Whilst working from home, I’m going to be updating the Daily Prayer resources that I make available.
Here are the files you need for saying Daily Prayer at the moment.
Kalendar for March – June 2020
Returning to God – Morning Prayer
Returning to God – Evening Prayer
Some days are particular feast days and need a different book. Here’s Morning Prayer for Feast Days.
(Evening Prayer for Feasts still to come).
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…)
26 October 2014 – Dedication Sunday from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo. You have come to something that cannot be touched – in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen I suppose I should give the full verse of the text that I want to preach on this…
20141012 kelvin holdsworth – gnashing of teeth.movie from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo. ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy…
Exciting news this morning – we have a date for the first same-sex marriages in Scotland. The date is within this year – just. The first day on which most couples will be able to get married will be 31 December 2014, the day known in Scotland as Hogmanay. There’s going to be some parties…
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