Archbishop Foley Beach tasks Bishop Todd Hunter with a new five-year venture to make disciples in contemporary culture.

Today many people believe if you want to be genuinely spiritual, you should stay away from the church and organized religion. This is true of young people in particular. This and a catalog of other cultural changes present new spiritual terrain that many of us aren’t sure how to navigate.

But C4SO wants to be part of the solution for those seeking to be on mission in contemporary culture. To this end Bishop Todd Hunter, along with Canon David Roseberry of Christ Church Plano, has been tasked by Archbishop Foley Beach to start a new five-year venture called Anglican Cultural Engagement (ACE) that will catalyze a theologically faithful and contextually compatible response to this emerging world.

“This is the way I can best serve the Anglican Church I love, specifically the evangelistic, church planting and church renewal needs of ACNA,” Bishop Hunter says.

Simply put, ACE is a group of like-minded Anglicans joining together to help local churches find ways to make disciples of contemporary North Americans. While Bishop Hunter will helm ACE, he will have a round table of capable minds assisting him. David Roseberry will serve as chair.

“I keep hearing, ‘We are not ‘in Kansas anymore,’” Roseberry says. “But where are we? And where are we going? God has a redemptive and beautiful purpose for the church today…and tomorrow. Bishop Todd and I are eager to assemble a team of leaders, thinkers, practitioners, writers, especially younger ones, to tackle this vexing and pivotal topic.”

Many have already signed on to participate. David Fitch, author of The Great Giveaway, will be joining the project as a missiologist consultant. Management consultant Tom McGehee of Brand Velocity will lead group members in an initial design meeting at Christ Church Plano in July.

But ACE is more than just a think tank, although it will generate ideas and discussion. It will find and move with the movers—the already Spirit-motivated—as they will in turn draw others. It will come alongside churches and leaders to help them implement key ideas, and match teachers/mentors with churches in their tribe/nation. It will also give churches new, incremental, non-guilt producing measurements for making disciples of contemporary North Americans.

“We will gauge ACE’s success according to three key metrics,” Bishop Hunter says. “1) Growth in evangelism and discipleship; 2) New churches started; and 3) Existing churches renewed.”

ACE’s main platform will be five annual summits hosted by Christ Church Plano. The summits will be open to the general public, groups from churches, rectors, wardens, vestries, staff and lay people. Each summit will have a theme expressing a core element of the mission but include workshops on the others.

  • Year 1: Gospel
  • Year 2: Culture
  • Year 3: Missional Ecclesiology
  • Year 4: Missional Leadership
  • Year 5: Embracing God’s Empowering Presence Toward Improved Practices of Evangelism and Discipleship

Bishop Hunter believes ACE can work synergistically with existing ministries to make a positive impact on ACNA and the whole mainline denominational world. ACE builds on the impact of previous ventures like Anglican 1000, which helped to shape a new culture and give new language and metrics to ACNA. ACNA is an effective vehicle for new works, proven by the 488 new churches started in its five-year existence. Moreover, young leaders are increasingly attracted to the various missionally minded dioceses in ACNA.

The inception of ACE is an exciting opportunity for C4SO’s churches to support Bishop Hunter and model gospel-centric influence in our world. C4SO shares many of the same values as ACE—like a genuine reliance on the Holy Spirit, a love of culture, and missional and Spirit-driven creativity.

“ACE’s vision is to help build the three-way intersection between the culture we live in, the Church we love, and the Gospel we have,” Roseberry says.