Church Revitalisation Trust
Gamma Gamaliel
Shipmate
in Purgatory
This is a spin-off from the Christian Nationalism thread.
The Church Revitalisation Trust was mentioned there and as someone was telling me about it only the other day, I thought it might make a worthwhile subject for discussion.
My informant is a fairly liberal Christian and not prone to guitar-led worship or charismatic stuff.
Yet they were impressed by what they'd seen and heard and felt that it didn't all fit the 'flatpack' stereotype - to pinch an apt phrase from the article @chrisstiles provided a link to on the Christian Nationalism thread.
I do know people involved in churches which have received the HTB treatment and their experiences have been mixed.
I know of an Anglo-Catholic priest who was pleasantly surprised that he wasn't defenestrated when a group of young people arrived with guitars and amps. They've pretty much left him alone to do his thing.
I'm told it's no longer a case of 'close your Evensong and bounce up and down to worship band music instead,' which is what initially happened by all accounts.
Has the approach become more nuanced?
I also know a parish down south that has broken links with the HTB franchise as they no longer want to pay the subscription. Their main Sunday morning service remains HTB-ish in style.
Am I being an Eeyore?
If parishes are being 'revitalised' and these churches are serving their communities and meeting real needs then what's not to like?
I find it pretty painful to sit through one of these services these days, I must admit. Everything is 'amazing.' The worship is continually interrupted by announcements about what 'amazing' events are coming up.
'We've got an amazing Men's Breakfast on Saturday. It's going to be amazing! Let's have all the amazing people involved stand up shall we so we can all give them a round of applause for the amazing work they do!'
You know how it goes ...
Or am I just an Old Fart?
There do seem to be some worthwhile social programmes emerging from some of these initiatives. Or am I just swallowing the hype?
We're all flawed and nobody out there is doing a perfect job and if these things are having an impact then great.
What am I doing that is any better or more effective? 🤔
These initiatives will appeal to some but not others. What should our own response be?
The Church Revitalisation Trust was mentioned there and as someone was telling me about it only the other day, I thought it might make a worthwhile subject for discussion.
My informant is a fairly liberal Christian and not prone to guitar-led worship or charismatic stuff.
Yet they were impressed by what they'd seen and heard and felt that it didn't all fit the 'flatpack' stereotype - to pinch an apt phrase from the article @chrisstiles provided a link to on the Christian Nationalism thread.
I do know people involved in churches which have received the HTB treatment and their experiences have been mixed.
I know of an Anglo-Catholic priest who was pleasantly surprised that he wasn't defenestrated when a group of young people arrived with guitars and amps. They've pretty much left him alone to do his thing.
I'm told it's no longer a case of 'close your Evensong and bounce up and down to worship band music instead,' which is what initially happened by all accounts.
Has the approach become more nuanced?
I also know a parish down south that has broken links with the HTB franchise as they no longer want to pay the subscription. Their main Sunday morning service remains HTB-ish in style.
Am I being an Eeyore?
If parishes are being 'revitalised' and these churches are serving their communities and meeting real needs then what's not to like?
I find it pretty painful to sit through one of these services these days, I must admit. Everything is 'amazing.' The worship is continually interrupted by announcements about what 'amazing' events are coming up.
'We've got an amazing Men's Breakfast on Saturday. It's going to be amazing! Let's have all the amazing people involved stand up shall we so we can all give them a round of applause for the amazing work they do!'
You know how it goes ...
Or am I just an Old Fart?
There do seem to be some worthwhile social programmes emerging from some of these initiatives. Or am I just swallowing the hype?
We're all flawed and nobody out there is doing a perfect job and if these things are having an impact then great.
What am I doing that is any better or more effective? 🤔
These initiatives will appeal to some but not others. What should our own response be?
Comments
Charity be fucked.
It's not fundamentalism and it's not any kind of imperialism; it is incredibly offensive to the victims of real fundamentalism and real imperialism to compare HTB with those things. White Christians using "imperialism" to describe behaviour carried out by other white Christians in white Christian churches is highly inappropriate when imperialism is fundamentally a function of racism and white supremacy.
