Yes check out the stories and opportunity for dialogue on some of the developing issues at AFiM

Greece has been loaned hundreds of billions of dollars by others in the EU because they can’t get favorable terms for the loan elsewhere. If they took the high interest loans now they would default very quickly. The low interest loans buy time for Greece to reform its economy. But will it be enough? Proverbs 22:7, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender”. The bible reminds us that you loose control whenever you get into too much debt. This is true on a personal level as well as for nations. We should pay attention to Greece because the USA is the largest debtor nation in the world; at the moment our creditworthiness seems unlimited. But everything has a limit. People are rioting in the streets of Greece at the stringent measures which their government is forced into adopting. You can bet the Greek government does not like imposing strict financial reforms, but they have no choice. The borrower has to do what the lender says.

Meanwhile Iceland, which was a victim and a cause of much financial stress a couple of years ago, has suffered a major volcano eruption. We actually visited this part of Iceland last summer on our vacation. We spent 12 days touring Iceland and saw the remains of the destruction from the previous eruption. What is different this time is the constant outpouring of ash high into the atmosphere. This ash has disrupted air flights over Europe for months. Natural disasters happen, but because we are so dependent on our high tech lifestyle and the world is so densely populated, natural disasters today have a much larger impact. Proverbs 3:25 “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared.” This does not mean that Christians will be protected from famines, drought, plague or war. But the Lord will be with them in the middle of all of those problems. Think of Job who had multiple disasters come after him at once, yet the Lord was with him to the end.

We have all seen the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and know that this gigantic leak will take a herculean effort to fix. Great damage will be done to our environment and some places may never recover. I am not going to argue for or against oil exploration in this letter. I am not trying to enter the political fray but only wish to point out that we humans are not as clever and competent as we think. Complex systems will always fail at some point. I believe one of the most dangerous temptations we will face as a race in the future will be to harness the ability to change the human genome. We will reach a point soon where we are smart enough to alter our own DNA and redesign the very essence of what it means to be a human being. But we will not have the wisdom to make the right choices. Proverbs 16:3 “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. The LORD works out everything for his own ends even the wicked for a day of disaster.” A Christian should have a healthy respect for the environment and human nature as God created us to be. We must learn to function within the limits the Lord sets for us.

Problems from Greece, oil and ash may come and go but as Christians our hope is in the name of the Lord who promises to take his followers through the disaster. Meanwhile it provides wonderful opportunities for witnessing to a broken world who may be more open to listen to the voice of the Lord in the midst of a personal disaster. Ten years ago Ireland was a nation fairly closed to the gospel. They were enjoying the novel prosperity of an economic boom and turning away for the first time from Roman Catholicism. But now the economy is shattered and the intuitional Church discredited, but many of the people are hungering for a lively faith in Christ. One which makes sense of fallen human nature and the complex world in which we live. New church plants are popping up across the country and many are coming to faith.

Proverbs 16: “To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue. All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD. Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”

He will speak at AFiM on Sunday May 16th at our 4pm service.

We hope to find ways to partner with this ministry and learn more about life in our City. Visitors are welcome!

See the prison ministry website

Chaplain Perez has been in ministry… since 1985 and has served in many ministry capacities:

Director of Christian Education, Director of Outreach & Missions, Principal of New Life Christian Academy, Associate Pastor, Sunday School Teacher, Men’s Group Leader, Nursing Home ministry leader, Bible Study Teacher, Cell-group leader, and many other functions in the local church. In November of 1995, through a string of circumstances natural and supernatural, Chaplain Perez began his service as a full-time Chaplain for the Essex County Sheriff’s Department in Essex County, Massachusetts.

Chaplain Perez served in this role until January 5, 2006 when he took a position with Good News Jail & Prison Ministry to serve here in Northern Virginia. During his tenure as Chaplain in Essex County he established a mentoring program for at-risk offenders, established an after-care network called New Brothers Fellowship, started a transitional house for newly released Christian offenders, served on the Essex County Anti-Crime Council and served on the Governor’s Advisory Council for Institutional Chaplaincy.

Chaplain Perez is married to his lovely wife Gail and is the proud father of seven children and the grandfather of three. His daughter, Anna, lives in Rhode Island and his daughter, Leah and her husband live in Massachusetts. His eldest son, Joshua, lives with his wife in Northern Virginia. Chaplain Perez and his wife currently live with four of their children and his mother-in-law in Jeffersonton, VA.

If both can be right, what does it mean to be healthy? And following the same analogy, what does it mean for a church to be healthy? What signs indicate a congregation is both free of disease and spiritually fit?

Leadership set out to answer those questions. We did not find just one answer, but we did find the many responses revealing. So here, with contradictions and redundancies intact, are various ways to identify and maintain a healthy church.

