Accidental Anglican!

Just finished reading The Accidental Anlgican: The Surprising Appeal of the Liturgical Church by Todd D. Hunter (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2010). Find it at Amazon with look-inside feature.

Good read. The book narrates Hunter's journey from Jesus people to being head of the Vineyard Churches to Executive Director of Alpha USA to Bishop in AMiA. He was ordained a priest and then a bishop a month later! Now that is fast. He also gives snap shots of his Anglican heroes in J.I. Packer, John Stott, and N.T. Wright. A big theme of the book is Churches-for-the-sake-of-others or CS4O! He also unpacks the Anglican treasure chest of the liturgical calendar, the Book of Common Prayer, the ministry of the word, reciting the creed, and eucharist. Good overview of the Anglican Evangelistic Tradition and bios on some top Anglican leaders in Africa.

David Neff has a write up about the book in CT.

Here is a clip of Hunter preaching at Christ Church in Plano.

I find it interesting that John Wesley was an Anglican and so were the creators of the Westminster Confession. That's right boys and girls, we owe Methodism and Presbyterianism, partly, to Anglicanism!

Wisdom from the Bishop

Today at BCQ we had a visit by the Rt. Rev. Peter Brain bishop of Armidale. It included a meeting with the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion in Brisbane and a great little talk to students about ministry in the Armidale region of Australia. Bishop Brain had some really cool one-liners:

"Before you talk to the people about God, you need to talk to God about the people".

"The way that you treat the Bible on Sunday is how the people in your congregation will treat the Bible during the rest of the week".