Dear Friends,

In one sense our congregation has been in a holding pattern for nearly four years. We have continued to work at strengthening our parish community and reaching out to our neighborhoods. But, after General Convention in August of 2003, we have been in a period of discernment seeking the Lord’s will for the future of St. Andrew’s, Vestal. We are beginning to see an answer to our prayers for God’s direction.

In April members of our vestry met with two bishops, Bp. David Bena from the Convocation of Anglican Churches in America (CANA) and Bp. Sandy Greene from the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA). The AMIA began in 2000 as a place for Anglican Churches in the United States who could not in good conscience remain in the Episcopal Church. CANA began as an outreach of the Church of Nigeria to Nigerians in America.

Both CANA and AMIA are Common Cause members of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN). The Common Cause movement within the ACN is “dedicated to strengthening the highest degree of unity among the various orthodox Anglican bodies in North America” [from the Frequently Asked Questions, www.canaconvocation.org]. A parish breakfast on May 6 at 9 a.m. has been on our church calendar for some time, and now we know that we really need to be talking to each other about the future decisions that our parish must make. In light of this, at our parish breakfast on May 6 there will be presentations about CANA and AMIA. In consultation with our Senior Warden Warren Musselman, I am proposing a special parish meeting on Sunday, May 20 at 11:30 a.m. The agenda for this meeting will be to hear from all interested parishioners about our future affiliation as a parish.

These are momentous times and as such they require serious prayer and reflection. I hope that you are putting the issues facing our parish before the Lord in prayer and asking for His discernment for our parish direction. I also hope that if you are able to do so that you will also spend some time looking at the websites for CANA (the internet address is above) and the AMIA (theamia.org). If you know people in parishes already affiliated with either of these jurisdictions please contact them and find out what you can from them (for example, St. Andrew’s in Syracuse is an AMIA parish). We want our parishioners to be “prayed up” and as knowledgeable as is possible about the decisions that we must make.

These are momentous times and our best preparation for what is ahead is to keep ourselves spiritually strong. Thomas Paine wrote at the time of the Revolutionary War that “these are the times that try men’s souls,” and we recognize that our times are trying as well. Be assured that the Lord is with us, He will not leave us, and in all things we are not alone. There are good days ahead as we follow our Lord in obedience to His calling on our lives.

Yours in Christ,

The Rev. Tony Seel
Rector