- Do you have a decent church website?
- Is it up to date?
- Is it responsive – ie does it work on mobile phones?
- Does your own online profile feature your ideas and hopes and dreams other than a desire for people to turn up to church?
- Do you know what you are doing with twitter and facebook?
- Who could you learn more about social media from?
- Do you have a compelling reason why people should come to your church other than where it is or what denomination it belongs to?
- Can everyone in the church tell you in one sentence what that compelling reason is?
- What is your beginners’ course like?
- What comes after the beginners’ course?
- Do people like the preaching?
- Do people enjoy the music?
- Have you dealt with conflicts from the past?
- Are the people friendly?
- Do you have any new groups starting soon?
- Do you talk about making the world a better place?
- How will people experience joy if they come to your congregation?
- If someone from your past turned up unexpectedly at worship how would it make you feel?
- How do you identify newcomers and what do you offer them?
- What problems will arise if you do grow and how will you deal with them?
- Do claims that you welcome everyone stop you working at welcoming those who traditionally find it hard to find a home in church?
- Do you use language that is inclusive of everyone?
- How do you know?
- Is there any identifiable group of people that you can’t explicitly say are welcome because of how an individual or group in the congregation will react?
- Do you want to grow or not?
20 responses to “Lambeth Conference – Some are Welcome in this Place”
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Aargh, horrible decision. My first “gut” reaction was no, make a point of not going and make it clear why not. Then I read the responses here and they’ve got a point too.
I hope you make the right decision for yourself that you feel comfortable with. Interesting point too about the Catholic bit. I don’t consider myself Protestant as such, more a Catholic who is exlcuded from many things Catholic by the Catholic church. I’ve always been a bit confused though!
Good luck x
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I’m interested that all voices responding so far are female.
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Does the excess of female voices not simply represent the majority of congregations? Not, of course, of clergy – yet. :=(
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I’ve no idea what other congregations are like – St Mary’s is pretty gender balanced, as was my previous congregation.
Are there really congregations that are mostly female? How very odd.
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A convent maybe? Do you have convents in the SEC?
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There are convents, but not terribly large ones.
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Not only are all the comments so far from women (so let me make a modest effort to redress the balance), but there are far fewer voices than one might have expected, given the seriousness of this exclusion, which in the long run could affect all Episcopalians and Anglicans worldwide. The notion that one has to ‘qualify’ to attend Lambeth by criteria other than lawful episcopal consecration is a new and disquieting departure. Why are more people not protesting?
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Thought this might be of interest.
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I’ve only ever belonged to my current congretation. There are men, but old, unwired ones for the most part.
I’ve had another thought, though. Maybe women comment because women have been sidelined in the church for 2000 years. Coming out in sympathy, perhaps? -
“unwired men” – what a helpful description.
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