There’s a bit of a hoo-ha going on in Twitter about this at the mo, clergy a bit miffed about being called a ‘limiting factor’.
The only experience I’ve had of a lay person starting up a ‘cell church’ in his house was not good. He turned out to be someone with a massive ego who wanted God to curse everyone who disagreed with him!
O yes - I've come across someone like that...
OTOH, having an established parish or congregation run largely by the laity is nothing new, and there are AIUI churches whose de facto *vicar* is actually a licensed Lay Minister.
I'm not too sure about the 10000 *new* churches, though, and I admit I still haven't read the article - but where are their congregations to come from? New converts? Or from existing (and possibly struggling) churches?
There’s a bit of a hoo-ha going on in Twitter about this at the mo, clergy a bit miffed about being called a ‘limiting factor’.
The only experience I’ve had of a lay person starting up a ‘cell church’ in his house was not good. He turned out to be someone with a massive ego who wanted God to curse everyone who disagreed with him!
O yes - I've come across someone like that...
OTOH, having an established parish or congregation run largely by the laity is nothing new, and there are AIUI churches whose de facto *vicar* is actually a licensed Lay Minister.
I'm not too sure about the 10000 *new* churches, though, and I admit I still haven't read the article - but where are their congregations to come from? New converts? Or from existing (and possibly struggling) churches?
"Resource Churches" will presumably supply the lay leadership [shudder] if a congregation is full of newbies. And if it's not, then the members must have been poached.
It's being seen in some circles as an Evangelical takeover. By definition these *new* churches must be plants over and above the existing Parish system. I can't shout too much having been for the past few years part of a congregation that was outside the existing Parish system - but from what I've seen of all this on the ground its pie in the bloody sky. Our ex-vicar (whose redeployment started this thread) is meant to be creating 500 of these new lay-led congregations. God knows what out of - breadcrumbs and butter beans?
The evangelical takeover dystopia is entirely possible; our current struggles to find a new church home are not helped by the current demography and offerings - lets put it this way, if we were more evangelical and less been bitten in the arse by this sort of thing before, a new church with a young enthusiastic leadership with the support of a big church down the road would look, superficially, really really tempting.
Which of course it is. Sacramental ministry becomes structurally impossible
I take it that Fresh Expressions are now stale. Would anyone like to actually say why these 10000 should succeed where FEs and the current parish structure have failed? What are the key structural impediments? Bureaucracy? Egos? Can anyone involved even spell spiritual abuse?
The current and future shortage of vicars means that more and more existing parishes will simply have to be lay-led.
However, as @KarlLB says, this idea of 10000 (!) new *congregations* is just pie-in-the-sky. Such an achievement (?) would mean at least 300000 new converts, and I can't honestly see that happening any time soon.
The church is already finding it hard to cope, even with Covid on the run (so we are told), and the continual faffing about regarding what people do with their genitalia is hardly likely to attract all these eager new Anglicans...
Part of this is fuelled, I fear, by a belief that there are thousands of people who would flock to church if we just did it the right way to appeal to them.
I don't think some of the CofE PtB realise just how entirely secularised our country now is.
He's pretty wrong here: "those who await “release” to lead are not likely to be drawn from the conservative traditional wing of the church, whose views on the sanctity of marriage as a union between one man and one woman isn’t conducive to an amorphous church plant to attract the young."
No, they'll be drawn from the evangelical wing of the church whose views are pretty much the same. If he thinks there'll be a liberal takeover (I wish, I bloody wish) he's as mad as anyone else in this whole mess.
The comments, of course, are mostly from the wing of the church that most directs me towards atheism.
Part of this is fuelled, I fear, by a belief that there are thousands of people who would flock to church if we just did it the right way to appeal to them.
I don't think some of the CofE PtB realise just how entirely secularised our country now is.
Indeed.
I really don't know where this idea comes from. Back in my full-on charismatic days, we seemed to think that vast swathes of the population were sat there waiting for us to sing a few lively choruses in order to fall to their knees and cry, 'What must we do to be saved?'
There seems to be this view that if you only could tell corny jokes or wear a clown's nose or have people run three-legged races down the aisle to illustrate how we all need to work together then you are guaranteed a full house.
There's been a whopping big cultural shift. All the balloons and face-paint in the world won't turn the clock back.
I have a lot of sympathy - despite my cynical comments here at times - with grassroots intentionality and pioneering mission.
