Watch the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Christmas message to churches in the Anglican Communion around the world.

I feel so privileged to be able to wish you a joy-filled Christmas and a hope-filled 2022.

Right across the Anglican Communion, we are facing the most enormous challenges. Outside the tragedies of war, this is the biggest time of global tension we have faced since the Communion began.

So many parts of the Communion already know what it is to suffer. Floods, wars, civil war, corruption, suffering, illness, pandemic, malaria, measles, cholera, typhoid, poverty, oppression, persecution. These continue to be the facts of life.

But we can still find joy, because that’s the world that Jesus Christ came into.

All around the world, the Communion is meeting these needs. We can’t do everything, but we can do everything that God gives us the resources to do. I know of a place in the middle of a civil war, which is nevertheless running a COVID clinic. I know of a province, where there is appalling terrorism, which is strengthening communities. I know of places that are speaking up for injustice, and saying ‘this must stop’. I know of places that are welcoming refugees and internally displaced persons.

The Anglican Communion is called to the Five Marks of Mission – to tell, to teach, to tend, to transform and to treasure the world in which we live. We are God’s church for God’s world, as the Lambeth Conference title rightly says. That’s God’s mission to us. And we can give thanks at Christmas that all over the world people are carrying out that mission.

And the challenges that God has called us to face are indeed huge. At the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in Scotland in November I saw the struggles that people are facing all over the world, calling us to recognise that unless climate change is tackled it is a threat to every single one of us. None of us can be a passenger in this challenge. It’s one we all have to face.

As Christians we face this challenge because it is God’s world that we are seeking to preserve and care for. It is God’s church that has to look after refugees and face the issue of war, which will become worse if climate change just rages unchecked around the world over the next generation. We need to pray for that, act on that, speak about that, and take part in transformation. Let’s work together on that.

And then we look forward in hope as well. Not just at the challenges but in the fact that in ’22 we will meet online and physically. We will meet and we will celebrate that we belong to one another with all our differences. The bishops and their spouses will come from all over the world. To pray, to learn, to think, to commitment afresh to telling people of the hope that is found only and uniquely in Jesus Christ.

We will recommit to teaching people how to grow in love and in knowledge of Christ. To look afresh at how with changes in science and climate and so many ways we tend the needy. To talk about how we can transform unjust structures of society and bring reconciliation in places of conflict. And to campaign to treasure the earth in which we live.

I have learned so much about the Anglican Communion in the almost nine years that I have been Archbishop of Canterbury. I am not a pope. We are a fellowship, a Communion. Sisters and brothers in Christ of all ages and cultures. God has brought us together. Let us stay and walk together, to do God’s work together and to be together in heaven through the salvation he offers us.

Again, may God grant you Christ’s joy this Christmas, and Christ’s hope in this coming year.

Archbishop Justin Welby

The Most Rev. Justin Welby was ordained in 1992 after an 11-year career in the oil industry. He spent his first 15 years serving in Coventry diocese, often in places of significant deprivation.

In 2002 he was made a Canon of Coventry Cathedral, where he jointly led its international reconciliation work. During this time, he worked extensively in Africa and the Middle East. Archbishop Justin has had a passion for reconciliation and peace-making ever since.

He was Dean of Liverpool from 2007 to 2011 and Bishop of Durham from 2011 to 2012, before being announced as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury in late 2012.

Read more of the biography of Archbishop Justin Welby.

Mission of the Anglican Communion

As followers of Jesus Christ, Christians are sent into the world to live lives inspired by his love and teaching and to bring that transforming and sacrificial love into all aspects of society.

They invite others to find faith and follow Jesus as disciples, inspired to live a “Jesus Shaped Life.”

This work of mission is encapsulated in the Anglican Communion’s Five Marks of Mission:

The mission of the Church is the mission of Christ:

1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
2. To teach, baptize and nurture new believers
3. To respond to human need by loving service
4. To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation
5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth

The mission and discipleship of Anglicans and Episcopalians are shaped, expressed and lived out in numerous areas such as:

• Intentional discipleship, evangelism and church planting
• Gender justice
• Promoting reconciliation
• Tackling poverty, mass migration and modern slavery
• Relief and development
• Care for the environment
• Family matters
• Social justice and indigenous issues
• Youth and children’s ministry
• Theological education
• Engaging with people of other Christian traditions and of other faiths

Anglicans and Episcopalians work alongside some of the world’s poorest communities but also seek to influence the powerful, for example, through representation at the United Nations. The work might be through churches or agencies such as the Anglican Alliance.

Mutual support and interdependence are important. The Anglican Communion encourages dioceses around the world to form partnerships for mutual benefit. These are known as Companion Links.

Church of the Redeemer

Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.

Church of the Redeemer is at 6210 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.

The Episcopal Church welcomes you.