Here are the files you need for saying Daily Prayer at the moment.
Kalendar for March – June 2020
The Suffering Christ – Holy Week
5 responses to “Diocesan Synod”
-
I fight this every stinkin’ time I’m in church. The average age of our Vestry is 47, the eldest is 69 and the youngest is 28 (*waves*).
However, all I hear about is how we are a ‘grey’ church in fear of dying.
I think it’s too much trust in statistics and not enough in the power of the Holy Spirit. And I will beat that through their heads if it KILLS ME.
-
Conversations about mission that assume the Church is dying are bad enough, but at least the subject is being talked about. It’s worse when the mere idea of having a conversation about mission causes consternation and retreat behind the brocaded curtains.
If such a conversation is to get going at all, however, we need to be prepared to rethink radically our ecclesiology. It may not be strictly inevitable that decline will continue, but we need to be realistic about the prospects (such as they are) for future provision of ordained ministers and stipends to sustain them. All churches are facing a decline in these areas.
-
P.S. – I’m not leaving the Holy Spirit out of the reckoning, simply saying that sober and realistic thinking is one of the less trumpeted gifts of the Spirit.
-
I was feeling much the same Kelvin, I was starting to believe all the doom and gloom merchants and wasn’t looking forward to another 3 days of it. I didn’t really think it was the case but when the dripping tap just keeps on going eventually you start to wonder. LYCIG gave me the kick up the backside I was needing to stop listening to the negative and concentrate on the positive and there is lots of that about. If we keep talking about decline we will talk ourselves into it, we need to stop it now!
-
Mary Sue,
Perhaps some parts of our church are glad to be grey.
But seriously, while I applaud the resistance to ‘sociological determinism’ (i.e. decline is inevitable), I think we can also think creatively about our demographics before we chuck out the baby, or the bathwater. It’s time to recycle the grey water.
Some recent thoughts I had are here:
http://www.dunc.info/?p=94(I don’t know how to do that clever trackback thing…)
Previous Posts
-
Church AGM season
At this time of year, most of the churches I know best in this part of the world are having their Annual General Meeting. In some denominations it is called something different, but whether it is the AGM or the Annual Congregational Meeting or the Annual Stated Meeting or whatever, the dynamics are generally pretty…
-
Counting our many blessings – Scottish Episcopal Statistics
This Sunday is the day when the Scottish Episcopal Church counts how many people are in church. It isn’t a count of the number of people who want to be Episcopalians, it isn’t a count of those who say they are Episcopalians – in fact it isn’t even a count of Episcopalians at all. It…
-
Prayers on converting a Civil Partnership into a Marriage
In a few weeks time, here in Scotland, it will be possible for those couples who have entered into a Civil Partnership to convert that into a marriage. It is clearly a significant moment though interestingly, legally they will be regarded as having been married from the time they entered into the Civil Partnership rather…
-
We love you, American Episcopalians!
Two hundred and twenty five years ago today, something special happened in Aberdeen. Two hundred and twenty five years ago today, Anglicanism in the USA was set ablaze with the consecration of the Rt Rev Samuel Seabury, their first bishop. The fact that the consecration took place in Aberdeen is one of those quirks of…
Leave a Reply