What I don't get is the kind of managerialism that accompanies this sort of thing with ill-considered target-setting and corporate-speak gobbledegook.
Yebbut, is the mission of the Church of England to make everybody Christian or just to make everybody worthily Anglican with a due regard for the 1662 Prayerbook, Common Worship and a proper respect for the difference between Decorated and Perpendicular?
I strongly suspect 10,000 lay led church plants isn't the way to go - particularly when there are already lots of existing congregations available, most of which are trying quite hard to do the job - but alas the metaphorical Archbishop Cramner is just another example of 'you will know they are my disciples by their disproval'.
Yebbut, is the mission of the Church of England to make everybody Christian or just to make everybody worthily Anglican with a due regard for the 1662 Prayerbook, Common Worship and a proper respect for the difference between Decorated and Perpendicular?
Some clearly seem to think so - even though such a Church bears little outward similarity to what was happening in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus etc. c.60 CE!
I strongly suspect 10,000 lay led church plants isn't the way to go - particularly when there are already lots of existing congregations available, most of which are trying quite hard to do the job.
ISTM that this - and, to a degree, the 'Resource Church' movement - is as much about the CofE wanting to retain its 'market share' in a raoidly diversifying yet shrinking religious economy.
Yebbut, is the mission of the Church of England to make everybody Christian or just to make everybody worthily Anglican with a due regard for the 1662 Prayerbook, Common Worship and a proper respect for the difference between Decorated and Perpendicular?
Some clearly seem to think so - even though such a Church bears little outward similarity to what was happening in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus etc. c.60 CE!
I strongly suspect 10,000 lay led church plants isn't the way to go - particularly when there are already lots of existing congregations available, most of which are trying quite hard to do the job.
ISTM that this - and, to a degree, the 'Resource Church' movement - is as much about the CofE wanting to retain its 'market share' in a raoidly diversifying yet shrinking religious economy.
This.
I suppose it's only to be expected that the managers of a company which is singularly failing to sell its product will resort to desperate measures...
Resources would be better directed towards existing, but struggling, parishes, of which there are not a few.
I think you are right on the market share thing, Baptist Trainfan.
As for any church anywhere that bears any resemblance to what was happening in the Eastern Mediterranean around 60CE, there aren't any ...
Anyone who claims that they are closer to 'New Testament Christianity' than this, that or the other church down the road is missing the point in my view.
Sure, claims for antiquity (Rome, the Orthodox, both Eastern and Oriental) are fine and dandy but to say that this, that or the other church is closer than others to a putative NT blue-print is complete moonshine.
One of the most telling observations in Walker's 'Restoring the Kingdom' - referenced on another thread in 'All Saints' - is that Arthur Wallis redacted his own church back into the pages of the NT in his rather fanciful reconstruction of an early church meeting in his book 'The Radical Christian.'
Arthur Wallis redacted his own church back into the pages of the NT in his rather fanciful reconstruction of an early church meeting in his book 'The Radical Christian.'
I remember reading that! It was (unintentionally) somewhat hilarious ... but totally convincing to those "in the know".
On a slightly similar point, I remember a distinguished church historian making the point at a URC Synod meeting that Nonconformist "Old Dissenters" today might think they are meeting and worshipping in a very similar way to their 17th century ancestors - but aren't.
He's pretty wrong here: "those who await “release” to lead are not likely to be drawn from the conservative traditional wing of the church, whose views on the sanctity of marriage as a union between one man and one woman isn’t conducive to an amorphous church plant to attract the young."
No, they'll be drawn from the evangelical wing of the church whose views are pretty much the same. If he thinks there'll be a liberal takeover (I wish, I bloody wish) he's as mad as anyone else in this whole mess.
The comments, of course, are mostly from the wing of the church that most directs me towards atheism.
I think you're both right, and both wrong.
I'd bet that it'll be the likes of former Church Army head Mark Russell, who is now the Chief Executive of the Children's society:
- "Selective" (Grammar) School
- Raised in another denomination (Methodist)
- "Church leadership"/"Ministry"/"youth pastor" in their early 20s
- Linked in in some way to HTB/St Andrews Chorleywood (light evo, but the "name" will put off liberals in the CofE)
- Fast tracked but thinks it should have been faster (he wanted- as CEO of Church Army- to be consecrated a Bishop and all Fresh Expressions and Church plants to come under his oversight)
- Quietly pro-LGBTQ+/Labour Party for a long time but becoming louder in the last 5 years or so as it's become more acceptable within charismatic evangelical settings
- Relatively non-sacramental
In short, someone who will "get things done", have energy, and will upset all wings of the CofE.