For what it's worth, I've experienced horrible ableism and classism in Inclusive Church affiliated places - and while it's not necessarily an issue wrt inclusion in a strict sense, some IC churches have also been some of the snobbiest and most unfriendly churches I've been in. I've also been in HTB churches I've hated, IC Good HTB Bad is not a helpful shorthand.
Near me, a thriving HTB affiliated place in a highly deprived area took over a failing conservative Anglo-Catholic church and now runs it as another branch of their church. I'm not associated with the church at all, but they now run a lot of genuinely great non-proselytising community projects (food and clothing banks, free soft play, community gardens, running a community hub in the local queer anarchist bookshop) from the former A-C church that did zero community outreach previously. It's in an area which also has a high level of deprivation alongside a lot of students, so a lot of very obvious sources of need amongst the community and easy opportunities for the previous occupants to have run projects had they wanted to do so. I know that conservative A-C churches are capable of such things, they just didn't do so. Sorry, but churches need to make an effort rather than just criticising those that actually support their local area.
I know those are bigger issues than whether the person with the mic says 'amazing' with annoying regularity.
And as a straight white middle-class male I'm not going to be given a hard time over my sexuality etc.
Nobody is going to boot the HTB-types out of the CofE and not just because they are the ones with the money.
Although there is that, of course.
For better or worse it does seem as if the more conservative end of the theological spectrum are holding their own to some extent.
I'm wary of some of the claims around 'The Quiet Revival' and it'll be interesting to see how things pan out or whether the CRT church planting (or takeover) initiatives actually gain traction.
What are the alternative models and how can they be fostered if we are repelled by the CRT format?
If that's the church you want to see, then fine. The only reason why it's working is the money. Give any group that much money, and they will build a thriving organisation. Deprive other groups of funding and force them into a constant storm of fundraising and compliance activities, and they will lose their heart.
Sorry but this is bullshit. HTB is Not My Thing but labelling them as fundamentalist is deeply silly. Christian fundamentalism has a specific meaning which they very clearly do not fit. What you describe is also not cultural imperialism, because that also has a specific meaning which they do not fit. You can disagree with what they're doing without having to make things up and accuse them of a fundamentalism which they very clearly do not have.
What diversity?? How is a diverse HTB affiliated church taking over a conservative A-C church made up of a handful of old white people who are scared of their mostly non-white neighbours reducing diversity? Is running a soft play scheme or a food bank reducing diversity? Would you rather local people starve instead? What's your experience of living in a deprived community on benefits?
HTB is not my thing but it's really obvious that it's not just about the money, otherwise there wouldn't be much poorer churches that do just as much. I know of Society churches run on a £5 note and a few buttons that do just as much, and do it without complaining about the safeguarding training that you seem to view as an unacceptable barrier. There are plenty of rich churches that do fuck all and aren't thriving in the same way.
There is quite a bit of diversity amongst HTB-affiliated churches, and I think there's also the conservative Anglo-Catholics who are much more of a mixed bag in terms of the ability to thrive. I think, from my own experience, some degree of community outreach is seen as an "evangelical thing" and not bothered with - even though RCs generally do a lot in the community. There are Society churches which are truly the inheritors of the original Oxford Movement slum parishes and do a great deal for the local community, but unfortunately they seem to be increasingly rare.
It's not just money of course, but in the absence of money (and some money is always needed for certain services) you are more reliant on volunteer labour which may or may not be available given the demographics and life circumstances of the congregation.
Thinking aloud here.
I met someone recently who had been an elder back in the restorationist thing in the '80s, in a different 'stream' to the one I was involved with.
He and his wife are now involved with an Anglican parish which experienced an HTB make-over/take-over. Like many 'recovering charismatics', they don't attend the main services as they find them 'too gang-show' but they do attend a more 'reflective' Sunday evening service which is more contemplative and often involves discussion.
