Joining God’s Global Mission
by Logan Gates
As Anglicans, we speak often of being part of the global church, but what does that mean in practice? Through GAFCON, we have institutional connections to other Anglican provinces around the world. We also have a shared history in the Reformation, the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. But how can we go from formal ties to living, Spirit-filled partnerships in the Gospel?
It has been a blessing to see God unfold such a partnership at Christ Church Vienna (CCV), where since last February I have served as the Missionary Pastor in Residence while my family and I prepare to serve as missionaries with the Anglican Church in Santiago, Chile.
CCV’s connection to Chile began long before we arrived, with the church receiving missionaries from the Anglican Church of Chile to help engage Spanish-speakers in Vienna with the good news of Jesus Christ. This led to a pattern where now CCV alternates between sending highschoolers on short-term mission trips to Chile and receiving highschoolers from Chile on short-term mission trips to Northern Virginia. There has been a beautiful giving and receiving, where both bodies of believers appreciate the gifts and experience of the other and are knit together by a common love for the Lord and heart for the lost.
My family has had the blessing of stepping into this larger story of partnership. We were invited to Chile by one of the longer-term missionaries from Chile who had just been elected bishop back home, Bishop Juan Esteban Saravia. When he heard that my wife and I spoke Spanish, that I was ordained and had experience doing evangelism in the hard soil of Toronto, Canada, he thought we might be a good fit for a church plant in a well-educated, professional neighborhood in the capital city of Santiago, where secularism is on the rise and there are fewer resources in Spanish addressing the kinds of questions and objections to the Gospel that young people especially are raising today.
When our mission agency, the Society for Anglican Missionaries and Senders (SAMS), wisely advised us to get more church ministry experience before we left for Chile, that’s where CCV stepped in, offering to take me on staff temporarily to train me in church planting and Spanish-language ministry. Because CCV itself had been a plant, our rector Johnny Kurcina had a sense of what I should be exposed to, such as preaching multiple weeks in a row, learning how to set up a sound system, building relationships in the neighborhood, and deepening our knowledge of Spanish language and culture through the church’s Latino community.
As we enter the final stretch of our support raising and hope to deploy in the coming months, we feel deeply grateful and excited to be sent out to be part of God’s larger mission, which we are all called into, stretching back to Genesis and running through the Great Commission, the ministry of Paul and the early Church, and still advancing today in the ACNA, Chile, and in every corner of the globe. What a privilege!
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Rev. Dr. Logan and Samantha Gates have been part of Christ Church Vienna since #### and will soon be serving in Chile with SAMS. Learn how you can support them through prayer and financial partnership here.
