Here’s the perfect pancake receipt one more time.
Ingredients:
100g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 large heggs
200 ml milk
75 ml water
50g melted butter
Method:
Sieve
Whizz
Fry
#pisky
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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Healthy Relationships
Here’s the second video with Marion Chatterley from Waverley Care – take a look: marion chatterley #2 – healthy relationships.movie from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo. In this one we focus on what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like. We talk about why hidden relationships are common in church communities and how that puts people at…
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Six reasons why [some] cathedrals are doing well
The attendance statistics for Cathedrals in England have been published in the last 24 hours. As has been the case in recent years these are quite perky. Many cathedrals in England are busy, full of people and seven day a week operations. The immediate response of the wider church to this though is complex. Indeed,…
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HIV and AIDS in Scotland in 2014
Check this video: marion chatterley #1.movie from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo. It is World AIDS Day next week. To mark that date this year, I’ve recorded a number of conversations with Marion Chatterley in connection with her work as Chaplain to people with HIV and Hep C in Scotland. Here are some of the things…
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Sermon for Christ the King 2014
Sermon preached on 16 November 2014 by Kelvin Holdsworth from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo. Well, I wonder how many of you have met the Queen. Or indeed any other head of state. For in a congregation that is as diverse as this one, we have people here from a variety of places – some from…
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