Did you know that there are roughly 97 million Anglicans worldwide?[1] Though mainly in the Global South, they are represented on every continent and here at Gordon-Conwell. As a multidenominational seminary, Anglicanism is one of the 85 Christian traditions and denominations through which we develop “a thoughtful, loving, Christ-centered community of global discipleship.” Our alumni serve worldwide, including at the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) where alumnus Dr. Foley Beach (D.Min. ’02) is Archbishop.

The Office of the Chapel invites our community to two chapel services to learn more about the Anglican worship tradition on November 17 and 18 at 11:10 a.m. The service on Tuesday, November 17, will draw from the Ugandan Book of Common Prayer, the home nation of Nuwamanya Mategyero, the leader of the Anglican Students Fellowship at the Hamilton campus. He and Dr. David Currie, Anglican priest and Dean of the Doctor of Ministry Program, will share in preaching a dialogue sermon. On Wednesday, November 18, alumnus Fr. Esau McCaulley (M.Div. ’05), Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and author of Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope, will deliver a sermon in a service based on the ACNA Book of Common Prayer.

In-person attendance requires pre-registration because of COVID-19 precautions, but both services will be livestreamed on Facebook.

As described by the ACNA, “The Book of Common Prayer is a form of prayers and praises that is thoroughly Biblical, catholic in the manner of the early centuries, highly participatory in delivery, peculiarly Anglican and English in its roots, culturally adaptive and missional in a most remarkable way, utterly accessible to the people, and whose repetitions are intended to form the faithful catechetically and to give them doxological voice.”[2]

With Anglican Week approaching, Dr. Currie shares a prayer with our community from The Book of Common Prayer:

“Almighty God, by your gift alone we come to wisdom and true understanding: Look with favor, we pray, on our universities, colleges, and schools, especially Gordon-Conwell, that knowledge may be increased among us, and wholesome learning flourish and abound. Bless those who teach and those who learn; and grant that in humility of heart they may ever look to you, the fountain of all wisdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”[3]

[1] World Christian Database. https://www.worldchristiandatabase.org.

[2] “2019 Book of Common Prayer.” Anglican Church in North America, 2020. https://bcp2019.anglicanchurch.net.

[3] A Prayer for Schools, Colleges, and Universities (Anglican Church of North America Book of Common Prayer, p. 661)

Nuwamanya Mategyero is the leader of the Anglican Students Fellowship at the Hamilton campus and a current M.Div. student.

Dr. David A. Currie is the Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program and the Vice President of Cohort-Based Education. He is currently serving as a priest in the Anglican Church of North America and is the faculty advisor for the Hamilton Campus Anglican Formation Program.

Rev. Canon Esau McCaulley, PhD, is a New Testament scholar and an Anglican Priest. After completing his M.Div. at Gordon-Conwell, he completed his doctoral studies at the University of St Andrews where he studied under the direction of N.T. Wright. His research and writing focus on Pauline theology, African American Biblical interpretation, and articulating a Christian theology of justice in the public square.