These meetings resulted in a unanimously agreed upon report with a covenant union document recommended for final approval by the House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria, and the Council of Bishops and General Committees of the REC/APA. Having received ecclesial approval of the report/covenant, the Archbishop and Presiding Bishops were able to act with the support of their churches.

It is also helpful to know that the descriptive wording, "covenant union," is used to convey a stronger relationship than simply the typical intercommunion kind of document. It clearly is an intercommunion (in communio sacris). Orders, prayer books, doctrinal commitments and practices were carefully examined.

But a covenant union is much more. Or perhaps I should say, it gets to what an in communio sacris is really supposed to be. The Nigerian leaders asked us to use the Biblical word covenant, for which I/we were glad. On a personal note, I wrote a book on the Biblical covenant 18 years ago that miraculously still stays in print.

The REC/APA are strongly committed to the theology of the covenant properly understood as the covenant first between God the Father and God the Son through God the Holy Spirit; and then secondly between Christ and His Church.

What our brothers and sisters in Christ were asking resonated strongly in the Scripturally plowed soul of our jurisdictions in other words. The Nigerians wanted the word covenant, therefore, because they desired our relationship to be first and foremost clearly Biblical.

Covenant is the Scriptural word used to describe how we are untied to Christ and one another. Second, the word covenant relates directly to mission. We are brought into the New Covenant of Christ's blood to be witnesses for the King of kings.

Third, the word covenant implies that the parties involved have equal responsibility with one another in the cause of Jesus Christ's mission in the world.

Time and again the Nigerians have expressed to us that they will pay their own way and they expect us to take their commitments to Jesus Christ, His supreme Word, evangelism and mission just as seriously as they do. Here's where it is so very humbling for us.

For so long the REC/APA have had wonderful doctrinal fidelity; the Church of Nigeria would never have become yoked with us if we were not to their satisfaction loyal to the Biblical and classical standards of Anglicanism.

Yet, we like many others in this part of the globe have let our Lord down when it comes to His mission. We have been too long on preservation and too short on proclamation! For this reason we have had to do much soul searching and repenting.

Not that we're relaxing our time proven commitments to classical Anglican belief (1662/1928 BCP, Ordinal and Articles of Religion) and practice. Rather it's a matter of regaining to our spiritual DNA what has been missing, mainly mission and evangelism. As you may know, to this end the REC/APA have recently renewed our commitment to take up Jesus' Cross and proclaim His Name in new and bold ways.

At our triennial General Council in Orlando, we joined with the APA, also conducting its national council at the same location and time, to set aside an entire day of business to learn about mission and evangelism from the wonderful staff of Christianity Explored. Archbishop Greg Venables was our guest preacher. Therefore, we enter this new covenant relationship with much learning and work to be done.

We thank our God always for allowing us to walk together with our brothers and sisters in Christ from Nigeria to reclaim this land for our God. Please pray for us. To paraphrase one of the church fathers, "Our boat is so small and His sea is so great." Thanks be to God He's in the boat with us; He's not abandoned us in this lost world; and, with Him in our boat we can pass through any raging storm.

+Ray R. Sutton, Ph.D. is Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of Mid-America and one of the foremost theologians within the Reformed Episcopal Church. He is also Chairman of the Interchurch Relations Committee for the Reformed Episcopal Church.