I work for a Global enterprise, we have outlets in pretty much every country in the world, we have hospitals, and homeless shelters, we run orphanages, we have schools, we run feeding programs, we have hospices, we provide medical and health facilites, we do justice and reconciliation work, we provide homes for the homeless, and we do marriage councelling, basically we look after people from birth to the death, and we're in the business of behavioural alteration - you might of heard of it - it's called "The Church".- Canon J. John

The Anglican Communion emerged from the national Church of England into a world-wide fellowship involving people of widely different origins and cultures. It exists in almost every country in the world, with the same core beliefs, all preach the gospel and worship the Lord Jesus Christ, but each has it's own cultural flavour and style of worship, bringing a depth of variety to the entire body.

Responsible for this are the missionaries of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. British commercial and colonial expansion (with all its ills), did accelerate this one good thing, leading to the formal establishment of numerous Anglican Churches. In the 400 years in which the modern Anglican tradition has existed, the faith of its members has produced its own saints and martyrs, heroes who have borne witness to Christ.

Most of them are included in the Lectionary Calendar's of the countries where they served, but are often unknown globally. There are many others un-named who played important roles in the growth of the church and the spread of the gospel throughout the world. They patiently and faithfully served Christ in their day, some suffered for their commitment. We commemorate them today for their part in the life and witness of the Anglican Communion. Thanks to their faithfulness, today there are reportedly 85 million Anglicans worldwide.

The work continues, an important part is the Anglican Alliance which was first conceived at the 2008 Lambeth Conference. At this gathering of bishops from around the world, the Bishop of Peru told the conference that his diocese had suffered a terrible earthquake and asked: “Where was the Communion?”

No Church of the Communion in the face of a crisis should feel alone. There needed to be better coordinated help, so the Anglican Alliance was formed. Given the size of the Communion, the task was huge, calling for global consultation with every Anglican/Episcopalian Church worldwide. It took 3 years to pull it all together. The Anglican Alliance now serves as a platform to help connect, equip and inspire the worldwide Communion family of churches and agencies in transforming the world through development, relief and advocacy. The talented woman who pulled it all together was Revd Canon Rachel Carnegie (pictured above). She is now stepping back and the new Executive Director will be Rob Dawes (pictured above). For more news vist the ACNS - Anglican Communion News Service.