And if the CofE has any official theology at all as an institution, surely it is "if everyone is upset then it must be of Christ"?
Oh yes, well, he's exactly the sort whose further involvement ends my interest in having anything to do with the church. Ignorant, entitled and allergic to anything deeper than a particularly flat saucer.
Out of the latest batch of newly created Deacons in our diocese the vast majority are linked in some way with the local HTB linked churches: one is a resource church gobbling up all the council estate parishes on one side of the city, the other a church plant which is essentially competing for the student market with another couple of parishes. There are a couple going to places which expect one as a reward for seriously overpaying their parish share but none for the rural over large benefices, which could really do with some extra bodies.
To compound this adherence to one specific strand of churchmanship, the solution to their inability to recruit to most of the local AC parishes on a house for duty basis is to let Frs Alesbury minister to the existing congregation at St Puffins for as long as their health permits, whilst creating a new separate evangelical congregation in the same parish.
this idea of 10000 (!) new *congregations* is just pie-in-the-sky. Such an achievement (?) would mean at least 300000 new converts, and I can't honestly see that happening any time soon
Cynic ... surely you recall the extraordinary outcome of the Decade of Evangelism?
this idea of 10000 (!) new *congregations* is just pie-in-the-sky. Such an achievement (?) would mean at least 300000 new converts, and I can't honestly see that happening any time soon
Cynic ... surely you recall the extraordinary outcome of the Decade of Evangelism?
I don't know anything at all about this guy - but I do know (as a Methodist) that people who like to be head of things, like to be head of bigger and less-likely-to-die things than the Methodist church. Our leaders are a funny mix of brave, inspiring people who are not afraid to gird their loins, p*ss into the wind, and smile; and rather less inspiring people who seem unaware that they have backed an odd horse in the 'being an important someone' contest.
This is a longwinded way of saying I know a few Anglican 'someones' who, in my view, are attracted by the clout of the organisation (though I suspect they imagine they are being 'missional' inside that august institution, whatever that means). If you're an Anglican and that 'clout' makes you smile, you should hang out with some Methodists for a while and adjust your frame of reference
I don't know anything at all about this guy - but I do know (as a Methodist) that people who like to be head of things, like to be head of bigger and less-likely-to-die things than the Methodist church. Our leaders are a funny mix of brave, inspiring people who are not afraid to gird their loins, p*ss into the wind, and smile; and rather less inspiring people who seem unaware that they have backed an odd horse in the 'being an important someone' contest.
This is a longwinded way of saying I know a few Anglican 'someones' who, in my view, are attracted by the clout of the organisation (though I suspect they imagine they are being 'missional' inside that august institution, whatever that means). If you're an Anglican and that 'clout' makes you smile, you should hang out with some Methodists for a while and adjust your frame of reference
This becomes interestinger still when you get those who have come from The One True Church in the Mother Country™ and arrive in UndaDownUnder - or just DownUnda but to a lesser degree. If they happen to arrive in a portion of the lands that is even less Christian-let-alobe-Anglican-aware than the rest then it is even more mindblowing for them.
Suggest to such personages that the average kiwi or Australian wouldn't know what "Anglican" meant and they will either collapse in a fainting fit or implode [ sic ] in snarling rage. They will subsequently turn on their interlocutor consouers and confreres with regathered sang froid aka pompous superciliousity and opine [ sic ] something about "ignorant antipodean heathens" before waxing eloquent about their Oxbridge Tripos Cum Laude, appointment as “Custos Testudinum,” and presidency of the Arnold and Brackenbury Society. To which yon kiwi/aussie will mutter something that sounds like "tanker" but possibly have a less plosive initial consonant and meander off to watch the All Blacks (unless they're Australian when they won't) and listen to Split Enz (and argue over whose intellectual said minstrels are). Which will be far more interesting to average kiwi/aussie than references to some obscure religious sect.
(Our current minister has a PhD, but is a lot less of a *anker than the previous three, who didn't Mind, I think Greek rather than Latin might be her thing - she doesn't talk much about it, which helps (although it probably informs her preaching, which is one of her strengths). If I am sounding like a fanboy, did I mention that after 17 difficult years, we are really quite grateful? Ah no, that was on the other thread).
