[1] It was founded on August 15, 2008, by an assembly of bishops, clergy, and laity gathered in Romulus, Michigan, for the purpose of ratifying the association's proposed statement of principles.
[2] According to its constituting declaration, the North American Anglican Conference is not intended to be a first step towards a merger of member churches, but exists for the purposes of Anglican churches and clergy working together in support of Evangelism, for fellowship, and for the "transmission of Holy Orders, especially for the Episcopate."
The ceremony took place in Mariner's Church, Detroit, famous for its annual memorial services for seamen lost on the Great Lakes and for being referred to in Gordon Lightfoot's ballad about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
[5] The impetus behind the establishment of the NAAC, however, was not a perceived need for inter-Anglican cooperation in general.
The NAAC points to the "abandonment of Holy Scripture", "non-compliance" with the rubrics and spirit of the Book of Common Prayer (1928), and the redefining of the meaning of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion[4] by both liberal and some Anglo-Catholic jurisdictions as a reason for "Biblically-based Anglican bodies" to stand and work together.