Rev. Ed McNeill (Rector of St. James Anglican Church in San Jose) gives us a very well written article on what Anglicanism is about:

In the summer of 2006 the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams very helpfully identified three things that when held together make Anglicanism distinct from other Christian denominations and contribute to the essential character of our church. Other denominations share one or two of these things. What makes Anglicanism unique is the balanced presence of all three. They are:

1. A reformed commitment to the absolute priority of the Bible for deciding doctrine.
2. A catholic loyalty to the sacraments and the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons,
3. A habit of cultural sensitivity and intellectual flexibility that does not seek to close down unexpected questions too quickly.

These three points clearly linked to our reformation heritage, our catholic heritage, and our intellectual heritage nicely capture the core strength of the Anglican way of living out our Christian Faith.

So there we have it: a commitment, a loyalty, and a habit; three marks of Anglicanism.  When these three elements are in balance we have Anglicanism.  Problems within Anglicanism occur when they get out of balance.

(Continue reading for more explanation on these three points)

Tension, tension, tension. I honestly feel a lot of tension and temptation to side with just one (or at most two) emphases above and dismiss the rest. However, my whole Regent education has taught me to embrace and hold the tension, because many important things in theology are not either/or but paradoxically held in great tension as both/and (e.g. three and one, divine and human, already but not yet, unity and diversity in the body of Christ…) Those who claim that they can resolve it easily and dismiss certain theologies or practices have no respect for the church’s history and the struggle of all the saints before us. It can also easily go down the slippery slope of heresy and schismatic moves.

I remember many years ago my mentor prophetically told me that he thinks Anglicanism suits me because it provides a nice bridle to a revolutionist at heart like me. Tension, tension, tension. Keep embracing and holding the tension in humility, admitting that we cannot resolve it until the day we meet the Lord.

Things are moving very fast and there will be an upcoming inaugural conference in March 21-22, 2011, called Discerning Contemporary Culture: Challenges & Christian Ministry in a Permissive Age, co-sponsored by

• Regent College Anglican Studies Program
• Carey Theology College & Carey Institute
• Hudson Taylor Centre for Chinese Ministries at Tyndale University College & Seminary
• Vancouver Chinese Evangelical Ministerial Fellowship (溫哥華華人教牧同工團契)

There are some top-notch speakers and scholars invited, including J. I. Packer (Regent), James Houston (Regent), David Pao (Trinity Evangelical), Brian Stiller (Tyndale), Warren Lai (Tyndale) and more.

I always believe there is no way to do ministry and arrive at the right praxis without first doing serious theological reflection. This is the chance to pick the best minds to understand how to do Chinese ministry in a Canadian context.

For those in Vancouver or even in the east coast who are interested in this, please help spread the word.

Related posts:

1. 120 Years of Good Shepherd

I believe we must not orient ourselves towards only one of the past, present, or future perspectives, but embrace all three under the providence of our Triune God. Just as it is written in the Anglican liturgy:

“Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life, to the honor and glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, Confession of Sin)

「現在我們痛心懊悔，求你憐憫我們，為了聖子耶穌基督，饒恕我們的已往，扶助我們的現在， 引導我們的將來，使我們樂意遵行你的旨意，歸榮耀給你的聖名。阿們。」（公禱書，認罪文）

From Catholic Online – Vocations FAQ:

5. Why does the ordinand lie prostrate during the ordination?
It symbolizes his unworthiness for the office to be assumed and his dependence upon God and the prayers of the Christian community.

I also read this passage today in my devotion, first time ever noticing the posture of our Lord Jesus when he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane:

“Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’” (Matt 26:39)

Yes, Jesus went all the way and hit the deck. Can you imagine how it was like? His face touching the ground of that muddy, dark, gloomy garden……

Charles Spurgeon also commented on this verse:

“If this is the Master’s position, what should be yours as His humble servant? Shouldn’t your head be covered with ‘dust and ashes’ (Gen. 18:27)?”

