What is in Kelvin's Head?

Three links about mission

04/04/2013

Back to business. I’ve been having a quiet few days on the blog what with Holy Week and the joy of the resurrection to cope with.

Over that time, I’ve noticed a few articles appearing online which are well worth taking note of.

Firstly, the report which was headlined in the Sunday Times which was a survey of where the churches are. It is something of a tradition of the Sunday Times to carry surveys saying that the church is in trouble over the Easter weekend.

There’s a report about this one over on the Reuters site and it is worth looking at, together with some more analysis linked to over at Thinking Anglicans. Perhaps the least newsworthy item is that 76 % of Scots think the Church of England is out of touch. Well, you don’t say.

However, there’s things that are worth thinking about. The Sunday Times interpreted it all as meaning that there is a lack of moral leadership coming from the churches and that people are trusting clergy less. (Whether clergy are trusting the laity more or less is perhaps a much more interesting question).

Then over in the Spectator there is a rather depressing account of what it was like for Ysenda Maxtone Graham to go to a rural church for an Easter Day. It is worth a read even though you won’t like it. No, it is worth a read because you won’t like it. Before you click on the link, recite a bit of Burns a few times over. “O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.”

Then, rather more positively but just a troubling is Andrew Brown’s very thoughtful piece on the Guardian website: How do churches get new bums on seats? Get rid of the boring old ones.

Really interesting analysis of why church-planting has worked for some people – because it produces the commitment in younger people that is needed to make the church swing which they are unlikely to throw at churches that are struggling which are full of older people wanting things not to change.

Now, the string that ties these three pieces of work together is a hunch that the two things which affect whether or not someone new will come back to a church and give it a go are firstly what happens there on a Sunday and secondly how they feel about those who are there on a Sunday. (And it is worth pondering for a moment which might be easier to change).

Now, is there any way we can talk about that? Does it fit neatly with the mission discourse of the Scottish Episcopal Church at the moment? I’m not so sure, but I rather think it matters that we find some way of having that conversation.

What do you think?

mission

9 responses to “Turning Up and Being Counted”

Lesley-Ann craddock

26/11/2022

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

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Christine McIntosh

26/11/2022

Great stuff, Kelvin!

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Robert MacDonald

26/11/2022

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.

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Peggy Brewer

26/11/2022

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

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Calum Wyllie

27/11/2022

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…

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Meg Rosenfeld

27/11/2022

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.

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Father Ron Smith

27/11/2022

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!

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Kennedy fraser

28/11/2022

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

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John Davies

01/12/2022

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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