- Boris Johnson will be replaced with a Prime Minister who is more competent, more right wing and more difficult to beat.
- A good year for Michael Gove (who is almost invisible at the moment).
- Church of Scotland General Assembly votes to allow same-sex couples to be married in church. More significantly, almost no-one leaves in a huff.
- No progress for those seeking marriage equality in the Church of England.
- US Republican Party do well at the November midterms.
- Midnight Mass will happen at St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow – some people will still be wearing masks but it won’t be mandatory.
- Lots of people discover that cryptocurrency is not the sure thing that they thought. (Losses will disproportionately affect young people).
- Nicola Sturgeon will be forced to announce a proposed date for an Independence Referendum against her better judgement.
- Lambeth Conference will take place but some people forced to participate virtually due to continued pandemic in developing world. (No new sanctions against pro-gay provinces).
- Working from home/hybrid working becomes normalised for big companies. Consequent increase in ransomware demands.
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…)
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