What is the Next Generation Leadership Initiative?

What is the Next Generation Leadership Initiative?

by | Oct 16, 2021

When I was a new parent, I attended a seminar on parenting that presented an argument for vision casting for your family. The presenter encouraged us to craft a shortlist of things our family unit valued (or should value) and to adopt them as mantras in combination with your family name. My husband and I came up with a few; some were obvious for Christian families, and some were general leadership principles, such as “Joneses don’t quit,” and “Joneses love Jesus.” We wove them into our weekly conversations. The usage of your name mattered as the idea was that your children would grow up recognizing whose they were and wanting to represent those values. One day our daughter, about age four at the time, admitted she had thought about quitting during a particularly difficult swim lesson, but she remembered that Joneses don’t quit!

That day reminded us of how powerful spiritual formation is.

What we do over time forms us. What we say over time forms us. What we believe about who we are forms us.

This intentional formation begins with family ministry in our parishes, continues through student ministry and campus ministry, through lay leadership programs, and catechetical training. Our seminaries form future clergy, and our dioceses continue developing our clergy. Working together, the Next Generation Leadership Initiative (NGLI) is helping to spiritually form our family through coordinated, intentional leadership development at all stages of life and ministry for the next generation of the ACNA.

The family mantras NGLI has adopted include coming alongside dioceses and parishes to discover new leaders of all ages and diverse backgrounds, to develop these leaders practically and spiritually, and to deploy them into ministry.

This discovery is integral to the future of the ACNA and our mission to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. Now into our second decade as a denomination, the ACNA is beginning to see a transition of leadership; the retirement of the generation that faithfully led us for the last decade is upon us and the demand for leadership development is high. NGLI is working to discover new leaders, to develop them and to deploy them in a rapidly changing ministry environment as a result of the cultural landscape we face at the close of 2020.

We are committed to strengthening our pipeline of leaders in order to strengthen our ACNA family. The leadership pipeline for the ACNA cannot be accomplished without your support. It is imperative that we work together to spiritually form the members of our family as well as to raise up leaders for the next generation of our province to meet these needs.

NGLI is raising up leaders of all generations, for the next generation of the ACNA. Join us.

To contribute to leadership development through NGLI, please visit our Give page. For more information about NGLI, please sign up for our emails or contact Jessica Jones.

Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones

Diocesan Canon Coordinator

Jessica currently serves as the Canon for Next Generation Discipleship in the Gulf Atlantic Diocese. Her areas of interest include education, leadership development, worship and liturgy, catechesis, family ministry, and ministry to women.

Why the Antioch Leadership Network Matters

Why the Antioch Leadership Network Matters

by | Oct 16, 2021

I grew up in a megachurch in a very diverse area of Southern California. It wasn’t until I was in 6th grade that I saw a church leader who looked like me, an Asian American. I had gone to this church my whole life, but hadn’t experienced seeing a leader who looked like I did teach the Bible and play guitar; it was powerful. Although I had always known I was welcome in my church, this was the first time I thought maybe I could be a pastor someday.

The Next Generation Leadership Initiative of the ACNA (NGLI), in partnership with the Anglican Multi-Ethnic Network, has launched the Antioch Leadership Network, intended to increase our leadership from ethnic-minorities.

The Antioch Leadership Network (ALN) matters because the gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of salvation and hope for all peoples and nations, even the ones who look differently than we do.

The mission of the Anglican Church in North America is “to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.” The United States is not a homogenous place. According to the Brookings Institute, in the past decade of 2010-2020, the Latino/Hispanic population has grown 23%, the Asian American population by 32%, the Black population by 10%, and the biracial/multiracial population by 36%.[1] In contrast, the white population has only increased by 0.6% in that same time period. Projections showed that these minority ethnic groups would comprise about 40% of the total US population by 2020.

At the same time, if you were to walk into your average ACNA parish, you would not see a congregation that reflects our country’s ethnic diversity. There are some notable exceptions, thanks be to God, but our congregations and leadership are largely white. This tells me that we can do more to raise up leaders from this underrepresented segment of our population. I suspect there are many young men and women like me who need to see that Christ’s Church is for all people.

The ALN is one way of helping better equip the ACNA for mission in our own back yard. When commenting on the faith of a centurion soldier, Jesus remarked “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). We should desire to see all people in our community know the love and grace of God, not just those who look like us.

Let me be clear, I don’t bring up these numbers as a quota to be reached for political correctness. These numbers matter because they represent people groups created in the image of God that have giftings of the Holy Spirit to contribute to the building up of Christ’s body on earth. I believe the Lord has brought the nations of the world to our doorstep and that there are future lay leaders, vestry members, deacons, priests, and even bishops who are not part of the dominant ethnic culture in America sitting in our pews and the wider community.

To reach different racial demographics and to raise up more leaders of color in our churches, to minister to those in our own current communities, will require an intentional effort and process, thus the creation of the ALN. ALN will work to develop leaders to better reach our whole communities. I am thrilled to represent NGLI while working with our 7 partner dioceses and numerous churches to create systems that might identify and equip new, and diverse, leaders for our growing mission field that are faithful to the Anglican way of following Jesus. It is my hope that in the future of the ACNA there are more stories like mine because of the Antioch Initiative as we strive to reach all of North America.

To join the province in mission and movement alongside the next generation of Anglicans, consider making a financial gift to this effort.

To learn more about Antioch Clergy Initiative (ACI), contact Fr. Taylor Ishii.

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-2020-census-is-here-what-will-it-tell-us/

Taylor Ishii

Taylor Ishii

Director of Antioch Leadership Network

Taylor is passionate about equipping the next generation of ethnically diverse leaders for the Anglican Church and coming alongside dioceses and congregations who want to reach all nations and people groups in their community with the gospel. Taylor is a leader in the Anglican Multiethnic Network (AMEN) and a leader in a local group of churches working towards Christ-centered racial reconciliation through the church in South Alabama.