I don't know anything at all about this guy - but I do know (as a Methodist) that people who like to be head of things, like to be head of bigger and less-likely-to-die things than the Methodist church. Our leaders are a funny mix of brave, inspiring people who are not afraid to gird their loins, p*ss into the wind, and smile; and rather less inspiring people who seem unaware that they have backed an odd horse in the 'being an important someone' contest.
This is a longwinded way of saying I know a few Anglican 'someones' who, in my view, are attracted by the clout of the organisation (though I suspect they imagine they are being 'missional' inside that august institution, whatever that means). If you're an Anglican and that 'clout' makes you smile, you should hang out with some Methodists for a while and adjust your frame of reference
This becomes interestinger still when you get those who have come from The One True Church in the Mother Country™ and arrive in UndaDownUnder - or just DownUnda but to a lesser degree. If they happen to arrive in a portion of the lands that is even less Christian-let-alobe-Anglican-aware than the rest then it is even more mindblowing for them.
Suggest to such personages that the average kiwi or Australian wouldn't know what "Anglican" meant and they will either collapse in a fainting fit or implode [ sic ] in snarling rage. They will subsequently turn on their interlocutor consouers and confreres with regathered sang froid aka pompous superciliousity and opine [ sic ] something about "ignorant antipodean heathens" before waxing eloquent about their Oxbridge Tripos Cum Laude, appointment as “Custos Testudinum,” and presidency of the Arnold and Brackenbury Society. To which yon kiwi/aussie will mutter something that sounds like "tanker" but possibly have a less plosive initial consonant and meander off to watch the All Blacks (unless they're Australian when they won't) and listen to Split Enz (and argue over whose intellectual said minstrels are). Which will be far more interesting to average kiwi/aussie than references to some obscure religious sect.
Dashed colonials...
Mind you, when a friend told me that some Antipodean visitors asked why we were so crap at things after watching a visiting Australian rugby team trounce the host side, I asked him why he didn't issue the rejoinder, 'Why are Australians such ... (insert expletive of choice) ...?'
Oh yes, well, he's exactly the sort whose further involvement ends my interest in having anything to do with the church. Ignorant, entitled and allergic to anything deeper than a particularly flat saucer.
I know Mark personally. While I would certainly not see eye to eye with him on many issues, this is an unfair and inaccurate description. He has been quietly doing some very important work amongst young LGBTQ+ Christians from conservative church backgrounds, especially those from Northern Ireland who unsurprisingly face some of the biggest struggles within conservative churches in the UK (for those not in the know, Mark is from Northern Ireland). I don't think any Northern Irish person who works to support LGBTQ+ young people there could be called ignorant or entitled or indeed shallow. I am quite surprised that he's described as quietly pro-LGBTQ+ and pro-Labour, but then I know him from those circles anyway.
I would be pleasantly surprised if he was promoted in this way but support for LGB and especially T issues is going to be a big sticking point for the big evangelical churches (and indeed for the Times and the Telegraph...). Maybe a few years ago this would have been an option but now I'm concerned as to the, ahem, influence of American culture war issues (let the reader understand).
I don't know anything at all about this guy - but I do know (as a Methodist) that people who like to be head of things, like to be head of bigger and less-likely-to-die things than the Methodist church. Our leaders are a funny mix of brave, inspiring people who are not afraid to gird their loins, p*ss into the wind, and smile; and rather less inspiring people who seem unaware that they have backed an odd horse in the 'being an important someone' contest.
This is a longwinded way of saying I know a few Anglican 'someones' who, in my view, are attracted by the clout of the organisation (though I suspect they imagine they are being 'missional' inside that august institution, whatever that means). If you're an Anglican and that 'clout' makes you smile, you should hang out with some Methodists for a while and adjust your frame of reference
This becomes interestinger still when you get those who have come from The One True Church in the Mother Country™ and arrive in UndaDownUnder - or just DownUnda but to a lesser degree. If they happen to arrive in a portion of the lands that is even less Christian-let-alobe-Anglican-aware than the rest then it is even more mindblowing for them.
