Church of England NGO

This morning a return trip to Columba College, this time to the seniors where despite causing a bit of a disturbance with the balloon talk n assembly I think I did all right. It was fun to discover that teenagers in Australia laugh at the same daft things as they do in Britain.
Lunchtime found me in Adelaide meeting with the ministers fraternal, a mixed experience with much talk of technology, and reaching the many lonely people in the community. All of them seemed very busy and indeed there was a constant departure of people beginning after twenty minutes, then half an hour and it was all over after 45 minutes. Interestingly, none of the local Anglicans turned up.
Straight from there to meet with the director of Anglicare South Australia Lyn Arnold. Lyn had recently come from World Vision an NGO to run Anglicare. It’s going to take a while to unpack all we talked about: an hour with Lyn is like a day with someone else or even possibly a week. One thing struck me in my imeediate reflections on our time together that Lyn had taken his NGO experience and approach and was now applying it to Anglicare. I wonder if the NGO model could be one which we could use to improve the partnerships of faith groups and the government.
In NGO’s it is partnership that is key; if a group does something good there is usually a discussion about what they will do next. In NGO’s they are accountable to their donors as to how the money is spent. In NGO’s capacity building relationships are key to the work they do. NGO’s combine the active funding and pastoral role with a prophetic challenging role. NGO’s often have to champion community projects to governments and broker complex deals. They are also places whre local operatives are encouraged to take initiative and also risks.
Is the Church of England an NGO?
If it's not I don’t see why it shouldn't be.