[Episcopal News Service] The Anglican Consultative Council is one of three Instruments of Communion, the others being the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops and the Primates Meeting. The archbishop of Canterbury (who is president of the ACC) is seen as is the “Focus for Unity” for the three instruments.

Formed in 1969, the ACC includes clergy and lay people, as well as bishops, among its delegates. The membership includes from one to three persons from each of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces, depending on the numerical size of each province. Where there are three members, there is a bishop, a priest and a lay person. Where fewer members are appointed, preference is given to lay membership.

The ACC constitution is here.

The Episcopal Church’s ACC members in Lusaka were Connecticut Bishop Ian Douglas, the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings and Rosalie Ballentine of the Diocese of the Virgin Islands. Douglas ends his three-meeting term with this meeting.

The council meets every three years or four years and the Lusaka meeting is the council’s 16th session. The first meeting was held in Limuru, Kenya, in 1971. The ACC last met in late 2012 in Auckland, New Zealand. The ACC has not gathered in Africa since its ninth meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1993.

The roster for ACC16 is here.