Blogging the Global Center

Padre Mickey, well known to readers of Father Jake and Thinking Anglicans, has opened up a new blog. Padre Mickey pastors to the faithful and seekers in Panama City, Panama. It's an area of the world quite receptive to The Episcopal Church, where Latin American bishops and other clergy call for a Global Center that is rooted in the traditional middle way of Anglican inclusion and tolerance. Once the American Anglican Convocation is formalized with structures and meeetings, we'll no doubt hear the growing Spanish voices of our Church more clearly and loudly.

The American Convocation shows great promise in presenting new opportunities for mission, fellowship and communication for all orders of ministry. It would also afford more opportunities for clergy to interact in the periods between the decennial Lambeth Conferences of bishops. What might each church bring to the table and add to the experiences and missions of the others?

The Anglican Church of Canada, for one, may help us to better appreciate our traditions and history in the Church of England. The Church of Canada may be the most Anglophile national church in the Americas. It has an historically close relationship and affection to The Church of England. Many of its parishes still point with pride to their "Loyalist" founders and uphold "Loyalist" values as a hallmark of their worship. For the American whose Episcopal Church was founded in the War of Independence, this may be a somewhat curious fact. And perhaps too, for a growing number of Canadians, who in the past 50 years, have become less Anglo-centric and much more multiracial and multicultural as Canada has happily welcomed millions of immigrants. Perhaps their closer ties to us, would help them better minister to a nation that is less "Loyalist" than ever.

The churches of Central and South America and the West Indies, may highlight what for many Episcopal parishes, is a fairly new phenomenon--intentional faith communities of Episcopalians for whom English is the second language. Forging closer bonds and providing opportunities for one on one interactions would certainly go far for many who have only a limited or abstract appreciation of these faith communities.