His view is that although the 'style' isn't his bag any more his parish church would have imploded were it not for the HTB affiliation. He also felt they did carry out valuable work in the community.
He felt there was at least a recognition that not everyone wants ra-ra-rah style worship and that they had at least made provision for people like him and his wife.
Are HTB outfits as monochrome and 'flatpack' as the stereotype suggests? They may allow other flowerbeds around their lawn on sufferance or because they think they'll die back eventually but I'm no longer hearing horror stories of them dismantling choirs and replacing them with worship bands at gunpoint.
That said, I have heard accounts of heavy-handedness and earnest young people bouncing in and trampling all over what was already there. I've also heard there's not a great deal of room for consultation. Our way or the highway.
This is the way we do things. If you don't like it you can ...
Which is reminiscent of the Orthodox approach to ecumenism of course ... 😉
But as @Pomona has outlined, it's sometimes the case that the particular 'nests' into which the HTB cuckoos have settled haven't exactly been engaging in their communities in any positive way.
If these church-plants or 'revitalisation' schemes are regenerating parishes and allowing other birds to nest in their shade then perhaps they do represent a more healthy approach than some might suggest.
I dunno ...
Is it better to have an HTB group with all the flaws that might entail than a church which closes down?
Are there creative ways of groups like this engaging with existing structures to the mutual benefit of each?
Or are we doomed to see a polarisation where genuine breadth and diversity is squeezed out into ecclesial monocultures?
Is there room for the small-holding as well as the agri-business combine?
As CRT develops more 'neighbourhood churches' rather alongside its electronic screens and sound-desk 'resource churches' the bright young things that do the donkey-work will (and are) find themselves rubbing up against issues that challenge or subvert the public school / Iwerne-y ethos of the money men.
And it's not as if public school influence is restricted to the HTB end of things. The Anglican Establishment is rife with it. As far as I can see that plays out in various ways. Not all public school or Oxbridge types end up in the City. Some develop esoteric interests such as the Folk Music of Upper Silesia (to borrow a bon mot from Bill Bryson) or Anglo-Catholic tat or the arts and humanities rather than high finance.
I know Orthodoxy isn't a direct comparator but on a smaller scale parishes outside academic centres seem to be becoming more diverse in terms of social class.
Whether Orthodoxy in the UK can take root beyond ethnic enclaves, internet-influenced young men, eccentric former Anglican priests and people fleeing worship bands and drum-kits remains to be seen.
CRT is well resourced and money talks.
But out in the field I wouldn't be at all surprised to see greater nuance developing within these churches over time. I noticed on one of their slick videos that they listed 'tackling the root causes of poverty' was one of their stated aims at a local level.
Now that's a big ask and how do they propose to do that?
Dismantling the capitalist system is unlikely to feature in that particular programme.
I don't for a minute believe that CRT, the 'Quiet Revival' or any other vaunted initiative, programme or apparently spontaneous grass-roots movement is going to 'transform our nation' and so on.
But I do welcome growth wherever it occurs and it could be that some of the initiatives we currently find questionable may modify over time. Who knows?
What are the alternatives? Extinction?
A prominent URC congregation in a town near here has closed its doors. A liberal catholic Anglican parish struggles on with around 35 regulars. I don't see people queueing to join more 'progressive' groups like the Quakers.
A cynic would say that more liberal expressions of Christianity are parasitic on more conservative ones. Back in the day I argued that on these boards. Liberal Christianity was like a mule, I opined. It cannot reproduce.
What a git! I wouldn't say that now and perhaps I shouldn't have said it back then, but part of me still wonders whether the more liberal or progressive congregations of the future will develop from the more conservative ones of today?
Or will we see 'mixed-models' developing? A core of earnest bright young things strutting their stuff with older and hopefully more wiser people providing ballast?
Absolutely. I've not read the article but that's my perception. There's very little recognisably 'Anglican' about their services. They seem to deliberately avoid that in the belief that it puts people off.
