Day 13, The Day I better understood the Body of Christ"

Today started off similar to yesterday. In the bible study we talked about Anglicanism in our own cultures. The most interesting part for me was hearing form one of the guys who spoke about how the things the Episcopal Church does affects how Anglicans are viewed in his country. I've heard that before but neecr directly, it's quite different hearing it first hand.
Afterwards we had a teaching session on mission. We talked about the Anglican five marks of mission. Being:

• To proclaim the good news of the Kingdom
• To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
• To respond to human need by loving service
• To seek to transform unjust structures of society
• To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain the life of the earth

The point Ed was stressing was that even though evangelism is fundamental to Anglican views of mission, mission is much more than this. What I liked about this was that they seem to encompass the MDG's but in a Christian context. This has been my biggest problem with all the praise given to the MDG's in the church, they're great things to do, but the Church is more than a relief agency. These five marks in a sense are a baptized form of the MDG's.
The tour of the Cathedral wasn't as good as I had hoped but it was still interesting. We had to skip a bunch of stuff which was what I didn't like about it, but by doing so we were able to hear a lot of interesting stuff about what we did look at.
After dinner we went to a lecture on Anglican Identity in England. One of the more interesting points I took from it was that as an established church they've split the country into geographical parishes and everyone living in a parish is a member of the local church. The Anglican Church includes everyone in England whether or not they attend, they are available for everyone.