Vamos! Let’s go! : Online Coaching Cohorts Catalyze and Strengthen ACNA Latino outreach around the US

Rev. Kelly Langdoc serves as a deacon and family minister at St. Andrews Anglican Church in Versailles, Ky. For some time St. Andrews has hosted an after-school tutoring program for children of a nearby apartment complex, most of whom are Latino. She was exploring ways to grow this ministry and expand her church’s outreach to the parents and families of these children. In 2016 she attended the Caminemos Juntos conference held that August in San Diego, California and then then this past winter and spring she joined Caminemos Juntos’ first English Language online coaching group.

Together with 8 other leaders from around the US she participated in a monthly online discussion over videoconference and also received individual coaching and direction from Caminemos Juntos’ leaders on how to take next steps in growing her church’s outreach and impact. “Participating in the Latino Ministry Cohort on-line has been a very rich experience for me.  I have been encouraged through the reading, the discussions, and the fellowship of like-minded believers.”

One of the online cohort sessions

The Latino Church in the US is the fastest growing sector of the church and of the US more broadly. God is doing amazing things within this community and as Anglicans we believe we can play a unique role as a historic, balanced, three-stream Church. 

Are you interested in exploring how to reach out to Latinos in your community? Perhaps you speak Spanish or perhaps you don’t, but you want help in figuring out how to impact your neighbors. This Fall Caminemos Juntos will be launching its next round of online cohorts, both in English and Spanish to help equip you for this mission and to do so as part of a community of like-minded leaders. The cohort will explore important topics such as models for integrating Latino congregations and services into an established congregation, the challenges of multi-ethnic ministry, how to raise up Latino leaders, and outreach strategies for Latino communities. There will be supplemental monthly readings and assignments to help assess your needs and address your challenges. 

The application deadline is August 15, 2019. To sign up and for more information see: https://www.caminemos-juntos.com/coachingcohort

Rev. Jonathan Kindberg grew up in Latin America and is co-founder and co-director of Caminemos Juntos. He lives in La Villita, Chicago, the largest Latino community in the Midwest.

Caminemos Juntos Administrative Assistant and Communication Coordinator Position

Position: Caminemos Juntos Administrative Assistant and Communication Coordinator

Hours: Starting at 10 hrs/week*

Compensation: Beginning at $14/Hour 

Structure: Reports to CJ Co-Director Rev. Jonathan Kindberg

Responsibilities:

-Assist the Co-Director with administrative tasks such as purchasing airplane tickets, paying bills and expense reports

-Maintain/Update Caminemos Juntos online and social media presence (Facebook and Squarespace blog) 

-Responding to e-mails and composing a monthly e-newsletter (through Mailchimp)  

-Help with Caminemos Juntos events and conference logistics  

-Some project management 

-Maintain and continue relationships with key partner churches and leaders

Requirements:

-Loves the Latino church and can assent to the vision/doctrine of Caminemos Juntos (see "Que Creemos" on www.Caminemos-Juntos.com) 

-Detail and task oriented

-Good relational and people skills

-Works well in a flexible, changing environment 

-Highly disciplined and able to self-manage use of time and projects

-Bilingual (fluency in speaking and reading/writing in English and Spanish).

*Most of these hours are flexible and can be done remotely. A weekly in person supervisor meeting in Little Village is required. Additional working hours may be available around conferences and other special events.

To apply please send your resume and cover letter to : Eduardo Dávila (EDavila@caminemos-juntos.com) and fill out this application.

Caminemos Juntos is a Latino church multiplication network rooted in the the Anglican Church. Our vision is to multiply Latino disciples, leaders and congregations throughout the Americas.  

Houston 2018: Restored in Christ with Joy for the Mission

The ninth edition of the Caminemos Juntos North America conference was held from August 2 to 4. Seventy latino leaders met every day at the Missio Dei Church in Houston, Texas, to praise God, grow as a community and build relationships as Anglican latino churches and leaders in the United States, Canada and Mexico under the theme: "Restored in Christ with Joy for the mission." This has been a particularly difficult year for the immigrant community in the US and part of the intention of the conference was to provide a healing space in which to be restored and renewed. 

Adults together with the youth (who had a seperate track) came together to grow and live into the reality of together being the body of Christ. Leaders came from cities such as Kansas City, Dallas, New Braunfels, San Antonio, Missouri, Santa Rosa (California), El Paso, Chicago and Forth Worth, and of course Houston, to this event which also included guests from Brazil, and Chile.

Mark Ball, rector of Missio Dei the host church, his wife Jessalyn, the pastoral team of that congregation, and the coordinators of the event, Mimi Guiracocha, Eddy Dávila, Víctor Manieri and María Catalán, along with their planning team, made an effort so that this event could be developed day by day, from the activities on the stage, to the meals and / or cleanliness of the place, and their assistants could enjoy the blessings of it. It is the ninth year for this movement which is led by a team of directors which include Archbishop Tito Zavala, Archbishop Miguel Uchoa, Canon William Beasley and Rev. Jonathan Kindberg.

Familia is a key value within latino cultures and for Caminemos Juntos. Plenaries, Bible studies, times of worship, workshops, meals and prayer times, all are aimed at making of Caminemos Juntos a family gathering, where each attendee can experience what it means to be part of a Church that transcends borders, languages, cultures and styles, and is united in Jesus.

Workshops took place under topics such as "Equipped to Heal", "Bible Telling", "Disciple-Making Movements", and "Community Restoration." Attendees were also encouraged by hearing a report on the growing revival within the Anglican Church in Brazil given by Archbishop Miguel. Keynote speakers included Paco Amador and Chris Ophus, leaders from Chicagoland who are students and practitioners of DMM (disciple-making movements) in the Latino context.

The bishop of the Western Gulf Coast Diocese, Clark Lowenfield, in the closing Eucharist gave an inspiring message to each of the attendees on the need for holiness as a pre-requisite for corporate revival.

The closing of this ninth edition of the conference ended with joy, happiness and energy to continue day by day in the mission that God has given us, this was clearly reflected through the young people, who at the end of the activities went to serve at the Houston Food Bank to help those who need it most.

The recharged and inspired hearts are now getting ready for the next Caminemos Juntos North America, which will be held in 2019 and in which a decade of ministry and familia will be celebrated.

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Susana Naso, from Santiago, Chile, is a journalist in background and currently a Caminemos Juntos missionary serving in Chicago.

First Ordination and Fourth Annual Conference Held in Mexico

Leaders from 10 congregations gathered this past weekend, May 24-27th, at Iglesia del Gran Pastor in Fresnillo, Zacatecas in Central Mexico for the fourth annual Caminemos Juntos conference. The purpose of this gathering was to mobilize leaders for the planting of Anglican churches throughout Mexico and to provide a space for new congregations and leaders that are exploring joining the existing group of ACNA churches.  

Bishop Flavio, missionary bishop from the newly formed Anglican Church in Brazil 

Present were 4 missionaries from the new GAFCON Province in Brazil including missionary Bishop Flavio Adair Suarez who was the keynote speaker and presented lessons learned from the growth of the church in Brazil through multiplication and disciple making. Others shared on the intercessory and women's ministries which have played a key role in Brazil. 

On Sunday, the final day of the conference, Farhid Adabache of Iglesia del Gran Pastor, was ordained as a deacon by Bishop Mark Zimmerman of the ACNA Diocese of the Southwest with includes the Mexico deanery of congregations. This was an historic occasion marking the first ACNA leader ordained in Mexico. 

Deacons Farhid and Eduardo Gonzalez ,who serves in Ciudad Juarez on the border with El Paso, Texas will both represent Mexico at the upcoming GAFCON conference in Jerusalem later this summer. 

Caminemos Juntos is the GAFCON network for Mexico and Latin America. This year in addition to hosting this regional gathering in Mexico, Caminemos Juntos is also hosting conferences in the US and Argentina.

