Blog

  • What does it mean to belong?

    So, here’s the thing. Over the last few weeks we’ve been doing our usual gathering of names for the congregational roll at St Mary’s. We ask people here to fill in a form each year before the AGM indicating that they want to be included on the congregational roll. It has taken a few years…

  • Quiet Wednesday – one week to go

    Guest blog post from the Vice Provost, the Rev Cedric Blakey Quiet Wednesday is the idea at St Mary’s Cathedral, an antidote to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. A day with no work, no shopping, no card writing or food prep. A day, well up to 6 hours, without emails, blogging or social media. A…

  • Episcopal Novelty and the Church of England

    I seem to have caused a small flurry (a flurryette?) of comments over on a thread on Thinking Anglicans by expressing the view that the Church of England is in the process of introducing a novelty into the episcopate that is undesirable and which they should at least have consulted the rest of the communion…

  • World AIDS Day 2014

    Here’s the final video in the series of conversations that I’ve been having with Marion Chatterley the Chaplain at Waverley Care. World AIDS Day video 2014 from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo. In this video, the tables are turned and Marion gets to ask me the questions. She starts by asking me why churches don’t seem…

  • What if Jesus chose the wrong brother?

    Can you just suspend your cries of heresy whilst you read this one blog post? Because it will make you think, that’s why. What if Jesus chose the wrong brother on whom to found his church? What would the church look like if he had chosen Andrew instead of Peter? People rather like doing speculative…

  • AIDS, HIV and the Church

    Here’s the next of the videos that I recorded with Marion Chatterley of Waverley Care: marion chatterley #3.movie from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo. In it we have quite a spirited conversation about HIV and the church. Marion explains to me why she thinks churches are making the HIV/AIDS situation worse in Scotland. Marion also gives…

  • Church blogging – all may, none must, some should

    The injunction “all may, none must, some should” is the classic prescription for how Anglicans deal with confession. However, it is worth thinking of it as a helpful way of thinking about church blogging too. The recent speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury in which he acknowledged the significance (and one suspects, in his mind,…

  • Church and State

    Hmmm…

  • Healthy Relationships

    Here’s the second video with Marion Chatterley from Waverley Care – take a look: marion chatterley #2 – healthy relationships.movie from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo. In this one we focus on what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like. We talk about why hidden relationships are common in church communities and how that puts people at…

  • Six reasons why [some] cathedrals are doing well

    The attendance statistics for Cathedrals in England have been published in the last 24 hours. As has been the case in recent years these are quite perky. Many cathedrals in England are busy, full of people and seven day a week operations. The immediate response of the wider church to this though is complex. Indeed,…