Suggest to such personages that the average kiwi or Australian wouldn't know what "Anglican" meant and they will either collapse in a fainting fit or implode [ sic ] in snarling rage. They will subsequently turn on their interlocutor consouers and confreres with regathered sang froid aka pompous superciliousity and opine [ sic ] something about "ignorant antipodean heathens" before waxing eloquent about their Oxbridge Tripos Cum Laude, appointment as “Custos Testudinum,” and presidency of the Arnold and Brackenbury Society. To which yon kiwi/aussie will mutter something that sounds like "tanker" but possibly have a less plosive initial consonant and meander off to watch the All Blacks (unless they're Australian when they won't) and listen to Split Enz (and argue over whose intellectual said minstrels are). Which will be far more interesting to average kiwi/aussie than references to some obscure religious sect.
Hah - in my experience it's often the other way around in evangelical CofE places. Lots of Sydney Anglican clergy and influences in the more conservative evangelical end of things here.
... Lots of Sydney Anglican clergy and influences in the more conservative evangelical end of things here.
Ah. Sydney. Yes. I remember them. I know no one who rubs shoulders with at all now. Aren't they based somewhere out on the left lower quadrant of Mars, somewhere?
this idea of 10000 (!) new *congregations* is just pie-in-the-sky. Such an achievement (?) would mean at least 300000 new converts, and I can't honestly see that happening any time soon
Cynic ... surely you recall the extraordinary outcome of the Decade of Evangelism?
Oh ... wait ...
The "Myriad" program is being led by John McGinley who appeared in the Evangelical Council video statement (see here: https://youtu.be/VI8bb65vOiE?t=1430 )
If a group were going to leave at some point over this issue then this would be a good way of getting the hierarchy to fund a bunch of churches that would leave with them.
... Lots of Sydney Anglican clergy and influences in the more conservative evangelical end of things here.
Ah. Sydney. Yes. I remember them. I know no one who rubs shoulders with at all now. Aren't they based somewhere out on the left lower quadrant of Mars, somewhere?
And who knows how the new Abp will turn out. Some of us hoped that Abp Glenn would have been more accepting of different schools of Anglicanism than his predecessor had been, but things did not turn out that way.
Yebbut, is the mission of the Church of England to make everybody Christian or just to make everybody worthily Anglican with a due regard for the 1662 Prayerbook, Common Worship and a proper respect for the difference between Decorated and Perpendicular?
The young (or probably more these days, middle-aged) fogey tendency in the C of E gets up my nose too. But there is a difference between worshipping certain cultural expressions of the Church as it has existed in our society, as if they were of the essence of the faith, and welcoming them as part of our inheritance. You don't have to arrogantly despise them as obstacles to the 'pure message of the Gospel,' in order to move on from there. One of the aspects of orthodoxy that the C of E has traditionally highlighted is the doctrine of the Incarnation. Comments like that from ++Justin, 'we have to take Jesus out to the world' seem to me to deny the incarnation and the biblical truth that Jesus is already present in the world. And it's that thin theology that lies behind this naive enterprise.
@Bishops Finger I have seen it and will comment in due time. Thanks for the welcomes.
I have very little time for the charismatic/Pentecostal talk of 'God showing up', as if God is somehow absent before they specifically give an invitation. It directly contradicts Jesus' own words.
One thing I wanted to ask is if anyone can clarify what exactly a 'resource church' is? Are the resources people, money, the parish share? Is it a thing outside the C of E too?
One is planned for Cardiff and would have started, but for Covid. My question is this: they are indeed amazingly well resourced, but do they "develop resources for the wider church"?
... Lots of Sydney Anglican clergy and influences in the more conservative evangelical end of things here.
Ah. Sydney. Yes. I remember them. I know no one who rubs shoulders with at all now. Aren't they based somewhere out on the left lower quadrant of Mars, somewhere?
I believe many of those at Oak Hill Theological College regard Sydney Anglicans as more-or-less OK but a bit liberal and will jocularly refer to them as "4-point Calvinists" (they're dodgy on the "L" of "TULIP" apparently).
Tangent to Baptist Trainfan: The resource church in Cardiff has indeed started in some form. I don’t know quite what they do, but they do something in the church they requisitioned from our parish. Nothing to do with us. Meanwhile, as we’re trying to fit two congregations into one particularly small building and are only allowed 30 per service under current Covid guidelines, we don’t have anywhere near enough space any more; I’m rarely managing to attend church physically unless I’m preaching, as the slots book up so quickly I can’t get a place.
