Anglican Bishops Gather
from July 26th to August 8th

Convened by The Archbishop of Canterbury in 2022, the Lambeth Conference is a gathering of bishops from across the Anglican Communion for prayer and reflection, fellowship and dialogue on church and world affairs.

With the theme of ‘God’s Church for God’s World – walking, listening and witnessing together,’ the conference will explore what it means for the Anglican Communion to be responsive to the needs of a 21st Century world.

~ from the official website of The Lambeth Conference

Lambeth Calls

At the Lambeth Conference in 2022, the Archbishop of Canterbury has decided that the bishops gathered should adopt a process called “Lambeth Calls” for the work they do on the declarations, affirmations, and common calls to the church.  The bishops will consider each of the Calls together and will then be able to respond with one of three options:

• ‘This Call speaks for me. I add my voice to it and commit myself to take the action I can to implement it.’
• ‘This Call requires further discernment. I commit my voice to the ongoing process.’
• ‘This Call does not speak for me.  I do not add my voice to this Call.’

The reason the archbishop has made the change to move from resolution to call is that the word resolution implies legal decision which is binding and that goes beyond the powers of the Conference.  A ‘call’ represents what the so-called ‘resolutions’ did up to the Conference of 1998.  A call is a decision of the Conference which comes as an appeal to each church of the Communion to consider carefully, and hopefully to follow it and respond to it in its own situation.

Calls chosen by the bishops at the conference will be formally issued in the report of the Lambeth Conference 2022.

The focus of the Lambeth Conference is exploring what it means to be ‘God’s Church for God’s World’ in the decade ahead.  Bishops will discuss several themes through morning Bible Expositions on 1 Peter, and plenary sessions during the Lambeth Conference.

Lambeth Calls will be shared on these themes which will include:
• Mission and Evangelism
• Reconciliation
• Safe Church
• Environment and Sustainable Development
• Christian Unity
• Inter-faith Relations
• Anglican Identity
• Human Dignity
• Discipleship

~ adapted from information found on “Texts of Calls to be discussed at Lambeth Conference published” and “Lambeth Calls document” pages on The Lambeth Conference website.

Lambeth Palace, London, one of the sites of the Lambeth Conference. Photo: Lambeth Conference/Neil Turner