You can find coverage of the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church on twitter at http://twitter.com/secsynod
(It is me who is tweeting).
Questions welcome either to that account or to me on @thurible.
There are details of how to follow the synod over on http://www.scotland.anglican.org including details of the live audio feed.
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…)
I’ve been asked by several people recently for book recommendations for one thing or another. So, I’ve decided to put them online for all to see, along with some of the reviews in Inspires magazines which I’ve written or otherwise been responsible for.So here is a book blog. I’ll not be updating it every day,…
Epiphany – the season that we are in at the moment, is our reminder that God does not remain in the glittery wrappings of Christmas for very long. It is our reminder that we are dealing, in Jesus Christ with someone who encountered people. Someone who looked people in the eye and said – “Come…
Tried a quiz which attempts to work out whether or not you are a heretic. I’m not. Hurrah! (Not that I thought I was, of course). You scored as Chalcedon compliant. You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you’re not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us…
I’ve been away for a few days on the diocesan clergy conference. I arrive back to find that I’ve been turned into a pundit. The Equality Network has picked up a quote from this blog and included it in their January newsletter. My original post is here – the newsletter here.
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