Eight Qualities of Healthy Churches

Christian A. Schwarz, head of the Institute for Church Development in Germany, conducted reportedly the most comprehensive church-growth study ever, drawn from more than 1,000 churches in 32 countries. His study revealed eight qualities in healthy churches.

link to Christianity today article

In an encouraging word to the Anglican 1000 conference now taking place in Texas, renown missioner Ed Stetzer encourages Ancient-Future Anglicans to be about the business of mission through planting the right kind of Church.

This is the kind of fellowship we need to plant in Manassas. Are you interested in joining us to help make it happen?

read more of what ED said to the Anglican 1000 conference.

North America could see a thousand new Anglican churches planted on its soil if 300 church planters and leaders have anything to do with it. If they succeed, they will be the leading church planting denomination in America today, the brainchild of Anglican Archbishop Robert Duncan.

Fr. David Roseberry, rector of Christ Church, Plano and host of the church planting conference, told the church planters that the Anglican Communion is at a crossroads and this gathering could break the logjam in North America Anglicanism.

Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) Archbishop Robert Duncan noted that when he first spoke at Plano last year there were 73 congregations. “Now there are more than 800 churches or 200 a week since June. If there is fruitfulness it is because what our Father (in heaven) is doing and his work in us and his Son. We are sent by his Son and the world desperately needs to hear what his Son says. We are transformed by his Son and that is our call.”

Duncan said the conference is an opportunity “to get our [ACNA's] vision together in a way that movements like this can change the world. It is our understanding of the vision that there is no need for control like the age of Wesley. If we are accountable to the Word, tradition and the Holy Spirit and if we are accountable for the transformation of society we will have 1000 churches in five years.”

The Rev. Dr. Ed Stetzer, church planting president of Lifeway Research, missiologist and seminary professor, told listeners that church planting is like having a baby…bloody, messy painful, but great when it is all done.

Using II Tim 4:5 as his text for church planting, Stetzer said church planting is not easy, that he has planted five with one failure in Buffalo, NY. Churches must produce a sustaining movement if they are to survive and grow.

Recognizing that most of the conferees have come out of The Episcopal Church, Stetzer said, “What is going on in your windshield or filling your windshield with the troubles you came through must now be in your rear view mirror. You need a clear windshield.”

Is church panting doable? Stetzer said for a church to multiply and grow from 800 to 1200, 50% must be converts for the next generation. He predicted ACNA would become a multiplication movement in North America.

Citing history, Stetzer said that in the 15 years between 1795-1810, the Methodists and the Baptists planted 3,000 churches on the western frontier in the US. “Church planting is not simply an idea, but a passion. It must permeate your national consciousness.”

Stetzer offered these ideas:

* What you celebrate is what you become.
* When you harvest, think of what the Global South has achieved. Do the work of an evangelist. They are doing missionary work in new evangelistic ways.
* The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
* Make sure the 1000 are church plants. Most new plants are lifeboats, not church plants.
* You cannot build a church planting movement on life boat Episcopalians.
* You must plant 1000 churches in evangelistic ways.
* 50% growth and 50% must be new generation.
* Do the work of an evangelist. Church planting is not the goal; church planting is the tool. The goal is the glory of God and the redemption of people.
* We are told to make disciples and churches are formed. The command is to do the work of an evangelist.
* The way the church is formed now will determine the way the church is formed for the future.
* On church planting. Evangelism is a bloody cross and an empty tomb. Christians are turned off to evangelism because it is done in unhelpful ways. Must not become a life boat movement but a missionary movement.
* Challenge of universalism. – Jesus is the only way to heaven. If you don’t believe in the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, then you are little more than a Rotary or Optimist Club. The answer is Jesus is THE way, THE truth. We must call people to repent and believe in the gospel.
* This universalism is not just a denominational hierarchical problem; it is an issue with people in the pews.
* We are not a recruiting movement but a reconciliation movement. We must reach the lost.
* We must not recruit people to a cause we must recruit people to Christ.
* If you always talk about the church without an evangelistic plan and an evangelical passion, it is a recipe for disaster.
* Share and show the Good News about Jesus Christ.
* Plant change agent churches
* Sharing and showing the Good News of Jesus Christ is about advancing the work of the Kingdom of God.
* Be holistic, but tell them what they must do to be saved. Tell the good news at any cost.
* Show the gospel by your actions and by your words. Both are needed.
* Invitations. Inviting people to church is not evangelism.
* Planting churches in the 80s and 90s is not the way to plant churches in 2010. You need more than invitations.
* Labor is the work of evangelism. Ask the question what occupies your time. My Anglican friends find this very hard for them. The biggest struggle of church is how to spend 12 -15 hours a week not just filling in the hours.
* Try coffee shop evangelism. It is where you will meet strangers. Make conversation with strangers. It is not easy. Find their felt needs. Begin there. It is not easy.
* Ultimately you must get to the point where the cross has to be preached; the cross is the stumbling block you cannot avoid it.
* You cannot lead what you do not live.
* You don’t have to be seeker or be cutting edge, but you do have to tell people about Jesus.
* The answer is to proclaim the gospel and not to compromise on the message.
* There is no such thing as the gift of evangelism in the Bible. We have convinced Christians only certain people have the gift and should be responsible to do evangelism. Not true. Evangelism is the duty and calling of every Christian.
* The reality is we are called to be missionaries, or as Spurgeon said, you are either a missionary or an imposter.
* Message of reconciliation to the US is to do the work of an evangelist. Inviting people and bringing a friend is missional. The wheat is still not harvesting itself.
* Be known as a place where Jesus is known and other people know him. Preach a clear unchanging gospel so His name is more widely known.
* Keep a clear head, endure the hardship and do the work of an evangelist and fulfill your ministry.
* I believe you can do it sociologically because you believe what you believe.
* Focus on the harvest field and the workers.
* Be more like the Global South. Let them be a theological and ecclesiastical covering. Have a missiological focus. Be like the Global South, a robust mission driven movement proclaiming the gospel in faithful ways.
* Be a robust confessional movement of Anglicans at a substantially higher level of enthusiasm. Recognize the passionate nature of the gospel.
* You don’t have to reinvent anything to be more like the Global South. Be passionately evangelistic. See church planting as a tool for gospel expansion.
* Take a lay catechist approach. Lay pastors might have to be bi-vocational. Learn to love the word bi-vocational. It is not a bad thing but a good thing.
* Baptists have a Low Church polity. You need to learn from the Baptists. They give someone permission on the local level to go out and evangelize.
* Methodists had circuit riders in church polity and so practice their polity.
* Anglicans need to have circuit riders following as the Methodists did.
* You really have to create a system based on historical practices and biblical theology.
* You need a robust credentialing.
* Your missionary methods should be St. Paul’s, not your own.
* Your polity should be a servant to your theology and mission.
* The Vineyard movement gave people permission to church plant.
* Fight for converts not over prayers books or jurisdictions.
* You are the third way.
* You must have confessional consensus and missional passion.
* Structures will form out of mission.
* Move from a parish mentality to a people group mentality.
* The parish system which we inherited from our predecessors was built on sameness and geography. It is not applicable here. We have ethnic diversity in the world. There are more people groups represented than ever before. The parish model was set up when we all looked alike. That is gone.
* One of the rules is that you can’t be near any of the 800 churches you now have. Go plant elsewhere.
* Pockets of church planting can begin and then expand.
* Remember there are plenty of lost people to go around, so share with others.
* Convert people to Christ and not to a cause.
* This room is still very white. Move from parish to people groups.
* You must not plant Anglo churches. The majority of church plants are non Anglos.
* 57% of Southern Baptist new churches are non Anglos.
* They are seeing remarkable revival. They have moved from parish to people group evangelism.
* Every church could start a language church and meet at different times of the day.
* Focus on confessional consensus and missional cooperation. You have to have common beliefs. You have REC, Anglo-Catholic, charismatic and evangelical.
* Allow for diversity of practice while standing on biblical doctrine. You can do both. If you cannot do both stop fellowshipping with the global south.
* Have a space for the entrepreneurs.
* Don’t lose your John Wesley’s. You can have space for those with a common theological understanding.
* There is a move to de-emphasize distinctives. You Anglicans are a fascinating movement because you are evangelical, catholic and charismatic. People need something unique and distinct. Evangelicalism is adrift in many ways. Don’t go there.
* Where you find orthodoxy in denominational structures, work with it.
* If you are going to be a movement to change the world, there are things you should do and not do. Do not be part of the evangelical mainstream. Join as friends but be faithful to what the churches teach.
* Be willing to get dirty. Know who you are. Do not abandon theological principle.
* Remember liberals don’t plant churches.
* Why not support a dying church instead of staring a new church? Answer. It is easy to birth the baby than raise the dead.
* Church planting movements sometimes create new life forms. (Laughter). You need to get comfortable with failure. I planted 5 churches; one of them didn’t make it. Fail boldly. Be willing to get dirty. Do not exist as an alternative to someone else.

Stetzer concluded by saying that orthodox Anglicans in North America have an unprecedented, kairos moment to reach people who need the unchanging biblical message of transformation through Jesus Christ presented in a way that connects them back to that great tradition of word, sacrament, and spiritual disciplines: deep calling unto deep, Christ changing us from the inside out, and that transformation spilling over into our (Anglican) networks, neighborhoods and communities.

CANA canon missioner, Julian Dobbs said, “If you are not passionate about Jesus you ought not to be in the church planting business. We want churches that reach the lost for Christ that is what this new Anglicanism is all about.”