But a full day planner is not what gets Bishop MacDonald excited. It's aboriginal Anglicans.
He calls aboriginals an "extraordinary gift" to Anglicanism, and he has seen how both traditions can enhance each other. "It's exciting for people like me, who have been deeply enriched by native communities, traditions, and ways of living, to see the essences of those things merge with the essence of the gospel," he said. "It's a powerful and wonderful thing and makes life worthwhile."
Bishop MacDonald is also excited about how a National Indigenous Bishop could represent a more ecological worldview, and he recently wrote an article on the topic. He said it's an "extraordinary thought, a bishop who would speak for that living relationship between people and earth."
So where are the National Indigenous Bishop and aboriginal Anglicans headed? "We want to go where the gospel takes us," Bishop MacDonald said, "to be a gospel-centered, gospel-based, gospel-motivated, and gospel-carried people."
He also offers this vision: "What we're really talking about is the living, loving, powerful, beautiful love of God that gives beauty to the earth and coherence to it, becoming more manifestly, visibly real in native communities, in such a way that the hungry are fed and the oppressed are set free, in such a way that we have an impact on the horrendous statistics that keep coming out of First Nations communities. Our vision, I think, is nothing less than the reality of God becoming more visible and tangible and people's lives being changed and touched."
Bishop Mark MacDonald has ministered in many congregations, including ones in Mississauga, Ontario, Duluth, Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon. He has served on many boards, written numerous books and articles, and is a third order Franciscan. He and his wife Virginia Sha Lynn have three children.
[Source: ACC News]
