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Hallo again to all on this day of Pentecost.
What has been keeping us busy? Well, of course, it begins with our 'day jobs': all of us are unpaid volunteers who spend our regular work-week toiling to support ourselves and our families. Our work for SoAJ comes from our time outside our employment. But what is that work? It's hard to explain succinctly. Some of what SoAJ does is obvious, like Anglicans Online and anglican.org. We also make contributions to Thinking Anglicans and Project Canterbury and Oremus and also various lower-profile websites. We provide web hosting and tech support to Anglican groups all over the world. But most of what we do is more diffuse. On Tuesday last, this email message arrived addressed to SoAJ, and in thinking about it we realized that a wayward email message was a powerful (if obscure) reminder to us of where our efforts are invisibly expended. We took the liberty of redacting the identifying information.
So why, pray tell, was a seemingly sensible person asking the Society of Archbishop Justus for help locating a school chum who is known to be an employee of the US Episcopal Church? After years of these sorts of messages from all over the world, we understand perfectly: many people cannot find what they are looking for in official sources around the Anglican Communion, and, in frustration, some turn to us simply because they can find us. We are careful to advertise that we are in no way official, but that doesn't stop people from sending us messages addressed to Rowan Williams or Frank Griswold or Desmond Tutu, or asking us if they can be married in our church on August 14, or asking what time the main service starts or asking what Anglicans believe.
Perhaps in another generation or two, everyone who administers churches and dioceses and provinces and deaneries and cathedrals will have learned how to use digital communications media effectively, but don't hold your breath. Until that era, we intend to keep on until we drop, doing what we do, and we hope that before we shuffle off this mortal coil we find the wherewithal to recruit and expand and have our little Society become bigger and more self-sustaining. In the meantime, maybe you can help sustain it with your money even if we haven't yet figured out how to accept donations of time and effort. Donations to Anglicans Online go directly to the Society of Archbishop Justus general fund, which pays our ISP bills and buys our servers and our software licenses and helps us with our online outreach. We're grateful for those who have supported us in the past and will continue to be grateful for anything you can manage to give. You're not just funding Anglicans Online; you're funding the entire SoAJ effort of Anglican internet outreach around the world. See you next week. Oh, one more thing: in response to your questions: our church is available on August 14; the main service starts at 10.45am; we believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Last
updated: 15 May 2005 |
 This web site is independent. It is not official in any way. Our editorial staff is private and unaffiliated. Please contact editor@anglicansonline.org about information on this page. ©2005 Society of Archbishop Justus |
Today we've
been reflecting on how our own lives have changed when we tried to
listen to and follow the Holy Spirit. If
you've ever read the fine print at the bottom of the page or clicked
on the "Sponsors" link towards the bottom, you know that
Anglicans Online is sponsored by the 
There
are some bright spots in the church's online presence (more so in England
and Ireland than other places, it seems to us), but in general when
people use the internet to try to contact or learn about Anglicans
and Anglicanism, they go away frustrated and annoyed. We've tried the
direct approach of offering to help, to teach, or to pitch in, but
with a few notable exceptions, we've been rebuffed and our motives
maligned. There are plenty of people in the church who understand the
internet and can use it well, but in general they have no authority
and no money. The majority of Anglican church communications,
whether online or in traditional media, are inwardly focused almost
to the point of narcissism. 
