What is the Next Generation Leadership Initiative?

What is the Next Generation Leadership Initiative?

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.

What is the NGLI Student Leadership Network?

What is the NGLI Student Leadership Network?

The Anglican Church in North America brings together biblical orthodoxy, missional entrepreneurship, artistic beauty, and vibrant teaching. Our worship is rooted in the history of the church, with stable and flexible liturgies highly accessible and relevant for today. We are a church, a people, propelled by the Holy Spirit to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, that our continent may know and live in the love of the Father. Each Sunday we gather, bridging racial, cultural, economic, and community boundaries because we are living in the already-not-yet of the Kingdom. Some of us gather in store-fronts and YMCAs, others in cathedrals and chapels; we sing from our rich hymnody and from our current songwriters; we swing toddlers and thuribles; we live in time while marking the calendar of the Kingdom; we proclaim the mystery and the glory and the presence of God.

We are a church, a people, propelled by the Holy Spirit to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, that our continent may know and live in the love of the Father.

This is why, across our nations and towns, we are the best place and people to invite the next generation into life with Jesus and the church. We are built for the needs, desires, and joys of this current moment and today’s middle and high school students. Raised in the digital and social media revolution, our students are hungry for something more stable than the latest iPhone update, something that lasts longer than an Instagram story, and something that responds to the deep longing of being known and loved. The wide variety of expressions, unified in Scripture, worship, creed, and sacrament, meets the wide variety of needs this next generation seeks to explore the faith, meet Jesus, and be a home. Our church has the tools to introduce them to the one who offers the bread of life and meets their hunger in ways that the world cannot.

Our youth care deeply about the marginalized, the forgotten, and the oppressed. As a generation, they are looking for both a new solution to these old challenges and for people with whom they can be part of a solution. In a cultural moment of unrest and uncertainty, our common prayers give us the language and framework to respond, seek justice, and be a people of peace. Our church is committed to the Imago Dei in each human, and we can offer young people a safe, formative, and dynamic community where they can be empowered as holy influencers.

We are reaching North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. We cannot do this fully or with integrity if we leave out the generation that is presently being catechized by Netflix and newsfeeds. As part of the Next Generation Leadership Initiative, the Student Leadership Network led by Rev. Aaron Buttery and a team of thoughtful, passionate, and creative leaders, exists to serve the parish and the province so that our young people are effectively reached by the transforming love of Jesus Christ.

NGLI is providing the relational connection and resource creation needed to discover, develop, and deploy the next generation of mature disciples and spiritual leaders for our churches, communities, and culture.

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 how your church is ready to design and lead a robust Anglican Student Ministry, contact Fr. Aaron Buttery.

Aaron Buttery

Aaron Buttery

Provincial Canon for Next Generation Leadership Initiative

Rev. Aaron Buttery is deeply committed to the raising of generations of spiritual leaders and followers of Jesus. He is particularly focused and passionate about the relationships and systems that empower people to follow Jesus and lead others to him. Aaron currently leads as Associate Rector of International Anglican Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Next Generation Leadership for the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO).