New Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) Archbishop Steve Wood remembers texting Bible verses in March 2020 with the Rev. Geoff Chapman of St. Stephen’s Church, Sewickley, Pennsylvania, as he was about to be placed on a ventilator. Among the earliest U.S. cases of COVID-19, Wood would be sedated for 10 days and hospitalized far longer with an arduous recovery.

It wasn’t the first serious challenge that the rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, had experienced: less than two years before, most of the 48,000-square-foot church building had caught fire and burned, displacing one of the largest congregations in the ACNA.

Wood still experiences tinnitus in his left ear from his COVID infection, but he recovered and St. Andrew’s was rebuilt after a season spent meeting in a school cafeteria and lawn. That season prompted the congregation’s theme of “Beauty from the Ashes”: that God is working to redeem brokenness.

“The College of Bishops I know are the people who dropped everything to spend an hour in prayer” as he was in the hospital, Wood told a June 27 press conference at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, during the Anglican Church in North America’s Provincial Assembly.

Elected June 22 at a conclave of ACNA bishops, Wood assumes leadership of a small but growing denomination (the ACNA reported 12 percent growth in attendance in 2023).

“I did not come here with any expectation that this would be a possibility and was as surprised as anyone as the vote unfolded,” Wood said. The new archbishop, raised in a charismatic and evangelical church, was not among the names publicly rumored ahead of the conclave as a potential successor to Archbishop Foley Beach, who is stepping down after 10 years of leadership.

“This announcement will be as surprising to you as it was to me,” Wood wrote in an email to parishioners at St. Andrew’s Church, minutes before the public announcement of his election was made by ACNA officials. “Please keep us in your prayers as we pray for you.”

Delegates had the opportunity to hear from the new archbishop, who joined his wife, Jacqui, in speaking at a plenary session before the ACNA Assembly on June 28, as well as taking questions from media with departing Archbishop Foley Beach at the press conference. Wood also preached during the Assembly closing Eucharist at St. Vincent Basilica.

“Roughly 130 million people in America do not know Jesus Christ,” Wood told the press conference. “That is the most animated aspect of who I am: I want everyone to come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.”

Beach emphasized that Wood has a “proven track record” and that “this guy is bearing fruit.”

When the Diocese of the Carolinas, which spans North and South Carolina, was formed in 2012, only four congregations had a prior identity within the Episcopal Church. Today, it lists 40 congregations, 36 of which were begun as church plants. The diocese in 2023 reported 10,049 members and 5,823 attendees, placing it among the larger dioceses within ACNA. It is also among the fastest growing, adding 953 attendees in 2023, an increase of nearly 20 percent above the prior year.

Wood assumes office with more power than his predecessor had, as Assembly delegates voted to ratify canonical changes substantially accelerating the process for inhibiting a bishop. During Archbishop Foley Beach’s time in office, two ACNA bishops were deposed from ministry. An ACNA bishop can now be inhibited from ministry quickly by the archbishop after review and consent of a seated panel of three diocesan bishops.

The changes are significant for a denomination that has been cautious about investing power in centralized authority and operated functionally as a loose confederation of jurisdictions for its early history.

“We are a different denomination today,” said the Rev. Andrew Rowell, ACNA Governance Task Force vice chair, noting now-ratified canons requiring diocesan bishops to develop processes and procedures to report misconduct by priests, deacons, and even laity.

Wood also inherits leadership of a denomination deeply divided over the ordination of women (most ACNA dioceses do not ordain women to the priesthood, but nearly all of the largest, including the Diocese of the Carolinas, do). The ACNA also has overlapping diocesan lines, with some regions, such as South Carolina, having churches from up to five different dioceses.

“I believe that geographic dioceses are the norm within Anglicanism,” Wood said in response to a question about non-geographic, or “affinity” dioceses in the ACNA. The new archbishop has served on an Anglican unity task force that seeks to iron out issues among dioceses that overlap. “I don’t think it will be solved immediately. Those conversations will be had with the College [of bishops] itself as we move forward.”

ACNA officials continue to highlight growing relationships with overseas Anglican Communion provinces, several of which sent primates to participate in Anglican Relief & Development Fund trustee meetings, offer greetings at Provincial Council, and tour Trinity School for Ministry, recently renamed Trinity Anglican Seminary, in nearby Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

Among those present were Nigerian Archbishop Henry Chukwudum Ndukuba, Ugandan Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba, Chilean Archbishop Héctor (Tito) Zavala, Indian Ocean Archbishop James Wong, Rwandan Archbishop and GAFCON Chairman Laurent Mbanda, Myanmar Archbishop Stephen Than Myint Oo, Alexandria (Egypt) Archbishop Samy Shehata and Archbishop Miguel Uchôa of the GAFCON and Global South-recognized Anglican Church in Brazil, which exists separately from the Canterbury-recognized Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil.

Unlike Episcopal General Convention, ACNA Assembly is chiefly a mission conference with daily Bible studies (led by former Singapore Archbishop Rennis Ponniah), preaching by Church of England clergyman Vaughan Edward Roberts, rector of St. Ebbe’s, Oxford, and plenary speakers including ACNA Deacon John Stonestreet of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

A morning business session on June 27 was completed in under 90 minutes, in which delegates ratified constitutional and canonical changes to Title I and Title IV sections on the reporting of abuse allegations and on ecclesiastical discipline. Budget matters were taken up earlier in the week at Provincial Council, a smaller body that meets annually. The ACNA Assembly does not have the extensive committee structure of the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, nor does it pass resolutions on political matters.

In departing office, Beach, who will continue, after a sabbatical, as diocesan bishop for the ACNA Diocese of the South, was upbeat. He pointed to publication of ACNA’s 2019 Prayer Book for worship, the Anglican Catechism for teaching, and a budget and financial support for the denomination as key achievements for the church during his period of leadership.

“God has been blessing the work of our hands,” Beach told Assembly delegates. “The Lord has been with the ACNA despite challenges from the secular culture, the world, and even within the church.”

Beach said that the denomination has tried to remain focused on issues “directly related to our life in the ACNA” and that “We are about leading people into this transforming relationship; let us not forget this.”

“We’ve been building the airplane as we’ve been flying it,” Beach said of the Province.

Asked about what new members of the ACNA could pray for, Wood was direct.

“I need wisdom, I need the person of the Holy Spirit,” the new archbishop said at the press conference, requesting prayer for his marriage as the couple take on the demands of more travel and an arduous schedule. “I know the strain of this position.”

The denomination in 2023 reported an increase of 36 congregations to a total of 1,013, an increase in membership of 3,115 (+2.5 percent) to a total of 128,114 and an increase in attendance of 9,211 (+12 percent) to a total of 84,794.

The 2023 attendance numbers are a full rebound, exceeding pre-COVID levels, and are broad: only four ACNA dioceses reported any attendance decline in 2023. One was the now-dissolved Via Apostolica Missionary District, which saw most of its congregations transfer to the Anglican Network in Canada, the ACNA’s Canadian diocese.

Of the increase, 2,251 members and 1,791 of attendance can be attributed to the Anglican Diocese of All Nations (formerly CANA West) transferring from the Church of Nigeria’s North American Mission to the ACNA in 2023. The remainder is organic growth among existing dioceses.

The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina continues to report the largest membership in the ACNA, with 17,440 members (down 3 percent from 18,007 in 2022). The largest attendance was reported in the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others at 8,500 (up 6 percent from 8,017 in 2022).

Provincial Council is the annual governance meeting of ACNA, comprising a bishop, elected clergy and two elected lay members from each of 29 dioceses, alongside delegates from a handful of organizations with an official status.

The council is charged with producing a provincial budget, electing members to trial courts and the Executive Committee (a smaller governance body that meets monthly between annual councils). Canonical changes are also reviewed and passed before they can be brought for ratification before the larger assembly, which convenes every two to five years.

Among the canonical changes passing Provincial Council is a requirement that dioceses adopt safeguarding policies and procedures for both children and adults “no later than June 30, 2025,” and make those publicly available to the members.

Delegates also passed a canonical requirement to appoint at least two “Diocesan Reports Receivers” for reports of misconduct, and that neither of those receivers should be a diocesan chancellor.

The changes are noteworthy as ACNA emphasizes subsidiarity and has customarily been cautious about the requirements it places on member dioceses.

In addition to adopting a provincial budget and passing canonical changes, the Provincial Council received reports from various deans, including Bishop Ray Sutton of the Reformed Episcopal Church, who led ecumenical relations on behalf of the ACNA.

Sutton reported that ACNA has entered into full communion with both the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia and the Philippine Independent Catholic Church. Sutton also traveled to Rome for meetings with Vatican officials regarding continued ecumenical dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church.

Wood serves as Bishop of the Diocese of the Carolinas and rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

Originally from Ohio, Wood became rector of St. Andrew’s in 2000. It grew to become one of the largest parishes in the Episcopal Church (the seventh-largest when it left the denomination for the ACNA).

Under Wood’s leadership, St. Andrew’s was described by the Charleston Post & Courier as “one of the Lowcountry’s biggest church success stories,” growing to a membership of more than 3,200 and planting new churches in North Charleston and downtown Charleston.

In March 2020, Wood was hospitalized with COVID-19, recovering after spending 10 days on a ventilator.

A two-thirds vote of bishops with jurisdiction (seated diocesan bishops) is required for the election of a new archbishop. Wood will be invested in a service this autumn, but assumes the spiritual authority to take up his office on June 28 at the closing Eucharist of ACNA Provincial Assembly held this week at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

The archbishop-designate will receive the Provincial Cross from Archbishop Foley Beach, who will complete his second five-year term at the conclusion of the Assembly. Beach is not retiring, but will continue as diocesan bishop for the Anglican Diocese of the South. ACNA’s constitution provides that an archbishop who has served one five-year term of office may be elected for a second term but not a third.

Before the conclave, Archbishop Beach asked ACNA members to pray for the bishops as they considered his successor. The process ultimately leading to Beach’s selection in 2014 was challenging, with some bishops proving ineligible or unable to secure the necessary two-thirds majority. Beach, among the younger members of the College of Bishops at the time, was selected as a compromise candidate acceptable to bishops from different forms of churchmanship and conviction on Holy Orders.

In 2022, ACNA reported 977 churches, 124,999 members, and an average Sunday attendance of 75,583. Numbers for 2023 are to be released by the denomination’s communications officer during the ACNA Provincial Council.

You are the first successor to a founding primate. What are some of the challenges that you foresee?

Number one is just filling Duncan’s shoes. He has some really big feet. All of the responsibilities that are currently with the office of the archbishop are broad, and there is a lot to it. That’s going to be a challenge — discerning what to delegate and when to delegate.

There is no way, especially as we continue to grow, that the archbishop can do all of this by himself. He’s got to have other bishops helping him, and that’s my plan. You’ve got the whole international piece, the ecumenical piece, both of which are continuing to grow, and good things are happening.

Then you have the domestic piece, which is how we grow and multiply our congregations and are effective doing mission in this country. What Os Guinness said today about “taking back the West,” that’s what we need to be about here, and how to reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ, and be a small part of a true spiritual awakening in our countries.

The ACNA has been involved with some ecumenical partners such as the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Roman Catholic Church in critiquing the Health and Human Services Preventive Care Mandate for coverage of abortifacients and contraceptives. Where do you think that this fight is headed, and what are some of the religious freedom concerns that you have?

We are very passionate about this issue. That our legislators who call themselves Christians could turn a blind eye to all of our voices is very disconcerting. If we don’t stop encroachment — and it seems things have already gone too far — it seems like we Christians are now an easy target. We have got to stand up. Anything that mentions God or Christianity, you can’t talk about that. What we are seeing on high school and college campuses, in the public arena and with the military, is absolutely wrong. Christians have got to speak up and stand up. Our religious liberties are being taken. Tomorrow in my sermon I will mention two examples of people who have stood up.

In May you were one of a group of 41 Anglican bishops who signed on to “A Pledge of Solidarity and a Call to Action on Behalf of Christians and Other Small Religious Communities in Egypt, Iraq and Syria.” What is it that U.S. and Canadian Anglicans can do to support their partner churches that are vulnerable to pressures or attacks?

Obviously prayer, but where we can influence public policy in the U.S. and Canada, we should be trying to do so. Sadly, our public policy overseas has undermined our friends and allowed a lot of this to happen. I would hope that those in positions of influence would use those to make a difference, particularly with refugees in those parts of the world. We should be trying to raise money to take care of our brothers and sisters.

The ACNA just released its 2013 statistics and they reveal that the church is growing nationally, but that it is made up largely of small parishes and church plants with a median membership of about 60 people. You planted Holy Cross Anglican Church in 2004. What makes for good church planting, and how do we renew those Anglican congregations that are quite small?

The key to growing a parish, whether it is a church plant or one that is already in existence, is to model what Jesus did. Jesus says, “The Father sent me so I send you.” Jesus left his power and glory and all the benefits thereof and became human. We need to leave the comfortableness of our church environments and cliques and get involved in the communities around our churches, build relationships with people, and be the living presence of Christ in those communities. If that is happening, the kingdom is going to grow and the church is going to grow.

At the ACNA Provincial Assembly, many of the plenary talks could be joined together by a common theme of “don’t be safe.” Where are the areas where Anglicans are being comfortable right now, where we need to be challenged to push out into an area of discomfort or vulnerability?

Typically in most parishes, people come together on Sundays; they’ve been busy all week in their jobs and raising families. They’ve developed these Christian relationships that are wonderful, but there is no intentionality of going outside those relationships and serving, ministering, caring, giving, sacrificing for the Lord outside of church walls. It’s like we get people comfortable in the church there and they don’t take the next step of empowering and freeing people to get into the communities where people are living. That’s a whole different paradigm and mindset about how you do church. You want to see people at church and catch up with how they are doing, but at the same time there is so-and-so standing in the corner who just happens to be visiting in the church and nobody is really talking to them because they are engaged with catching up with their friends.

You have a long-running relationship with Young Life. What could an Anglican parish relationship with Young Life or similar parachurch ministries look like?

Young Life has church partnerships with congregations where they work together trying to reach high school kids in that area. The bottom line is that we can learn a lot from these people about how to reach people in that demographic. Young Life and some of these other organizations are just so skilled in how to reach the youth culture, and we’re oblivious to it.

People will tell me, “We don’t have any teenagers in our church” and don’t know how to get any. Yet there is a high school down the street with 2,000 teenagers in it and it’s like come on now, wake up, they are right there. But they don’t know how to go there and get involved in youth culture. The same could be said with children’s ministry. I think we have a lot of work to do there, and part of the role of the province is to help the dioceses be good at equipping their churches.

We have a lot to learn from parachurch ministries, and many of them theologically are right where we are and are opening to sharing ministry and doing things together.

What do you do in your spare time that is not church-related?

I run, ride a Harley, work in the yard. My son and I have taken up kiteboarding, we actually went to kiteboarding school in Honduras. There is a kite, you’re on a wakeboard, and the kite drives the power. I’ve waterskiied and wakeboarded for over 30 years. The handle that controls the kite is just like a ski rope, when you are skiing you turn it to shift your balance, but if you do that with a kite it turns the kite. So you have to totally keep your balance on the board. Teaching this old dog new tricks is just terrible. Also, in waterskiing if you fall you drop the rope, but with kiteboarding if you do that the kite just keeps going up.

Archbishop Robert Duncan, the church’s first primate, is concluding a five-year term, to be succeeded by Archbishop-elect Foley Beach, bishop of the ACNA’s Atlanta-based Diocese of the South.

“Many critics said we wouldn’t be able to elect a second archbishop and that only I could hold it together,” Duncan said at a press conference after the assembly’s opening Eucharist. “Well, guess what?” Duncan smiled, turning to Beach.

Duncan portrayed Beach as offering the same consensus that he said characterized his time in office, although he acknowledged “vigorous fellowship” in the discussions of a bishops’ conclave that tapped Beach as his successor.

“I count it as a real joy and sacred trust to be elected archbishop of the ACNA,” Beach said, adding that he believes “leadership is stewardship” and “leadership is also temporary.”

“Archbishop Duncan’s shoes are very big and my feet aren’t big enough to fill them,” Beach said, identifying the challenge that millions of people in the United States and Canada do not know Jesus Christ. “I’m counting on Jesus to fill the gap.”

ACNA officials also highlighted three areas of concentration: a new catechism, the continuing work of the Anglican Relief and Development Fund (ARDF), and Anglican 1000, an initiative providing resources to new church planters.

Canon Nancy Norton of ARDF reported that the agency has funded 165 projects in 34 countries since its 2004 founding, while Alan Hawkins of Anglican 1000 touted 488 new congregations planted since the denomination launched in 2009.

Speakers selected to address the Anglican Assembly indicate the direction in which the ACNA is moving: a focus on planting new congregations, advocating for religious freedom, and proclaiming the Gospel to a culture increasingly skeptical of truth claims.

“If the church does not stand boldly for religious liberty, there will be a moment ahead where we cannot do that,” Deitrich Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas said. “We should argue for every millimeter of religious freedom for the sake of those around the world who can’t.”

Metaxas was the first of a series of plenary speakers to address the assembly, including International Justice Mission founder Gary Haugen, Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria, and Culture Making author Andy Crouch.

Six primates from overseas provinces of the Anglican Communion were present, including Archbishop Tito Zavala of the Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America, Archbishop Bolly Lapok of Southeast Asia, Presiding Bishop Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya, Archbishop Stephen Than Myint Oo of Burma, Archbishop Henri Isingoma of Congo, and Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of Uganda. Archbishop Glenn Davies of Sydney, Australia, also attended.

The assembly devoted a relatively small portion of time to legislation. Instead, the gathering was primarily a missions and teaching conference, with speakers sharing testimonies and offering workshops on topics ranging from healing prayer to church marketing.

“I couldn’t imagine the Lord knocking on the door of my heart without any response. So I got up,” Archbishop Kwashi said of his decision to follow Christ.

Kwashi and his wife, Gloria, gave a passionate address on the assembly’s opening night in which they told of their decision to embrace Christ and an unexpected prompting that led them to eventually adopt 60 children.

“The Lord was calling me to walk with women and children, but I didn’t know in what direction,” Gloria Kwashi said.

“Whether you are Anglican or not, this is something the Lord has asked us to do,” Kwashi declared. “God gives us each other so that we may have the mind of Christ.”

Based on their experiences in Nigeria’s middle belt, where the Christian-majority population of southern Nigeria meets the Muslim-majority population of the north, the archbishop and his wife testified to the importance of proclaiming the gospel in difficult places.

“Your grandparents did wonders,” Archbishop Kwashi said of early Christian missionaries who came to evangelize west Africa. “Many of them died. Their graves are still in Jos. I visit them. But that is what builds courage.”

Nigeria has witnessed widespread attacks from Islamist groups such as Boko Haram, which seeks to establish the rule of shari‘ah and drive out Christians. Kwashi said two bombings had occurred that day in central Nigeria, killing about 50 people.

“Even after bombs, people are asking to be saved,” Kwashi said about the frequent attacks, many of which are directed at churches. “Even Muslims are coming.”

“You look at how the Lord is embarrassing the devil and you say, ‘Let the persecutions continue!’” Kwashi said. “The gospel is a power of God. When you see it save lives, you count your suffering as nothing.”

Haugen recalled how International Justice Mission, which secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation, and other forms of violent oppression, was launched from the Falls Church in 1997.

“Freedom is a difficult thing, and when human beings are set free of external bondage they quickly turn to internal bondage that inhibits their freedom,” Haugen said, describing a two-year “freedom school” to help former slaves.

“A slave doesn’t move into immediately thriving and into freedom,” Haugen said, adding that those freed must recover their fundamental ambition and desire for life, as well as relearn responsibility.

People in our world are in deep trouble, he said, and if we stand with them, we will also find ourselves in trouble.

“Church has always inherently been unsafe,” Haugen said. “Poor women and girls are in trouble on this world. Evil, it turns out, fights back. When you rescue the oppressed, free the slave, orphan, and widow, you are leading your church into trouble.”

“We have found ourselves in deep trouble, we have cried out and we have found ourselves in grace,” Haugen said. “We can cry out to him in confidence.”

Image courtesy of ACNA’s Facebook page