A selection of extracts from Southern Anglican; Jan 2011 Vol 27

‘The Province’s renewed focus on encouraging young people into the priesthood. With the average age around 57 years it’s no wonder we are not attracting enough young people into our pews’. Editor. 'Your church can have a Christian school. With around 40,000 Christian Churches in South Africa, imagine the difference if each church started one school. Let us show you how your church building can be used the other 6 days of the week to educate the children in your community'. Advert by Acclerated Christian Education. Archbishop Thabo Makgoba spells out at the November Provincial Synod the goals for the Province; to be Anchored in Christ, Committed to God’s Mission and Transformed by the Spirit; Anglicans ACT. Bishop Ndwandwe issues a call for a Commission to assess process and methodology of theological education and spiritual formation in a seminary and non seminary context (the latter using Theological Education by Extension). Archbishop Thabo: ‘The coming of democracy to S Africa in 1994 ushered in a new era for the Anglican Church in Southern Africa. With this came the need to consider what was at the heart of our calling to mission and ministry within these changed circumstances. Especially since we are no longer being sucked into looking at pretty much everything through the lens of apartheid, to a greater or lesser degree'. The Church in Southern Africa is needed to ‘play a reconciling role’ amid the current disputes over human sexuality in the communion (Covenant adopted by Anglican CSA – to be ratified in 3 years). The Covenant ‘is not a guarantee of an easy solution to the problems we face in the Communion’, but hoped it would be a way forward of healing and moving the Communion forward….. A document which sought to ‘describe our common identity in the Anglican Church’. ‘Growing the Church’ of Anglican Church of South Africa; a conference held in Cape Town. 500 gathered ‘Touching Heaven, Changing Earth’. (Also with support from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Evangelism and Church Growth Initiative). Men of the Cloth Indulge Too by Seabo Gaeglwe 'Given this background it never occurred to me that society was concealing the worst drunkards of our age – holy men of God…they abuse alcohol in style, in secluded places way from the preying eyes of society, while only a few do it openly. Congregations at times provide drinking wells and protection to ensure that members of the other denominations don’t see their priests in compromising positions'. Priests who drink are very good at denying it. At a funeral years back I witnessed a not so sober man of the cloth being saved from falling into a grave while trying hard to perform burial rites……another with expensive taste had Chivaz Regal whisky smelling like perfume all over him on Sunday morning. Priests drink a lot, and like all of us, they need help too. I subscribe to Benjamin Franklin’s words on my favourite T shirt ‘Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy’. However I have a problem with over indulgence'. (Seabo Gaeglwe)