So now I know it is not that weird at all to lie prostrate during the rite of ordination. In fact, it is all the more necessary if that is the posture of our Lord Himself, because He is the suffering servant and He calls us to imitate His posture of servanthood.

1. Begin your day by spending 5 minutes planning and setting your priorities for the rest of the day,
2. Pause 1 minute every hour (for 8 hours) to check your progress and refocus,
3. At the end your day spend another 5 minutes reviewing what had happened and learn from your mistakes.

He says: “The power of rituals is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again. And so the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It’s simple.”

Many people have a distaste for liturgy, thinking it is dull and suffocating to the spirit, but few realize the formative potential of an ordered ritual. Gordon Smith (former associate professor of spiritual theology at Regent College) once said that liturgy can make sure our worship is rightly offered to God and not self-indulgence or worshipping our own contructs. It is important because it is in worship that our theology is formed. Ritual is not a problem. Empty ritual is.

Related Books:
David F. Ford, The Shape of Living: Spiritual Directions for Everyday Life (Zondervan, 2002)
Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology: The Church As Worshiping Community (InterVarsity, 2006)
Kendra G. Hotz, Shaping the Christian Life: Worship and the Religious Affections (Westminster John Knox, 2006)

Related posts:

1. Low Church Liturgy
2. 120 Years of Good Shepherd
3. Technology in Worship

“I was converted within a Low Church tradition, where the building’s walls are stark, the music simple, the prayers clumsy and direct, made up as you pray them. I have only ever belonged to that tradition. And so early on I picked up the tradition’s historic suspicion of High Church, where God is approached through a sometimes elaborate system of symbol and ritual–robes and candles and prayer books and lectionaries–and almost everything is scripted.

That scripting is liturgy.

Yet overtime I began to realize that the Low Church is just as bound by liturgy as any church, and maybe more so because we think we’re not. The Low Church enshrines–makes a liturgy of–austerity, spontaneity, informality. And we have our unwritten but nonetheless rigorously observed codes and protocols. We love our traditions, even our rigmarole, every bit as much as the next guy, only ours is earthy, rustic, folksy.

So I changed my mind about liturgy. It certainly can become dull and rote, but so can anything–water polo, rose gardening, kite flying, even lovemaking. Even fly-fishing. Just as often, though, maybe more so, liturgy can enrich these things. At its best, liturgy comprises the gestures by which we honor transcendent reality. It helps us give concrete expression to deepest convictions. It gives us choreography for things unseen and allows us to brush heaven among the shades of earth.

Our most significant relationships and events have a liturgical shape to them. They have rites of passage. Birthdays and homecomings, graduations and good-byes, Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, birth and death and marriage: all are marked by words and actions, songs and symbols, customs and traditions that enact them and complete them. And all these things also provide us with a means of entering them. What is a birthday without a cake, at least one candle burning on it, and a huddle of well-wishers, wearing clownish hats, singing in their ragged, hoary voices?

What is a birthday without liturgy?

What liturgy accomplishes is nothing short of astonishing: It breaks open the transcendent within the ordinary and the everyday. It lets us glimpse the deeper reality–the timeless things, the universal ones, the things above–within this particular instance of it.”

Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 8-9. (my emphasis added)

Of course, having a birthday cake is not absolutely necessary to celebrate a person’s birthday. Neither do sparkling candles, nicely wrapped presents, switching off the lights, a crowd singing “Happy Birthday to you”, the blowing of the candle, the making of a wish, the symbolic act of cutting the first slice of the cake, and hugs and greetings that follow. Perhaps someone would emphasize that the most important thing on a birthday is to be grateful. Just let that person give a long thanksgiving speech and eliminate everything else unnecessary. Well, that will do, but I wouldn’t want that kind of birthday parties. Would you?

I think non-liturgical worship services having an excruciatingly long sermon and overly descriptive announcements that take longer than corporate prayer time…… are just as dull as that.

“Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God.
It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness,
nourishment of mind by His truth,
purifying of imagination by His beauty,
opening of the heart to His love,
and submission of will to His purpose.
And all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest of human expressions of which we are capable.”

– William Temple (Archbishop of Canterbury, 1942–44)

Related posts:

1. Time Management, Ritual, and Liturgy
2. 120 Years of Good Shepherd

Good Shepherd is actually the first Chinese church established in Vancouver, where self-sacrificing missionaries first ministered to early Chinese immigrants and railroad workers. It had a very significant role in shaping the Chinese community here in Vancouver in the late 19th century. Here is a video that recounts its brief history in the past 120 years.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEXH6_2L9HQ

HD version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEXH6_2L9HQ&fmt=22

I’m touched every time I watch this video. For I can see God’s grace is greater than what we can imagine. His scope of work transcends what we can see in our lifetimes. It humbles me to see that there is a long line of servants before me, ministering God’s flock faithfully throughout history, for which a lot of them still remain anonymous. So I realize that no matter how my ministry in the future come out to be, I am just a tiny point in history, participating in God’s greater redemptive work of shaping His people at Good Shepherd and of the whole world. Looking back at history, it is certain that there were good times and bad times, mountain highs and dark valleys. But the important thing is, God uses even those low times for His purposes. Man may fail, but God’s purposes do not. What good news it is and how liberating it is for ministers who feel that heavy burden on their shoulders!

History, now I realize, is the best teacher to help us turn our focus away from our own little worlds back to God’s bigger picture, and move us into thanksgiving and worship.

History is truly “His story”.

Related posts:

1. Technology in Worship
2. Time Management, Ritual, and Liturgy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn0wYkXRj9Y

(My pastor Rev. Stephen Leung appeared @ 1:21, St. John’s Shaughnessy‘s rector David Short @ 3:00)

Another piece of good news is that my pastor Rev. Stephen Leung is going to be consecrated as bishop later this year. Official announcement is here.

More links:

• ACNA Website
• ACNA Inaugural Assembly Website
• Pastor Rick Warren addresses Anglican Church in North America Assembly (video)
• Fact Sheet: Who We Are

This deeply moving documentary As We Forgive is produced by Washington D.C. Anglicans of the AMiA, which is affiliated with the suffering church in Africa — the Anglican Church in Rwanda. (Here is some background info on the Rwandan Genocide.)

Not only those who have committed evil are crushed by their deep shame, but those who are sinned against are also corroded and consumed by their unforgiving rage inside. At this level of hurt and woundedness, forgiveness and reconciliation is only possible by letting God absorb the pain onto himself as he was hung on the cross and bled to death for all our sins. That’s the only way to move forward as new beings created in Christ.

I think the work of God among these Africans is really re-educating us North American Christians the true meaning of the gospel and Jesus’ sacrificial love. I thank God for the Rwandan church and the AMiA for witnessing this powerful testimony to us.

“Father… Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” (Luke 11:4)

Rick Warren seems to get what Obama is trying to do and complimented his intentional choice of people from two ends of the spectrum to represent the diverseness of the country and the culture of his administration.

“President-elect Obama has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground,” Warren said in a statement provided to Christianity Today. “I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen.” [link]

On the other hand, Robinson was not very positive towards Warren’s presence.

“I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” Bishop Robinson said, “but we’re not talking about a discussion, we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.” [link]

Yup, he said it: “And the God he’s praying to is not the God that I know.”

Bingo. That’s the crux of the matter all along.

The rift happening in the Anglican Communion is not about gay or not gay, but about orthodox Christianity versus another religion. There are two conflicting religious worldviews underneath the same label, holding two different understandings of who God is. The disagreement is theological, not sociological. The matter at stake is the gospel. The gay issue, as Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon indicated, is simply the “tip of the iceberg“.

Related posts:

1. Obama