Thanks for the update. Looking at their Facebook page, they seem to be having two services on a Sunday at what they call their "Cathays Campus". I thought that the 'regular' congregation was meeting with the folk from St M's?
Wow, I looked it up on Streetview and it is seriously small! We are hosting at the moment a CinW congregation that usually meets in a school, but they meet separately from us and at a different time. We've managed without booking (just!) so far.
It’s a very flexible and well designed building for its size, and gets a lot of community use. But it wasn’t designed for large congregations. We’ve always held any larger services in the other building.
I suppose you can console yourself with the thought that, Boris having conquered the Evil Covid Beast, you will soon be able to do away with social distancing, booking slots etc.
Will you still be allowed to use the larger church at need, in the future?
I suppose you can console yourself with the thought that, Boris having conquered the Evil Covid Beast, you will soon be able to do away with social distancing, booking slots etc. ...
But @Aravis is outside Johnson's jurisdiction. It's Drakeford's terrain, who's been a bit heavy handed but has done a better job.
I suppose you can console yourself with the thought that, Boris having conquered the Evil Covid Beast, you will soon be able to do away with social distancing, booking slots etc. ...
But @Aravis is outside Johnson's jurisdiction. It's Drakeford's terrain, who's been a bit heavy handed but has done a better job.
Comments
O yes - I've come across someone like that...
OTOH, having an established parish or congregation run largely by the laity is nothing new, and there are AIUI churches whose de facto *vicar* is actually a licensed Lay Minister.
I'm not too sure about the 10000 *new* churches, though, and I admit I still haven't read the article - but where are their congregations to come from? New converts? Or from existing (and possibly struggling) churches?
"Resource Churches" will presumably supply the lay leadership [shudder] if a congregation is full of newbies. And if it's not, then the members must have been poached.
It's being seen in some circles as an Evangelical takeover. By definition these *new* churches must be plants over and above the existing Parish system. I can't shout too much having been for the past few years part of a congregation that was outside the existing Parish system - but from what I've seen of all this on the ground its pie in the bloody sky. Our ex-vicar (whose redeployment started this thread) is meant to be creating 500 of these new lay-led congregations. God knows what out of - breadcrumbs and butter beans?
The evangelical takeover dystopia is entirely possible; our current struggles to find a new church home are not helped by the current demography and offerings - lets put it this way, if we were more evangelical and less been bitten in the arse by this sort of thing before, a new church with a young enthusiastic leadership with the support of a big church down the road would look, superficially, really really tempting.
I take it that Fresh Expressions are now stale. Would anyone like to actually say why these 10000 should succeed where FEs and the current parish structure have failed? What are the key structural impediments? Bureaucracy? Egos? Can anyone involved even spell spiritual abuse?
However, as @KarlLB says, this idea of 10000 (!) new *congregations* is just pie-in-the-sky. Such an achievement (?) would mean at least 300000 new converts, and I can't honestly see that happening any time soon.
The church is already finding it hard to cope, even with Covid on the run (so we are told), and the continual faffing about regarding what people do with their genitalia is hardly likely to attract all these eager new Anglicans...
I don't think some of the CofE PtB realise just how entirely secularised our country now is.
He's pretty wrong here: "those who await “release” to lead are not likely to be drawn from the conservative traditional wing of the church, whose views on the sanctity of marriage as a union between one man and one woman isn’t conducive to an amorphous church plant to attract the young."
No, they'll be drawn from the evangelical wing of the church whose views are pretty much the same. If he thinks there'll be a liberal takeover (I wish, I bloody wish) he's as mad as anyone else in this whole mess.
The comments, of course, are mostly from the wing of the church that most directs me towards atheism.
Indeed.
I really don't know where this idea comes from. Back in my full-on charismatic days, we seemed to think that vast swathes of the population were sat there waiting for us to sing a few lively choruses in order to fall to their knees and cry, 'What must we do to be saved?'
There seems to be this view that if you only could tell corny jokes or wear a clown's nose or have people run three-legged races down the aisle to illustrate how we all need to work together then you are guaranteed a full house.
There's been a whopping big cultural shift. All the balloons and face-paint in the world won't turn the clock back.
I have a lot of sympathy - despite my cynical comments here at times - with grassroots intentionality and pioneering mission.
What I don't get is the kind of managerialism that accompanies this sort of thing with ill-considered target-setting and corporate-speak gobbledegook.
