Creating Evangelism Today

An address to Original Province of the Anglican Catholic Church, XXVth Provincial Synod
October 11, 2023, Orlando, Florida

Evangelism in the Anglican Catholic Church

We don’t have a formal department of evangelism that meets and has these regular meetings— but a little history is in order and a little of where we are now. We once had actually evangelism congresses and some of you may remember those. We actually met biannually for about four or five years on the off years of our synod. We had those congresses — I think one was in Cleveland, [another] was in New Orleans.

They’re notable, for we had a good time there, but I don’t think they really accomplished a lot evangelism-wise. And we learned a few things, I think, from those early efforts.

I’ve learned a lot in about 40 years of efforts. But first of all, a lot of the evangelism stuff was falsely oriented around the idea [of] “here’s what everyone should do” and then we’re going to try to convince everyone to come and do that. And then it also tended to have people when you had a congress like that, where a church would send maybe a rector and one person, and they go get all really excited, and then they go back to the parish and nobody had any interest in doing any of the things that they got excited about for the week.

So what we’ve learned, I think, over the years is that no program will work everywhere. The same thing won’t work exactly the same in every place and nothing will work anywhere without missionaries. And that consists of two things

• you have to have a person — a clergy — who has a heart for mission, who wants to reach people who aren’t there; and

• then a missionary remnant of people who also want to create a community that’s open to people coming in.

Frankly, it’s a shift in psychology in our church: from the beginning we were holding on to this thing we had bringing in those who agreed with us and kind of keeping out the heretics and the other things and those who didn’t do liturgy just the right way.

Creating Evangelism Today

Now that we’re realizing we have entered into a new world and we have to approach it in a new way — understanding that no one knows what we’re doing outside of us, so you can advertise it, but they’re not coming. And how do we create evangelism in that world?

The missionary orientation we realize now consists of a couple of things. Inwardly, it consists of a community committed to its life of prayer [for] its own formation, its own prayer and its own growth in the fruits of the spirit in its own midst. Unless you have a life of prayer — unless that life or prayer in your mission or church is leading you to love each other better — you have nothing to offer anybody who’s coming.

And then secondarily with that is a genuine love of souls. That is, we really would like to minister to people who aren’t us and — as natural as that sounds—that heart for those who are not us is not present everywhere. A lot of times it happens, not just in our churches. People come and say, “Where do you go to church?” And then when they tell us, some of our churches will find all the things that are wrong that might make them not really fit there.

Evangelism now has to start with, “Who are you?” “What’s your story?” “Let’s get together and talk.” “Come to this space of hospitality that will be open to you.”

So [it requires] the interior life for prayer — cultivating a real spiritual life in the community that’s producing the fruits of the spirit — that is, people are growing in the virtues and evident in the love in the community.

And then there’s a real desire to reach those who aren’t there. When someone comes [that] you don’t know, you wonder, “Who are you?” “Hey, what’s going on with you?” Not “what are you doing here?”

Localizing Approaches to Evangelism

The other thing about it, we don’t think there’s really a [single] program that can work. So where those things are present — where there’s a missionary and a remnant —the various efforts afoot that we see in some of the meeting last night [October 10], the Continuing Forward [event and] I know Bishop Hewitt’s going to talk [at Continuing Forward] tonight.

There’s a lot of efforts afoot, which are good conversations that have a lot of different dimensions to it and different churches might gravitate towards one kind of approach versus another kind of approach. And I think [that for] evangelism now, the best way it can be supported is in very localized ways, that is to say, what do you have where you are, and how can we support what you have going on there?

The thing that I’ve been pushing or practicing now for the last ten years in the context where I am is the Remnant approach, which seeks to orient the renewal of the church around the spiritual formation of a Remnant. That [Remnant] is the people most committed to the life for prayer, most committed to being present together in community.

And as that gets cultivated within [a community], it creates a kind of attractiveness. And then we think, how do we reach out into hospitality spaces? And that’s the kind of thing we’re offering specific help and support for. But you won’t see an advertisement for it. But talk to me if you’re interested in doing that.

Then next year at this time, we will be having a retreat for those who are committed and interested in this. Not we’re not going to try to sell you on anything. If you don’t want to really reorient, that’s okay. But we’re going to have a retreat again next year at this time in Lake Dallas, Texas, like we had last year: if you’re interested about being part of that, talk to me. Last year we had Bishop Chad [Jones] there. We had Bishop [Paul] Hewett there. We had some really great presentations.

What made it special was it was oriented around people who were talking about what they were doing in Mission. There wasn’t any complaining about how bad the world is or who we’re angry at. And evangelism must reorient around that, the cultivation of our own life and our genuine heart for those around us. And just as a closing note, it’s okay if you don’t know how to do that.

Prayer and Fasting for Mission

[As you will see] Tonight at Evening Prayer, a foundational thing we’ve done [is] to focus on mission.

And for that I thank Bishop Wilson [Garang], who about 11 or 12 years ago visited our church and mission, and he preached to us that if you want your churches to grow, you have to fast and you have to pray. Now, in South Sudan, when they fast and pray, they gather for three days and sing and pray and don’t eat anything at all.

[We] probably can’t pull that off where we are. But what we did do is we establish [that] Every Wednesday is a day of fasting and Prayer for Mission. We developed our Litany for Mission, which we’ll pray tonight at Evening Prayer. And that’s the beginning thing you can do.

You don’t have to know what to do. I think we often make the mistake of starting with a program. We had to start in the Upper Room. Like the first apostles, they didn’t know what to do either. They waited and prayed for nine days, and the Holy Spirit led them to do something.

So if we start that energy of setting a day aside in our parishes and missions to fast and pray for mission, what does that mean? During that day, on Wednesday, in some way, fast in some way, eat less than you normally do. If you’re young and strong, fast all day, turn off your Internet, detach from something. And then during the day, pray the Litany for Mission with the intention for God’s work in your context.

And we’re very grateful for Bishop Wilson. We’ve been doing that now for ten years, and we think it’s a huge foundation for what’s happened with us and now how some of these things are coming on. Because let’s face it, we don’t know what to do. So start by admitting it and fasting and praying for some insight in a way forward.

So that’s my report: [if there are] any further questions or want to talk about more stuff, we’ll be hanging out later on tonight. Come and join us and we’ll chat more. Thank you.