Global Missions Gathering
by David Handy
You are invited to a special global missions gathering in Richmond on Sunday evening, June 22!
The guest speaker will be Jenny Noyes, the intrepid Executive Director of the New Wineskins Missions Network and the chief organizer of the big triennial New Wineskins Conference on Global Missions coming up this September 17-20. Details here.
As anyone who has ever attended a previous New Wineskins Conference (NWC) knows, Jenny is a dynamic and inspiring speaker with a contagious enthusiasm for mobilizing and empowering us Anglicans to help complete the unfinished task of fulfilling the Lord’s Great Commission. If you’ve been wanting to know more about the NWC and why it attracts about 2,000 Anglicans, this is a golden opportunity to learn about this unique, uplifting event from the person who knows the most about it and what will make this year’s NWC extra special.
Jenny will be sharing a preview of the exciting lineup of Anglican speakers from around the world who will be testifying to the amazing things the Lord has been doing lately as record numbers of Muslims and other unbelievers are coming to Christ. Best of all, perhaps, the NWC is an unequaled opportunity for networking with other mission-minded Anglicans from all over the country. Personally, that’s what I love most about it. I get to see friends whom I basically only get to see once every three years, Anglican friends who are as passionate about obeying Christ’s call to go and make disciples of all ethnic groups as I am.
This is also a special chance for mission-minded individuals from around the diocese to see what the ministry we call GAP-RVA is all about and how it works. GAP-RVA (Global Anglican Prayer-Richmond, VA) is a multi-parish, city-wide prayer gathering of intercessors for global mission. Currently, it brings together prayer warriors from six Anglican churches in the Richmond area who meet quarterly to pray together and to hear a report from a visiting missionary about what Christ has been doing through his or her ministry to reach the lost who would otherwise probably never hear the gospel.
One of the side benefits of GAP-RVA is that it helps unify and bridge the gap between these six local churches that otherwise have little to do with each other, because the six congregations are a part of four different dioceses! (Happily, three of the six churches are in DOMA). But mainly GAP exists to heed the divine call to “stand in the gap” for the lost and for Cross-Cultural Workers (CCWs) around the world by fervently interceding for them (see Ezekiel 22:30).
If you’re curious about either New Wineskins or GAP-RVA and you want to explore the possibility of starting some similar multi-parish prayer network in your part of DOMA, then please consider coming and checking out our summer GAP-RVA gathering on June 22, from 7:00-8:30 pm, at Church of the Incarnation in the northwest part of Richmond. You’ll come away inspired and encouraged with an enlarged vision of what the Holy Spirit is doing today!
The Rev. David Handy is the Founder of GAP-RVA.