An Ancient Faith for the Modern World
About Us
Holy Spirit Anglican Church is a place where you can belong. We are a group of ordinary people on a journey to experience an extraordinary God. We truly are ordinary – with real struggles and faults. Yet, in the midst of that, we are seeking to experience a real relationship with God and a genuine, caring relationships with others. All are welcome to join with us in this journey. Holy Spirit Anglican Church is a part of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
What is an Anglican church?
“Anglican” = “of England”, or “English”. The Anglican church is descended directly from the Church of England and is the oldest church body in America. President George Washington was an Anglican. Worldwide the Anglican Church is the 3rd largest Christian group behind the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. For years the main expression of the Anglican church in America was the Episcopal Church. In recent decades many have believed the new teachings and practices of the Episcopal Church have become contrary to the teachings of the Bible and historic Christian tradition. In 2009, in response to this, the Anglican Church in North America was founded. We are committed to the Bible as the Word of God, the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and salvation through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe and teach the Nicene Creed and Apostles Creed. We are intentionally liturgical, following a form of worship connected with what Christians have done for centuries as embodied in our Book of Common Prayer. We are “Ancient – Future” holding the ancient faith and ancient forms with a heart for people today and tomorrow! Offering an ancient faith for the modern world.
A catechism is “…used for instruction of Christian disciples. It is designed as a resource manual for the renewal of Anglican catechetical practice.It presents the essential building blocks of classic catechetical instruction: the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue). To these is added an initial section especially intended for those with no prior knowledge of the Gospel. Each section is presented in the question-and-answer form that became standard in the sixteenth-century because of its proven effectiveness. Each section is also set out with its practical implications, together with biblical references.” (An excerpt from To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism)
If you are interested in learning more, To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism is available for download from the Anglican Church of North America’s website. Click HERE to visit the ACNA’s website where you can download a copy of the Catechism.
The Catechism is in the process of being printed by Anglican House Publishers. Copies are available for purchase at amazon.com.
“The Book of Common Prayer (2019) 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.” ~ Preface, The Book of Common Prayer 2019
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We believe and confess Jesus Christ to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes to the Father but by Him. Therefore, the Anglican Church in North America identifies the following seven elements as characteristic of the Anglican Way, and essential for membership:
- We confess the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and to be the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.
- We confess Baptism and the Supper of the Lord to be Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself in the Gospel, and thus to be ministered with unfailing use of His words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.
- We confess the godly historic Episcopate as an inherent part of the apostolic faith and practice, and therefore as integral to the fullness and unity of the Body of Christ.
- We confess as proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture the historic faith of the undivided church as declared in the three Catholic Creeds: the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian.
- Concerning the seven Councils of the undivided Church, we affirm the teaching of the first four Councils and the Christological clarifications of the fifth, sixth and seventh Councils, in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.
- We receive The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship.
- We receive the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, taken in their literal and grammatical sense, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing the fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief.
In all these things, the Anglican Church in North America is determined by the help of God to hold and maintain as the Anglican Way has received them the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ.
“The Anglican Communion,” Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher wrote, “has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ’s Church from the beginning.” It may licitly teach as necessary for salvation nothing but what is read in the Holy Scriptures as God’s Word written or may be proved thereby. It therefore embraces and affirms such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the Scriptures, and thus to be counted apostolic. The Church has no authority to innovate: it is obliged continually, and particularly in times of renewal or reformation, to return to “the faith once delivered to the saints.”
To be an Anglican, then, is not to embrace a distinct version of Christianity, but a distinct way of being a “Mere Christian,” at the same time evangelical, apostolic, catholic, reformed, and Spirit-filled.