Here are the Good Friday addresses which I preached with the Rev Cedric Blakey today.
5 responses to “Diocesan Synod”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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
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Glasgow & Galloway and the Anglican Covenant
People keep asking me about how this diocese dealt with the Anglican Covenant and whether or not we passed it. Well, we were very faithful to the current processes of the church and engaged in quite a thorough consultation session at the diocesan synod on Saturday. I had quite a lot of input into how…
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On the STV couch
I was on STV’s Scotland Tonight this evening being interviewed by John Mackay. It was an enjoyable interview and gave me the chance to say that Christianity is about compassion and love, something that is sometimes in danger of being drowned out by the loud shrill antigay voices of the usual suspects. Today it was…
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Bishop’s Lent Appeal Video
This year’s Bishop’s Lent Appeal was launched on Saturday at the Diocesan Synod. This is the video that I produced featuring Bishop Gregor and Marion Chatterley to enable synod members to learn about the appeal.
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Sermon preached on 26 February 2012
Here's what I said on Sunday.
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