There's got to be a better way.
They say these words, but I hear "noisy". Same when cities have these words used to describe them.
Yebbut, is the mission of the Church of England to make everybody Christian or just to make everybody worthily Anglican with a due regard for the 1662 Prayerbook, Common Worship and a proper respect for the difference between Decorated and Perpendicular?
I strongly suspect 10,000 lay led church plants isn't the way to go - particularly when there are already lots of existing congregations available, most of which are trying quite hard to do the job - but alas the metaphorical Archbishop Cramner is just another example of 'you will know they are my disciples by their disproval'.
ISTM that this - and, to a degree, the 'Resource Church' movement - is as much about the CofE wanting to retain its 'market share' in a raoidly diversifying yet shrinking religious economy.
This.
I suppose it's only to be expected that the managers of a company which is singularly failing to sell its product will resort to desperate measures...
Resources would be better directed towards existing, but struggling, parishes, of which there are not a few.
As for any church anywhere that bears any resemblance to what was happening in the Eastern Mediterranean around 60CE, there aren't any ...
Anyone who claims that they are closer to 'New Testament Christianity' than this, that or the other church down the road is missing the point in my view.
Sure, claims for antiquity (Rome, the Orthodox, both Eastern and Oriental) are fine and dandy but to say that this, that or the other church is closer than others to a putative NT blue-print is complete moonshine.
One of the most telling observations in Walker's 'Restoring the Kingdom' - referenced on another thread in 'All Saints' - is that Arthur Wallis redacted his own church back into the pages of the NT in his rather fanciful reconstruction of an early church meeting in his book 'The Radical Christian.'
On a slightly similar point, I remember a distinguished church historian making the point at a URC Synod meeting that Nonconformist "Old Dissenters" today might think they are meeting and worshipping in a very similar way to their 17th century ancestors - but aren't.
I think you're both right, and both wrong.
I'd bet that it'll be the likes of former Church Army head Mark Russell, who is now the Chief Executive of the Children's society:
- "Selective" (Grammar) School
- Raised in another denomination (Methodist)
- "Church leadership"/"Ministry"/"youth pastor" in their early 20s
- Linked in in some way to HTB/St Andrews Chorleywood (light evo, but the "name" will put off liberals in the CofE)
- Fast tracked but thinks it should have been faster (he wanted- as CEO of Church Army- to be consecrated a Bishop and all Fresh Expressions and Church plants to come under his oversight)
- Quietly pro-LGBTQ+/Labour Party for a long time but becoming louder in the last 5 years or so as it's become more acceptable within charismatic evangelical settings
- Relatively non-sacramental
In short, someone who will "get things done", have energy, and will upset all wings of the CofE.
And if the CofE has any official theology at all as an institution, surely it is "if everyone is upset then it must be of Christ"?
To compound this adherence to one specific strand of churchmanship, the solution to their inability to recruit to most of the local AC parishes on a house for duty basis is to let Frs Alesbury minister to the existing congregation at St Puffins for as long as their health permits, whilst creating a new separate evangelical congregation in the same parish.
Well, you know the old joke? In the thrombosis of the parish, it's usually the vicar who is the biggest clot?
Aye thenk you!
Cynic ... surely you recall the extraordinary outcome of the Decade of Evangelism?
Oh ... wait ...
O but I do remember.
That's interesting.
I don't know anything at all about this guy - but I do know (as a Methodist) that people who like to be head of things, like to be head of bigger and less-likely-to-die things than the Methodist church. Our leaders are a funny mix of brave, inspiring people who are not afraid to gird their loins, p*ss into the wind, and smile; and rather less inspiring people who seem unaware that they have backed an odd horse in the 'being an important someone' contest.
This is a longwinded way of saying I know a few Anglican 'someones' who, in my view, are attracted by the clout of the organisation (though I suspect they imagine they are being 'missional' inside that august institution, whatever that means). If you're an Anglican and that 'clout' makes you smile, you should hang out with some Methodists for a while and adjust your frame of reference
This becomes interestinger still when you get those who have come from The One True Church in the Mother Country™ and arrive in UndaDownUnder - or just DownUnda but to a lesser degree. If they happen to arrive in a portion of the lands that is even less Christian-let-alobe-Anglican-aware than the rest then it is even more mindblowing for them.
