A global Anglican picture
5 October 2020
Last week, Oak Hill students were delighted to hear from two trustees of GAFCON UK, Jane Krammer and Martin Mills.
GAFCON UK is the local expression of GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference), which aims to be about:
● Proclaiming Christ faithfully to our nations.
● Gathering faithful Anglicans together.
● Offering hope to all faithful Anglicans.
GAFCON gathers around the Jerusalem Declaration, and seeks to unite Anglicans from across churchmanships - be it charismatic, Anglo-Catholic, evangelical - in serving the Anglican Communion as it seeks to share Jesus Christ.
And so, it was with great pleasure that the students were able to hear stories from Jane and Martin as to the importance of the diversity of the global Anglican Communion, and, therefore, the bigger Anglican patchwork of which we are a part as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Jane particularly emphasised this delight in unity in diversity as she shared her experiences of meeting with Christians from Uganda and rejoicing in their unity in the Lord. Inspired by Bonhoeffer’s experience with his courage to stand up for biblical truth, Jane shared how she has felt called to graciously ‘contend for the truth’ in our own British culture.
Martin shared how getting involved in GAFCON over recent years has helped his Christian discipleship “take off” to a whole new level, as he engages with the global Church. Taking the opportunity to encourage our students, as future Anglican ministers of different sorts, they both reminded them of the privilege of each being personally and graciously called by name by the Lord - first to faith, and then onto humble service of Him.
In some ways they said, the challenge has never been greater to unite upon common Scriptural ground amidst eddying, somewhat stagnant, spiritual waters. Hearing Jane’s and Martin’s call to persevere through the challenges by centring themselves upon Christ’s commitment to His people, left students with a greater zeal and joy in the task. Echoing church historian David Bebbington’s mark of evangelicals as ‘activists’, Martin reminded them at the end of the evening of the need, above all, to abide deeply in Jesus, and that sometimes “doing less is doing more.”