As Shipmates will know, I'm not a huge fan of 'Free Church' style 'hymn-prayer-sandwiches' - 'a lecture with hymns' as they've been described.
But there is a logic and coherence within those churches which developed that particular model and when it 'works' it can 'work' extremely well. Appropriate and well-chosen hymns, a theme developed through the prayers, readings and sermon. What's not to like?
But what do we get? Directionless chorus-singing interspersed with interviews with children's workers or someone or other involved with this that or the other initiative and plugs for whatever 'awesome', 'incredible' or 'amazing' event they've got planned for the coming week.
I can see the appeal if traditional liturgies are a turn-off but it all ends up looking very attenuated to me in a way I wouldn't say was necessarily the case in Free Churches proper as it were where these things are part of the tradition and not extraneous to it.
One of the deeper-seated or longer-term questions for HTB (as it is for most expressions of evangelicalism) is whether its approach, and particularly its current model of funding, inadvertently works to perpetuate the inequality that is one of the root causes of poverty.
I think 'directionless' is a bit misleading; there's a set time for worship as singing, how directional that part is seems to vary from church to church.
Or to link it to Enoch's point in the other thread; what happens to the 'Tory Party at prayer' part, when right wing politics in the UK becomes dominated by Reform.
Well yes, and to my mind that's what's missing in the HTB-style and wannabe HTB-style services I've attended.
I'm sure there will be exceptions though.
@chrisstiles - yes, I over-egged the pudding with my 'directionless' accusation but you know what I mean. Whatever we think of it as a 'style' or format the full-on charismatic thing did have a kind of 'shape' to it - it took the participants somewhere - even if it was to a form of self-hypnosis at worst or some kind of transcendent experience at best.
Now we seem to have a 'worship slot' that consists of a few choruses strung together without any immediately apparent purpose other than as a form of expressing religious convictions and emotions that not everyone will share. The same charge could be levied at other forms of worship too of course.
@pease, I'm glad to hear what you say about taking HTB's social programmes at 'face-value' but agree that there will inevitably be a conflict sooner or later with the current funding models.
Perhaps it has ever been thus?
Rich people endowing chantry chapels or donating funds to build cathedrals and so on.
I don't really think that's the case, the latter seems to be more a function of available musicians, ISTM in most cases they are aiming for the first, in a more polite form (which makes sense in a kind of New Wine way).
If so, I could 'buy' that in a New Wine conference context but not necessarily at parish level.
The parish I know best doesn't get anywhere near 'zoning out' in a hypnotic kind of way, at least not on a Sunday morning.
There is charismatic-lite and there's charismatic-lite ...
To an extent I think some parishes have gone from 0.5% charismatic-liteness to 00%. The same songs and idioms but no intoxicants.
New Wine without the headiness.
But this is a tangent. Quite apart from the worship style in terms of songs, raised hands and what I call 'spiritual gurning', the key thing I notice is how programmatic it's all become.
It's almost as if there are ad-breaks.
With a traditional Free Church 'hymn-prayer-sandwich' you know full well that someone has prayerfully planned and 'curated' the whole thing. They aren't out to convince you that it's all spontaneous and informal.
It's the 'studied informality' of it that grates with me. I want to be made to feel welcome not told about 15 times during the opening 5 minutes how welcome I am as a visitor.
If you want to make me feel welcome come and say 'hello' afterwards or pour me a cup of tea. Don't make a big liturgical deal of it.
'If you are here for the first time, we want you to know how welcome you are. Welcome! Please be aware how welcome you are and how delighted we are to see you here... you're very welcome ... did I tell you how welcome you are here today? You are so welcome that none of us got a wink of sleep last night out of sheer excitement and anticipation that you'd be here! I even cancelled our family's weekend away in The Dordogne just so we could be here to welcome you to our service this morning!'
I think they are largely aiming at a form of charismatic-lite experience, even if it's only achieved in the larger congregations. If it's hard to conceptualise in New Wine terms, assume it's half way between that and the final session of an Alpha Course.
