Michael Kellahan Executive Director of Gafcon (Global Anglican Future Conference) Australia on being globally aware.
I bought a beaten-up second-hand globe from a charity shop for $12. It looks a bit faded and fragile, but it does the job. It sits in my office as a reminder that the world doesn’t end on the corner of the Google Maps screen. It doesn’t end at the diocesan or state border.
We are connected with people around the world, in ways both beautiful and powerful.
The “G” in Gafcon stands for Global, and Gafcon is a remarkable connection of people from all over the globe. We are united with brothers and sisters in distant places, working together for the cause of Christ. But that can be hard to see, especially when our focus is so often on the local, the immediate, and the familiar.
These global connections are real. I remember at the 2024 Gafcon Australia conference in Brisbane meeting with Perth Anglicans who connect in mission trips each year to Anglican brothers and sisters in the refugee camps of Laos. Together we were listening to the Myanmar bishop who shared heart-wrenching stories of the way God is at work in a persecuted church. Or the conversation at the Gafcon Global conference in Kigali, where a North West Australian and an Anglican from the Arctic Circle bonded over the challenges of ministry in dioceses with small itinerant and indigenous populations vast distances and harsh environments. One had sand, the other had snow.
Of course many Anglicans need no reminder of global connections. Many Sudanese Anglicans fled their homes because of muslim persecution, then worshipped in the refugee camps of Cairo before arriving in Australia. Their refugee and diaspora experience is an important part of the Gafcon global story – Gafcon has maintained connections to bishops and churches now scattered around the world. And the Sudanese Anglicans are not alone. Connections like this matter. Connections like this have potential to strengthen us all to contend for the gospel.
We need to see beyond our patch and connect. GAFCON helps make connections. It’s about breaking down walls, challenging assumptions, and learning from each other. A globe, with all its geographical divides, symbolizes how far-reaching those connections can be, even across the world. But it’s more than just geographical. It’s about understanding that no matter where we are, we are part of something bigger. We are part of a global church that stretches from the refugee camps of Cairo to the remotest regions of Australia, to the far corners of the Arctic.
Get a globe. Let your finger trace a line from your church’s location. What are the boundaries that stop you from connecting with someone on the other side of the world? How can we help introduce you to Anglicans anywhere on the globe who love the Lord Jesus and want to contend for His cause? There’s a world that needs to know Jesus and churches that are scattered among the nations. Brothers and sisters, in places far from you, are waiting to share their stories, their struggles, and their hopes. Don’t let small maps constrain your vision of what God might be doing.
Go out and buy that globe.
Michael Kellahan
Executive Officer