ?resource hubs? that are part of
the Continuing Indaba project. The resources have
been very well received by members of the
Communion at all levels. ?The resources were
grounded in the Anglican tradition but guided by
the culture of the place in which they were produced,? said Canon Groves.

Bishop Chillingworth said he thought that

'indaba' was ?becoming the way the Communion
talks to itself.? He explained that in his own
Province members had considered the indaba model
to assist with their discussions about the Anglican Covenant.
Canon Groves and Miss Jones also gave an update
on the dialogues that have been taking place in
the following Provinces: North India, the USA,
England, Tanzania, Southern Africa, Kenya, West
Africa, West Indies, Hong Kong and Canada. They
went on to say that the next phase of the project
was to product a toolkit that would better equip
any segment of the Communion wanting to have a
discussion across difference to do so.

> Strategic review

Bishop Ian Douglas presented a discussion paper
on the proposal that there should be a strategic
planning exercise for the functioning of the
Standing Committee in serving the ACC. ACC
consultant Robert Fordham reminded committee
members that this proposal, brought to the last
Standing Committee meeting, was made by the
Finance Committee in the light of the auditors?
recommendation that any charitable organisation
should conduct occasional strategic reviews of
the organisation?s operation and function. There
had been, he said, no request from the auditors
that the Standing Committee should undertake such
a review. After some discussion it was decided
not to proceed with a review at this time.