Click here (https://www.gafcon.org/news/lets-walk-together-the-history-of-a-new-church-planting-movement-in-latin-america) to read more on the history of Anglican realignment in Mexico and Latin America. 

Missionary Testimonies from Brazil: The New Face of Global Anglican Mission

Gathered around the dinner table in a Chicago home were young people from Venezuela, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and the US. Over dinner Arlinda Sá Souza shared the story of dream she had had over thirty years ago as a new Christian in Brazil.

She had just heard a missionary speak at her church about the 10/40 window and she had felt her heart stirring with a call. “But where are you calling me, Lord?” she had asked. Later that night she was given a very detailed dream of a city on the ocean. As she shared the dream the next day over coffee with a friend her friend began laughing.  “I know that city! It’s Nazaré, Portugal.”

This dream began an over thirty-year process of preparing to answer the call that call to Nazaré, a journey that led Arlinda, her husband Bruno and daughter Thais to that dinner table in Chicago that day.

In October of last year Caminemos Juntos* held it’s annual conference for the Americas in Recife, Brazil with theme of global mission and with the purpose of equipping the Anglican Church in Latin America to send missionaries and church planters the world. Bruno and Arlinda Souza from the diocese of Recife (now soon to be a GAFCON province in Brazil) attended the conference and shared about their calling to Portugal and how they’d been waiting for the church to send them and the Lord’s timing to go.

They were invited to apply to become missionaries with the Greenhouse Movement (the mission society that facilitates the Caminemos Juntos conferences) and then to attend Greenhouse’s weeklong missionary training held in Chicago, USA after which they spent 10 additional days on mission amongst the Mexican immigrant community in that city. Their hope is to be sent to Portugal in January of 2019 as the new Province of Brazil’s first global missionaries and to eventually serve locally under Bishop Andy Lines, the GAFCON bishop for Europe.

The Greenhouse missionary training week began with a time of multilingual and multicultural worship

Bruno, Arlinda, Thais and Karyna (Bruno’s sister) share a greeting to their sending church in Brazil from the Little Village immigrant neighborhood in Chicago 

Brazilians, in partnership with US-Americans, being sent to plant a church in Portugal, under an English Bishop (who himself had been a missionary in Paraguay). This is the exciting, and at times mind-boggling, new face of global Anglican mission.

This is a mission that is polycentric. In other words it is no longer simply “from the west, to the rest” but rather from “everywhere to everywhere,” to use the language of the Lausanne Movement. It is also highly multicultural. The global mission teams of the future will involve two, three or four nationalities working in an again altogether different local cultural context made up also of many different cultures. For example, a mission team might involve Brazilians, Kenyans and Australians reaching North African Muslim immigrants in Spain. 

This new global mission also involves deep partnerships between the Church in the Global North and Global South. The Global North has a long history of global sending and financial resources and structures setup to do so, but increasingly face a shortage of missionary candidates. Many areas of the Global South, such as the Church in Brazil, are at the same time experiencing revival and expansion and are overflowing with willing and able candidate, though as a Church have less experience, financial resources and structures setup for global sending.

Finally, the global mission of the future takes into account the reality of global diaspora. Today we are experiencing the greatest movement of peoples the world has ever seen. This presents an amazingly unique missional opportunity that may be missed if the Church succumbs to nationalistic and ethnocentric political currents. 

Please pray for Bruno, Arlinda and Thais and for a whole new Spirit-empowered wave of Anglican missionaries for Europe and the ends of the earth.

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*Caminemos Juntos, which means “Let’s Walk Together” in Spanish, is the GAFCON network for Latin America and is led by Bp. Tito Zavala, Bp. Miguel Uchoa, Cn William Beasley and Rev. Jonathan Kindberg. These leaders, among others, will be helping to lead the Global Mission Network sessions of the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem this June.

Passion for Gospel Centered Unity and Mission were emphasized at the Caminemos Juntos conference in Brazil

The conference gathered Anglican representatives from across the Americas in Recife, Brazil the week of October 5 – 7  

“Passion for the Americas” was the theme of the Caminemos Juntos 2017 conference, a conference with more than 200 Anglican representatives from North, Central and South America held in Recife, Brazil, with the goal of catalyzing mission and church planting throughout the continent.

This second annual gathering of Caminemos Juntos in South America brought clergy and a diversity of lay leadersfrom more than 9 countries together. The three themes of the conference were: Mobilizing, Equipping, and Planting, in order to walk together as the Anglican Church in the Americas.

The conference was organized by the Greenhouse Movement, the ACNA, the Diocese of Recife in Brazil, the Anglican Church in Chile, and GAFCON.

It is important to note that this year’s gathering included a visit from Charles Raven, Secretary of Membership Development for GAFCON, who shared about the Anglican movement worldwide.

The three day gathering was hosted by Parróquia Anglicana Espíritu Santo (PAES), the largest anglican church in Latin America, with more than three thousand members. The program was comprised of plenaries, workshops, and small working groups, along with a special worship and prayer night on Thursday, which was attended by more than 800 people.

For the first time this year, there were pre-conference equipping sessions 2 days prior to the main conference gathering. One of the workshops was led by MOCLAM and was focused on teaching the panorama of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Similarly, there was a training for those interested in becoming church planters and global missionaries sent out from Latin America. Caminemos Juntos' worship movement, United Adoration led a retreat for songwriters where new songs were written and then sung throughout the conference. You can listen to one here. 

Rev. Jonathan Kindberg, co-director of Caminemos Juntos, said that having the conference in Brazil was key as participants were able to experience first hand the spontaneous growth and revival being lived out in Brazil, a dynamic similar to what happened in the Anglican church in East Africa. This fire and passion that God is awakening is not only for Brazil but is spreading throughout Americas.

PASSION FOR MOBILIZATION

The first day focused on Mobilization. The focus was how to mobilize the Latin American church on global mission. One of the key questions was: “How can the Anglican Church in Latin America shift from being a mission field that simply receives missionaires to being a church that sends missionaries throughout the world?”  The day began with a talk by Carlos Scott, former president of COMIBAM (a consortium of Latin American mission and sending agencies) and the current facilitator of an organization called Misión Glocal (Glocal Mission) in Argentina.  In his presentation, Scott described the evolution of the Latin American missionary movement in recent years and how we are experiencing an enormous paradigm shift in how mission is seen and practiced.

As Scott emphasized, if at the end of the 90’s there were four thousand missionaries, today Latin America has a total of twenty five thousand missionaries both in Latin America and being sent from Latin America throughout the world. He said there is a growing missionary expansion and that the Church in Latin America is beginning to understand its purpose of extending the Kingdom of God to all nations.

Rev. Jonathan said that this awakening is also beginning to happen in the Anglican church in Latin America. For example, in recent years there has been a growing reciprocal sending and receiving of Latin American Anglicans to and from the US. “Today we are seeing how Chile, for example, is sending missionaries to serve in Latino or Central American communities in the United States. We also have the example of Chilean Anglican missionaries like Verónica Vega who is serving in India.”

This first day of the conference also included a talk by Filipe Santos, mission pastor of City Church in Sao Paulo, the largest Baptist church in Brazil, who spoke on how to develop a church culture that values mobilization in order to creatively reach the key cities of the world.

Participants once again were not only able to hear about examples, but got to experience this kind of creative mobilization first hand by visiting congregations throughout the Diocese of Recife, which since separating from the Episcopal Church in 2005, has planted more than 30 churches in only 12 years, thanks to missional strategies such as Casas de Paz (“Houses of Peace”) and is on it's way to becoming a province. 

As Bishop Miguel Uchoa explained, “Houses of Peace is a lay-led initiative and evangelistic tool to enter non-Christian homes and has led to the planting of new congregations... and the mobilization of the entire church.” Some of the other innovative missional initiatives of the diocese are: social ministries aimed at reaching the poor and marginalized like House of Hope, church-based outreach Karate classes, the planting of congregations inside prisons and an evangelistic marriage ministry and video curriculum for couples which has millions of hits on youtube (see here). 

PASSION FOR EQUIPPING

A second focus of the conference was “passion for equipping.” One of the sessions this second day of the conference was led by a team from Chile. Diocesan Bishop Héctor (Tito) Zavala spoke about “passion for formation,” and how this has facilitated the ongoing growth and maturity of the Chilean Anglican Church.

On this same topic, some of the leaders from Chile spoke aboutthe Center for Pastoral Studies (CEP), the Chilean Anglican seminary which started in 2003, and also about other Chilean equipping initiatives for leaders, which have led to the planting of 19 churches and the ordination of almost 50 clergy in the past 17 years.

Bishop Zavala said, “I believe that the reason we have had this fruit these last years is that we have been seeking to be truly evangelical, in the fullest sense of that word: centered on teaching the Word, the formation of leaders, and the empowerment of the entire local church for mission.”

Along these same lines, the importance of being able to share equipping resources between the different countries in the Americas thanks to Caminemos Juntos was highlighted. One example of this is the exchange that has taken place between Mexico and Chile. Chile this last year brought their highly successful Anglican Marriage Encounter program (EMA) to the fledging ACNA deanery of churches in Mexico. Also this last year a leader from the Chilean seminary came to the church of Iglesia del Gran pastor in Fresnillo, Mexico to do a week long intensive course on Anglican Mission and Identity.

“The Anglican church in Mexico today is weak in terms of equipping and these kinds of exchanges greatly motivate us because without formation there is no vision” said Juan Manuel Herrera, one of the lay ministers of Gran Pastor, one of the larger ACNA churches in Mexico.

PASSION FOR CHURCH PLANTING

The Greenhouse Movement (known as Sociedad Misionera San Pablo in Latin America) presented on the third focus of the conference: “passion for church planting.” Greenhouse’s Missioner General, William Beasley, along with Bishops Marcio Meira and Flavio Soares of Brazil, spoke on the work of lay church planting both in the US and in Brazil.

The Greenhouse Movement has been deeply shaped by Anglican Church in East Africa which has also experienced explosive growth thanks to the move of God through lay leaders. William Beasley explained that we are seeing God pour out this same fire of revival in Latin America. While holding firm to the gospel and the historic roots of Anglicanism, lay leaders throughout the Americas are engaged in a creative missional effort that opens the door for the spontaneous expansion of the church that is able to reach all kinds of cultures and communities.

Adrian Torres, a lay leader at San Pedro, a church in Buenos Aires Argentina, similarly iterated: “Today we are seeing a thriving movement that grows through the laity. It is crucial that we shift our missional paradigm to include this new reality. Argentina needs this missional effort because we yearn new church plants.”

A NEW REFORMATION

One of the main emphases during the conference was that the Global Anglican Church is currently in the midst of twin reformation: a doctrinal reformation and a missional reformation.

Charles Raven, who led a workshop on this very topic, explained that this year, as the Church celebrates the 500th year since the Protestant Reformation, we have come to grips with the fact that we are not simply celebrating a historical event. The Church has always been and is always reforming. Today, we are working to recover and restore the truth of the Gospel. It is this Gospel of grace rooted in the Bible that ultimately drives us to fulfill the Great Commission.

Rev. Jonathan Kindberg, co-director of Caminemos Juntos, referred to this same theme of reformation:

"We are continuing to work alongside GAFCON to expand our network to share resources and training in all 35 countries of the Americas and the Caribbean. We are striving towards mission centered unity, while also holding firmly to our biblical foundations, knowing that it will result in the formation of new Anglican church plants all across the Americas and throughout the world."

We expect that this vision will continue to spread, and, at our next conference in Chile (Oct 4-6, 2018), we hope to witness even more countries walking together under the same vision and passion of reaching all the Americas with the love of Christ.

