Archbishop Thabo blogs from an Anglican meeting in Hong Kong

ACC-17 is being held at a hotel outside central Hong Kong. 

Archbishop Thabo blogs from a meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). The council is one of the four "Instruments of Communion" of the world-wide Anglican family, the others being the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference and the Primates' Meeting. The ACC is the only body which includes bishops, other clergy and lay representatives.

After a two-hour delay at OR Tambo, we have arrived safely. Louisa Mojela from our Province and I are both on the council's standing committee and so have a meeting tomorrow before ACC-17 starts. It is labelled ACC-17 because this is the 17th time the body has met. The first meeting took place in Kenya in 1971 and the last time it happened in South Africa was when ACC-9 met in Cape Town in 1993 during the archiepiscopate of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The ACC is the most representative Anglican body in the Communion and receives reports of commissions, networks and the Anglican Communion Office in London. It also passes resolutions on Mission, Ministry and Anglican polity. The last meeting was in Zambia in 2016.

Louisa Mojela is our lay representative, Canon Jerome Francis is the clergy rep and I represent the episcopate. Louisa's and my terms both end now, and Canon Jerome has another three years. This time round, we will be joined by a youth rep, the Provincial Executive Officer, the Ven Horace Arenz, who will represent us on matters of administration, and Canon Rachel Mash of Green Anglicans, who will represent us on environmental matters.

It is warm here and it drizzled just a bit when I took my walk after dinner this afternoon. We have a full programme and ask for your prayers for our Province's delegation and everyone meeting here.