ACNA SEES MULTI-YEAR GROWTH

By Jeff Walton

THE LIVING CHURCH

June 23, 2025

Attendance in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is up by double digits for the third consecutive year, according to congregational report data released June 19 during the denomination’s Provincial Council meeting at Trinity Anglican Seminary in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

“We’ve grown in every category that we track,” said Dan Hassler, director of administration and operations. “We are at highest attendance and membership of all time.”

The denomination in 2024 reported a net increase of 14 congregations to a total of 1,027, an increase in membership of 1,997 (+1.5 percent) to a total of 130,111 and an increase in attendance of 11,354 (+13.4 percent) to a total of 96,148.

“It is humbling and incredible,” Archbishop Steve Wood said of the numbers in his opening address to the council. “And it makes me eager to see what the Lord is up to next.”

Provincial Council is the annual governance meeting of the ACNA, comprising a bishop, elected clergy, and two elected lay members from each of 28 dioceses, alongside delegates from a half-dozen ministry organizations with an official status.

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

Congregational Reports

Hassler said leading indicators, including baptisms (+207, or 5.6%), confirmations (+656, or 15.8%), and weddings (+104, or 17.4%) are also up. These metrics are regarded as signaling the direction of future membership and attendance numbers. For the first time, 27 local churches now have an average attendance exceeding 500, up from 16 surpassing that number the year before.

Conversations with council delegates indicated different sources of growth, among them a post-COVID return, as well as an increasing number of people specifically seeking Anglican worship.

The Rev. David Drake of Church of the Resurrection in Timonium, Maryland, in a June 20 concluding panel interview with Archbishop Steve Wood, discussed the Asbury Outpouring, 16 days of continuous prayer and worship that began at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, on February 8, 2023.

Nearly all 41 churches in the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic have grown in the past two years (Resurrection’s attendance grew 38%). The Baltimore-area rector said the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit was responsible for the growth. Provincial Council organizers highlighted 1 Corinthians 3:7 (“So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth”).

Provincial finances also improved—2024-25 is the first fiscal year since its 2009 inauguration that the ACNA has operated fully within financial sustainability, reporting a budget surplus of $435,000, Executive Director Deborah Tepley said. The Provincial Executive Committee will determine how to spend surplus. Tepley said it may go toward decreasing a $175,000 debt, establishing cash reserves, or investing in missional priorities such as church planting, leadership development, or the Common Life Commission (CLC).

The latter exists to address overlapping jurisdictions, work toward regionalization, and help mediation/training of diocesan leaders. Bishop Steve Breedlove, the CLC’s chairman, said the commission’s goal is for dioceses to not step on each other’s toes, work together in creating missionary dioceses that work collaboratively, and provide resources to one another “against a scarcity mindset.”

Governance

Among the first items addressed at a June 19 business session was the appointment of a vice chancellor for the province to assist safeguarding. Sexual abuse reporting and disciplinary canons have been a continued point of discussion within the ACNA. Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest has faced allegations of mishandling abuse.

This year the denomination implemented requirements for every diocese to have a protection policy for children and adults in place and published by the end of June and at least two reports receivers in place by the end of this year, neither of which can be a diocesan chancellor with conflicting legal responsibility.

“We have 91 percent of our dioceses reporting progress toward these improvements, and we will continue to support these efforts to ensure 100 percent of our dioceses meet these standards by the end of December,” Wood said in his address to the council. He cited a study, backed by the National Institutes of Health, finding that incidents of abuse in churches and schools decrease by an estimated 60 to 72 percent with improved reporting systems.

“I take this seriously and this is why you will hear a lot about safeguarding from me this year,” the archbishop said.

Among the changes ahead are a complete overhaul of the ACNA’s Title IV (disciplinary) canons.

“There have been structural inefficiencies baked into the system,” the Rev. Andrew Rowell, Governance Task Force chairman, told the council in outlining a case for comprehensive reform. “While the present Title IV system was designed to be flexible and simple, neither accusers nor accused trust the current system, since it lacks sufficient transparency.”

Rowell said proposals for a revised system will have explicit rules and powers “to establish clarity.”

The Task Force chairman outlined a year of review and comment beginning July 29 with the release of revised Title IV canons at a provincial town hall with Archbishop Wood and Rowell. The ACNA will release study materials, including analysis and commentary. In 2026, Provincial Council will vote on the revised canons. If the canons pass, a specially called Provincial Assembly will take them up for ratification, likely in the autumn of 2026.

Jeff Walton is communications director and Anglican program director for the Institute on Religion & Democracy in Washington, D.C.