Two Ways to Walk: A Reflection of the CJ Conference in Brazil

While the Canterbury Primates Meeting was taking place earlier this month with its heavily contrived ‘Walking Together’ theme, despite the principled absence of Primates representing some 30 million Anglicans, a very different ‘Walking Together’ was being practiced by Anglicans meeting in Brazil.

Caminemos Juntos, which in Spanish means ‘Let's Walk Together’, is an Anglican Latino mission and church planting initiative for the whole of South, Central and North America. Its leadership team includes Bishop Tito Zavala of the Diocese of Chile with its coastline of over 2,600 miles,  Bishop Miguel Uchoa of the Anglican Diocese of Recife which covers an area about the size of Western Europe in the north east of Brazil as well as  leaders from the ACNA in North America Canon William Beasley and Rev. Jonathan Kindberg.

Charles sharing the GAFCON story together with Bp. Miguel Uchoa from Recife

I was recently privileged to attend their annual conference in Recife from 5th-7th October along with some one hundred and fifty delegates from ten different nations. It was a wonderful reminder that though the traditional leadership of the Communion is losing the gospel for the sake of institutional compromise, here are people who are willing to lose their lives for the sake of the gospel.

The Canterbury version of ‘Walking Together’ is energised not by mission, but by church politics. It is quite obvious that the primary concern is inward looking. Essentially, the preoccupation of successive Archbishops of Canterbury since 1998 has been how to somehow contain orthodox Anglicans in the same global institutions as those who steadfastly reject orthodox faith and substitute their own ideas for the Bible’s teaching, most obviously on sin, sexuality and marriage.

Worship night at PAES (Holy Spirit Anglican Parish) 

In contrast, Caminemos Juntos is outward looking. The conference venue itself symbolized the vitality and vision of the movement. We were hosted by the Anglican Parish of Espiritu Santo (Holy Spirit), founded by Bishop Miguel in 2006 in a building which had previously been known as ‘Babylon’, one of Recife’s leading night clubs, and has now grown to some 3,000 members.  Caminemos Juntos as a whole is energised by this passion to serve and reach the lost for whom Christ died. New churches are being planted throughout the Americas, new missionary dioceses are being created and there is even a successful Chilean mission in India with a missionary partnership between Recife and an African diocese being planned.

The biblical principles which Gafcon stands for have played a key role in the Caminemos Juntos story. The Diocese of Recife, now led by Bishop Miguel, was expelled from the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) in 2005 because it adhered to Lambeth Resolution I.10 which affirmed that homosexual practice was contrary to Scripture and would not continue in communion with the American Episcopal Church (TEC) which had rejected that teaching and adopted a liberal and revisionist theology.

At the time, Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Anglican Church of South America (then known as the Southern Cone), intervened and granted recognition and licenses to the bishop of Recife and his clergy and in so doing demonstrated what true ‘Walking Together’ should look like when the gospel is threatened.

Conference Attendees praying for Central America and the North of South America

The Diocese of Recife is now recognised directly by the Gafcon Primates Council and it has authorised Bishop Miguel to establish episcopcal oversight of ‘existing and potential’ churches in Central America and those parts of northern South America also in TEC aligned Provinces. This work is starting to bear fruit and it was a great joy to meet faithful Anglican clergy from these areas who now have somewhere to belong.

A similar process is underway as well in Mexico as the ACNA has decided to offer oversight for leaders in that country who cannot in good conscience  work with the Anglican Province of Mexico which is, unfortunately, theologically and financially tied to the Episcopal Church of the US (TEC). 

Caminemos Juntos is a wonderful example of the vision of Gafcon in practice. It demonstrates the great purpose set out in the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration 2008, namely ‘to free our churches for a clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ’.  At the heart of the Gafcon movement is a vision for the Anglican Communion to be an effective means of reaching people for Christ worldwide. True ‘Walking Together’ will, where necessary, create new structures to serve the gospel. It will not be distracted by a false ‘Walking Together’ which tries to change the gospel to serve old structures.

Canon Charles Raven 

GAFCON Membership Development Secretary

(For more pictures of this event click here)