One dynamic, that gets to the some of the issues pease raises, is what happens when that kind of model is only marginally sustainable, depends on the higher amounts of initial funding and decays rapidly after that.
He wrote about "planned spontaneous Spirit-filled happenings" - in other words planned but with room to breathe and change if that's the way things go.
To an extent the use of media restricts one. I only use Powerpoint but even then it's very obvious if I go off-piste and impossible to change direction completely. Other churches have much more sophisticated multi-media which, I suspect, pins them down even more.
I'm now imagining worship planning as mapping out a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book: "but if the Spirit moves like this then we'll play that video, but if He moves like this then we'll need to band to play x, and if we have the video then after that we'll invite people to come forward for healing, unless we were already moved to do that after the first praise time, in which case..."
Sounds good to me.
The local place I've already mentioned splits different services across its two buildings, and has more low-key and reflective services at one and more high-energy ones at another. But they do also use CW and have weekly communion services. I don't think things are as uniformly un-Anglican as they once were.
I'm sure that's true @Pomona and as you say, I'm not really the 'target audience' for such effusive welcomes and yes, as ever with my jabs and jibes, there is always a corollary. I wish Orthodox parishes were more welcoming, for instance.
Also, on the 'how Anglican is all this?' thing, I think there's a sliding scale. Some of these churches do function within a recognisably Anglican framework such as those you describe.
In the instance I'm aware of there is more traditional fare available in some of the churches that make up the Team Parish. If I were an Anglican and lived in that town that's where I'd be headed.
I can hear this point being dismissed already, and will return and attempt to amplify it, but I wanted to put down a marker in the discussion, that this question will be addressed.
Sounds Hellish to me ... 😉
Is outrage!
If the Holy Spirit is moving this way then we should celebrate the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom like we've always done, even before Chrysostom was born. If that way then we should still celebrate the Liturgy of St Chrysostom like Moses did. Or Abraham. Or the ammonites and trilobites ...
Joking aside,I think @Baptist Trainfan is right that the use of 'tech' does rather militate against apparent spontaneity.
I might be wrong but I'm getting the impression that the more apparently spontaneous and free-flowing approach is generally restricted to certain gatherings and services these days other than in the more full-on charismatic churches in the 'independent sector.'
I'm intrigued and will be interested to hear you amplify and expand this point.
Meanwhile, if we are talking about the nature of the church - Big C or small c? - how do we define what that is or should be?
Would it be a bit too 'both/and' to suggest that something prepackaged and formulaic can become more 'embedded' or organic over time?
I don't know.
More sacramental churches have a very formulaic approach yet they would claim that their rituals and liturgies express what it means to be 'church', at least potentially.
We become the Body of Christ when we break bread together as it were.
Much food for thought.
This seems to make number of load bearing assumptions which seem unlikely to be true.
Could you explain further?
Sorry but in my wide experience of churches of all types, HTB-affiliated and otherwise, this is more of a stereotype than reality. It's also incredibly easy for you (general you) to ignore a formulaic approach and lack of organic connection if it comes in packaging you like. Sooo many A-C places do "rite by numbers" - just because it's a formula we might both enjoy doesn't make it less formulaic than eg a hymn sandwich.
If anything, the more relaxed approach to lay participation in many HTB-affiliated churches means that there can be more organic connection. This is not saying that there is no organic connection elsewhere, of course, but if a church has more projects happening in the local community then connection happens pretty naturally.
I think the beanbag and smoothie bar send-up from Rev is really not the case anymore, particularly given the fact that so many young women clergy are in HTB-affiliated churches.
I suggest that seeing these activities just as social programmes is missing the point. I think they form an integral part of a church-building programme - church growth arising from outreach to the largely unchurched (centred around young families).
And I suspect that part of the associated plan (or maybe hope) is that this will, to a significant extent, become largely self-funding in the longer term, maybe benefiting from whatever the modern equivalent of the faith dividend turns out to be (cf some of the additional disposable income arising from converts turning away from smoking, drinking and gambling would come the church's way).
