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- Boris Johnston will achieve his longstanding ambition to become a former Prime Minister.
- Stock market higher at end of 2021 than at the beginning (FTSE – 6,460) but higher inflation too (most recent CHPI – 0.6%).
- No progress for those hoping for marriage equality in the Church of England.
- State based hackers turn their disruptive attention to open source software. (Watch out WordPress).
- Donald Trump will remain the centre of attention.
- There will be midnight mass in St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow next Christmas Eve. People will be wearing masks.
- A rocky year for Nicola Sturgeon but the SNP will be returned triumphant to Holyrood, despite their record.
- No vote on Scottish Independence this year but like it or not, constitutional change is a-coming.
- Attempt to repeal the Human Rights Act, removing the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights from UK law. (It is a stepping stone to restoring capital punishment – the Brexiteers are not done with us yet).
- Legislation emerges in Scotland to restrict fireworks.
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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