• Advert – Canon Missioner

    There’s a post advertised in the Church Times this week that it seems appropriate to highlight here too. We’re advertising for a new Canon Missioner for the diocese. This person will have a liturgical base in St Mary’s so as well as going out and about in the diocese, will be taking part in things here too. The primary task is to support the bishop in his role as leader of mission in the diocese. One of the things that the person will be working on is connecting the cathedral and the rest of the diocese together.

    It is quite an exciting job opportunity. Details will be in the Church Times for three weeks and the closing date is the end of the month.

    Here’s the advert:

    Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway

    Canon Missioner

    A full time, three year, clergy appointment is required for the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway in the Scottish Episcopal Church, line managed by the Diocesan Bishop, reporting to Diocesan Council and the Bishop’s Staff Group.

    The principal duties will be to support the Diocesan Bishop’s role as leader of mission and be responsible for organising education, training and development for those in licensed and authorised ministry in the Diocese. You will give oversight for Continuing Ministry Development and Ministry Development Review. In the tasks necessary for numerical growth you will motivate clergy and others to identify and encourage mission and growth opportunities with the congregations of the Diocese as they develop their Mission Action Planning. You will have regular liturgical involvement with St. Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow.

    An application pack giving full details is available from: The Office Manager, Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway, 5 St. Vincent Place Glasgow
    Tel: 0141 221 5720 or by Email: to office@glasgow.anglican.org

    Completed application forms including a CV, are invited by 31st January 2015

9 responses to “Turning Up and Being Counted”

  1. Lesley-Ann craddock Avatar
    Lesley-Ann craddock

    Thank you Kelvin
    What a read, I really enjoyed it, all of it. You have touched on the 3 things that I too have been wrestling with.
    Liturgy , turning up to be counted, and being open and real with our peers and counterparts.
    Hmmm I wonder if those aspects of being church in this post pandemic implosion of society will somehow be a catalyst to become braver clergy and have proper discussions about what matters to Gods church in its own context. Can we be diverse and not divided, can we lock into our heritage and yet be able to change too. Can Branson pickle save us. X

  2. Christine McIntosh Avatar
    Christine McIntosh

    Great stuff, Kelvin!

  3. Robert MacDonald Avatar
    Robert MacDonald

    Good points well made. We find some church members, who organise a community lunch on a Wednesday, then regularly say ‘we won’t make it on Sunday’. Seems the wrong way round – attendance on a Sunday should come first.

  4. Peggy Brewer Avatar
    Peggy Brewer

    Reading this made my day and contributes to my celebration of the season! Thank you!

  5. Calum Wyllie Avatar
    Calum Wyllie

    Reading this, I feel like it could have been written about me. I couldn’t have been more deeply involved with my church (felt deeply rooted in the weekly liturgy, sat on the PCC, led on diversity and inclusion, set up online streaming for the first time during lockdown), yet I haven’t been back in two years. There is definitely an element of that link of continuity having been broken, and it’s up to me to make the effort to reforge it again. But the anger is also real, and hard to pin down. When somewhere no longer feels like home, when you feel excluded (even when that person was responsible for leading on inclusion!), how do you find the courage to return? When the link with spirituality feels more present in other places (even when I used to absolutely value liturgy, the Eucharist, the community), how do you find a way forward? Too much thinking, and not enough getting on and doing, perhaps…

  6. Meg Rosenfeld Avatar
    Meg Rosenfeld

    Wow–this article is not only thought-provoking, and, to someone who’s a church-goer, extremely easy to identify with, but also entertaining and therefore all the more memorable. As one whose parish church (in San Francisco’s notorious Haight Ashbury neighborhood) nowadays gets about 15 people in the congregation on a “good” day, I do often wonder whether we’re ever going to bounce back from this expletive-deleted pandemic. Personally, I have no choice: I am, on the aforementioned good day, 50% of the alto section, and on other days, 100% thereof. All you folks out there don’t know what you’re missing–except, of course, those of you who are watching on your home computers.

  7. Father Ron Smith Avatar

    Well said, Kelvin Perhaps we clergy don’t stress enough the fact that the Host at our worship is not the clergy, but the Incarnate Son of God; who empowers us to the extent that we are willing to be empowered for daily life and work. I still think of that lovely phrase “Turn towards HIM and be radiant”. What a thrill!

  8. Kennedy fraser Avatar
    Kennedy fraser

    Yes,I still wonder if we have counted all those spiritual communions

  9. John Davies Avatar
    John Davies

    My church (suburban, evangelical Anglican in Birmingham, UK) took a long time to really recover from the lockdown and subsequent fears, but seems to be close to its pre-shutdown numbers again. What my wife and I noticed was that for quite some time the congregation was largely made up of its elderly members – ie those who are not perhaps so nifty with the electronic gadgetry of our age and, also, those who most wanted company. Younger families took a lot longer to return, but are now coming out of the woodwork again.
    One interesting point is that my old church reported a big increase in deaf people watching their zoom or youtube services, because one of the congregation provided signage at the front. Their new found audience felt greatly enabled to join in when they may otherwise never have done so. Is this something worth thinking more about?

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