4 responses to “Counting our many blessings – Scottish Episcopal Statistics”
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I wonder if the church has thought sufficiently about making it possible for someone who is in a 9-5 job and perhaps is out of town on weekends to attend church? Should early evening weekday services, or early morning ones not be more in evidence?
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There are churches which have early morning services – if I’m honest I know of none that is terribly well patronised by people who are heading out of town for the weekend.
The question has certainly come up before as to whether it would be possible to establish a regular congregation in a city like Glasgow which met for a main weekly service at a time different to Sunday morning. (There are one or two services like this in the City of London, I think).
St Mary’s tried for a time to use the 5-7 pm weeknight slot for events and services. This had been dropping off before I came here and it was hard to see a way forward for those slots. Good things came out of the experiment but it is interesting that the ones which continued and took on on a life of their own were not liturgical. The poetry group, for example, came from this time.
I’m aware of a city centre church in Edinburgh which has just started to have a Saturday vigil mass like many Roman Catholic churches have. That doesn’t answer the question about people going out of town for the weekend but it is interesting that they are experimenting with that at the current time.
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I do recall a church adjacent to a large factory that managed to hold a lunchtime communion service on a weekday. Only really works if everyone takes their lunch break, and has it at the same time, of course.
On the wider point there are those of us who would be regular attenders at Episcopalian services were it logistically feasible. I would certainly consider myself an Episcopalian even though it would take a 28 hour round trip to enable me to attend on a Sunday. I can’t imagine there are more than a few dozen folk in that situation nationwide, of course.
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Thanks Jo – I’m aware of a number of people who regard themselves as members of St Mary’s who can’t physically get here for reasons of geography. I’ve been trying to think through what might be done to make such links stronger for a while.
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Previous Posts
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Sermon – 13 March 2005
On Friday afternoon, I had the pleasure of spending several hours sitting in our Cathedral Church in Perth for the consecration of our new Bishop, the Rt Rev David Chillingworth. Sadly, I was not sitting in a seat which afforded me a view of the proceedings. Indeed, I was very much behind a pillar and…
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10 Commandments
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Bishop Watch
The Scottish bishops have released a new statement about the usual topic. Its not bad either.Take a look: Bishops' StatementI've been writing a response today, which appears on the Changing Attitude Scotland website: www.changingattitudescotland.org.uk
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Freecycle
Here is a good internet idea – the Freecycle network. It works a bit like Ebay except everything is free. The idea is to promote recycling by offering unwanted things to others for free. The network is up and running in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but not in the Stirling/Forth Valley area yet. http://www.freecycle.org
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