Young Anglicans in Brazil engage with local mission and global Communion issues
By Phil Ashey, AAC.
I am writing from Recife, Brazil at the launching of the new Anglican Church in Brazil and the installation of its first Archbishop, The Most Rev. Miguel Uchoa. At the invitation of Archbishop Uchoa, I presented a workshop on the Anglican Communion to more than 100 leaders from this new province. Let me share three encouraging observations from my time with these brothers and sisters in Christ.
- The Anglican Church in Brazil is FULL of young leaders. The majority of those in the audience were leaders between the ages of 20 and 40. The ones I spoke with were not yet married, but were fully engaged in ministries to young adults, young families, youth and mission to their communities. One young leader shared freely with me how the love of Jesus Christ has sustained him through an extraordinary time of sickness and suffering in his extended family. During the workshop, these leaders shared their commitment to Christ with loud “Amen’s” whenever we spoke about Biblical faithfulness as the key to fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission and making disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:16-20) This bodes well for the future of the Anglican Church in Brazil.
- The leaders were informed and engaged with the Global Anglican Communion. I sometimes hear in North America that younger leaders are not interested in what is happening in the rest of the Anglican Communion—that such news is irrelevant to church planting and the focus on mission to the local community. That was clearly NOT the case for these younger leaders in the Anglican Church in Brazil. They are educated, well informed and obviously follow the details of what is happening in the Global Anglican Communion.