Suggest to such personages that the average kiwi or Australian wouldn't know what "Anglican" meant and they will either collapse in a fainting fit or implode [ sic ] in snarling rage. They will subsequently turn on their interlocutor consouers and confreres with regathered sang froid aka pompous superciliousity and opine [ sic ] something about "ignorant antipodean heathens" before waxing eloquent about their Oxbridge Tripos Cum Laude, appointment as “Custos Testudinum,” and presidency of the Arnold and Brackenbury Society. To which yon kiwi/aussie will mutter something that sounds like "tanker" but possibly have a less plosive initial consonant and meander off to watch the All Blacks (unless they're Australian when they won't) and listen to Split Enz (and argue over whose intellectual said minstrels are). Which will be far more interesting to average kiwi/aussie than references to some obscure religious sect.
Dashed colonials...
Mind you, when a friend told me that some Antipodean visitors asked why we were so crap at things after watching a visiting Australian rugby team trounce the host side, I asked him why he didn't issue the rejoinder, 'Why are Australians such ... (insert expletive of choice) ...?'
I know Mark personally. While I would certainly not see eye to eye with him on many issues, this is an unfair and inaccurate description. He has been quietly doing some very important work amongst young LGBTQ+ Christians from conservative church backgrounds, especially those from Northern Ireland who unsurprisingly face some of the biggest struggles within conservative churches in the UK (for those not in the know, Mark is from Northern Ireland). I don't think any Northern Irish person who works to support LGBTQ+ young people there could be called ignorant or entitled or indeed shallow. I am quite surprised that he's described as quietly pro-LGBTQ+ and pro-Labour, but then I know him from those circles anyway.
I would be pleasantly surprised if he was promoted in this way but support for LGB and especially T issues is going to be a big sticking point for the big evangelical churches (and indeed for the Times and the Telegraph...). Maybe a few years ago this would have been an option but now I'm concerned as to the, ahem, influence of American culture war issues (let the reader understand).
Hah - in my experience it's often the other way around in evangelical CofE places. Lots of Sydney Anglican clergy and influences in the more conservative evangelical end of things here.
My expectations are always rock bottom. That way disappointment is avoided.
Ah. Sydney. Yes. I remember them. I know no one who rubs shoulders with at all now. Aren't they based somewhere out on the left lower quadrant of Mars, somewhere?
The "Myriad" program is being led by John McGinley who appeared in the Evangelical Council video statement (see here: https://youtu.be/VI8bb65vOiE?t=1430 )
If a group were going to leave at some point over this issue then this would be a good way of getting the hierarchy to fund a bunch of churches that would leave with them.
And who knows how the new Abp will turn out. Some of us hoped that Abp Glenn would have been more accepting of different schools of Anglicanism than his predecessor had been, but things did not turn out that way.
The young (or probably more these days, middle-aged) fogey tendency in the C of E gets up my nose too. But there is a difference between worshipping certain cultural expressions of the Church as it has existed in our society, as if they were of the essence of the faith, and welcoming them as part of our inheritance. You don't have to arrogantly despise them as obstacles to the 'pure message of the Gospel,' in order to move on from there. One of the aspects of orthodoxy that the C of E has traditionally highlighted is the doctrine of the Incarnation. Comments like that from ++Justin, 'we have to take Jesus out to the world' seem to me to deny the incarnation and the biblical truth that Jesus is already present in the world. And it's that thin theology that lies behind this naive enterprise.
I have very little time for the charismatic/Pentecostal talk of 'God showing up', as if God is somehow absent before they specifically give an invitation. It directly contradicts Jesus' own words.
One thing I wanted to ask is if anyone can clarify what exactly a 'resource church' is? Are the resources people, money, the parish share? Is it a thing outside the C of E too?
https://churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/Topic%20summary%20-%20New%20Resource%20Churches.pdf
I see that there are none in this Diocese (Rochester) - yet!
If. alas, true (in some cases)...
I believe many of those at Oak Hill Theological College regard Sydney Anglicans as more-or-less OK but a bit liberal and will jocularly refer to them as "4-point Calvinists" (they're dodgy on the "L" of "TULIP" apparently).
Will you still be allowed to use the larger church at need, in the future?
Yes, true.
Back to *resource churches*, this advert on the Diocese of Leeds website may give some idea of what they're about:
https://leeds.anglican.org/vacancies/two-first-curacy-posts-leeds