[In response to a number of posts between the two threads, which I'm struggling to cohere:] Part of the role of a state church is to support the state. It's not hard to see how this might conflict with Christian imperatives about transforming society. Conversely, it's not hard to see how political operators seeking to transform society might form alliances or support churches that promote values that align, at least to some extent, with theirs.
Trying to come up with something that encapsulates the nature of these values (and more besides), what comes to mind is the way that Blake's Jerusalem has been adopted by, for example, public schools and the Women's Institute, as a collective, choral expression of (English) belonging.
It doesn't take much imagination to see how this relates to past notions of church, state and national identity to which Enoch, I believe, drew attention. What is less clear to me is how contemporary alliances might develop, other than being rather more expediently focused on money and influence.
I can see what he meant but we first have to define 'authenticity' or the lack of it. As a lad from the South Wales Valleys whose father was an Elim pastor he was probably far more likely to discern authenticity there than somewhere like HTB.
Whatever the case, I'm not convinced that a 'flatpack' or formulaic approach necessarily implies a lack of an 'organic' dimension or authenticity. As Pomona has said, we can label things as formulaic if they don't happen to accord with our own personal tastes or the way things are done in our particular tradition.
Heck, I've heard of Baptists who felt that Anglicans were 'insincere' because they read prayers out of a book rather than extemporising them spontaneously. Obviously not all Baptists believe that of course.
Context is everything and whilst HTB-style worship is no longer my bag I certainly wouldn't claim that it was any less 'authentic' than what Christians of other traditions do in their services. Different, yes. But evalutating whether particular expressions of worship are authentic or inauthentic, sincere or insincere isn't part of our remit.
'The Lord hath not given us windows into men's souls ...'
Just because I don't like something doesn't invalidate it or make it 'inauthentic.'
Now - and here is the customary Gamaliel caveat - I do think that there are distinguishing features and marks if you like that have developed over time that set boundaries as to what is or isn't acceptable or helpful. Hence the strict rules around iconography within Orthodoxy.
I do think there are generally accepted features that would make worship specifically Anglican say rather than RC or Free Church or whatever else. I'm not sure at what point a social media or streamed TV style format would step over that line. Anglican canons and rubrics have been broken so many times at both ends of the Anglican spectrum that it's hard to understand why they still have them at all.
Stepping over a line doesn't in and of itself make something 'inauthentic' either. We can't put God in a box and I say that for all I might emphasise 'Right-Worship' or 'Right-Glory' - which Orthodoxy (and orthodoxy) literally means.
It'd take a lot of line-stepping overs before I'd accuse anyone of 'offering strange fire before the Lord.'
All Christian traditions and Traditions have their own inherent strengths and weaknesses. Pendulums swing.
At any rate, I think @pease has raised an interesting point about how contemporary alliances may develop other than on the grounds of expedience or who has the brass to finance this, that or the other initiative.
Off the top of my head; that there were students willing to leave whatever else they might be doing on Sunday and/or have time to spare when they aren't studying or working to run activities, that the activities that need doing are the ones that generally fairly young people can run successfully with minimal help, that the chaplaincy is connected to the activities these students are actually connected to currently, and that there's an easy route for the chaplaincy to get them to volunteer.
[Bearing in mind that we are talking about a population that skews young, many of which will be encountering their own struggles, and if they are spiritually minded are probably seeking solace in another church already]
I'm sure that someone with experience and time could draw up a much more comprehensive list.
Also, Walker was largely talking about a sociological situation that doesn't really exist any longer, his own experience was fairly singular in his days and even more so now.
I don't think it needs to be that complicated - a church approaching the chaplaincy and asking if any of the students affiliated with the chaplaincy (I know that this particular chaplaincy has a thriving Student Christian Movement group) could help out with volunteering is surely not that weird or complicated.
I'm not sure why you're ignoring the comments I'm making. The fact is that you're making sweeping generalisations and big assumptions about a huge range of churches and their activities - the HTB-affiliated church I've mentioned in this thread doesn't resemble the picture you paint here at all. Weekly CW communion services and running a food and clothing bank is not "nothing, or very little, to do with anything the Church of England would call a service" or only reaching out to young families. I can appreciate that you may have had negative experiences of HTB places, as have I, but there is actually a lot of diversity amongst churches affiliated with them. There are plenty that build on what happened in a church before they stepped in. I don't think that it's healthy to refuse to see any good in their work.
That said, it doesn't take a genius to work out why young families that are struggling might be more vulnerable and more in need of support than a single non-elderly adult - like no shit Sherlock, a struggling single mum with a baby has more immediate needs than a single adult with no dependents. I am single and with no children, and I'm no stranger to feeling uncomfortable in churches which don't welcome people who aren't married and/or who have kids. But I think there's a difference between that and ignoring the fact that austerity and now a right-wing Labour government have pushed so many children into poverty that frankly any church that isn't reaching out to support young families is at risk of having a millstone hung round their neck. The HTB-affiliated church I mention is located in one of the most deprived postcodes in the UK and works with the local council and the local queer anarchist bookshop to support local people (and very much not just young families). A lot of projects they run or help to run aren't evangelistic but just community provision. I think it would be churlish in the extreme to reject that out of hand.
I have been pleasantly surprised to hear of instances where HTB/CRT haven't adopted a 'slash and burn' approach to church horticulture.
I've mentioned that upthread.
You ignored it.
@Pomona has given fuller and more first-hand accounts where this isn't the case and you've ignored that too.
If a CRT outfit was the only available option in my area or I had mobility issues that precluded me from ranging further afield, I'd be in a quandary.
But that doesn't mean I would write-off anything and everything they do.
I've mentioned Dr Andrew Walker in passing. One of his observations in Telling The Story back in 1996 (goodness me! the year my elder daughter was born) was that we were all entering a post-Christendom phase and had to develop appropriate 'plausibility structures' if we were to embody the Gospel in any meaningful way in the future.
Sure, he advocated liturgy and engagement with tradition in all of this and not the kind of Pol Pot Year Zero approach advocated by some of those in charismatic evangelical circles.
But his point stands and whether we are in CRT, neo-monastic, traditional monastic, liberal, evangelical, catholic or whatever else mode we are all facing the same challenges.
The CofE wasn't monolithic when you made it your spiritual home 35 years ago. HTB was a big player back then. I first encountered HTB types at inter-church charismatic gatherings in London back in 1981.
Yes, they've become more influential since but they were a significant player back then.
Heck, go back further and I'm told that Anglo-Catholic parishes in London adopted Moody & Sankey style sing-alongs and the like during parish missions to get people over the threshold before drawing them into the more sacramental round of Christian formation.
What worries me is the attenuation of that to some extent whilst acknowledging that many more sacramental traditions are piss-poor at catechesis. Orthodoxy, I'm looking at us.
There are, of course, exceptions to any rule.
Anyhow, time will tell.
The main issue is that the CofE is panicking and throwing money at something that looks like success, and all Save the Parish (for example) are offering is proposing to throw money at what looks like failure. Maybe the impetus needs to come from the likes of SCM to model what a revitalised broad church looks like, and equip their members to work for renewal of existing parishes. It's not reasonable to expect congregations already well below viability to suddenly pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and the church needs some models for revival (if I may use the loaded term) that don't rely on just bringing in something entirely new, and certainly that don't require churches to cease offering a welcome to LGBT folk.
One of the frightening things, to me at least, about the HTB enfranchisement of the Church of England is how much it has narrowed the range of what is considered "mainstream". The slightest variation from the full package is regarded as a fundamental difference, and proof of genuine diversity. Given the total ignorance of the sacramental tradition of thought, expression and action that they demonstrate, this impression of diversity is not backed up by the facts. Likewise, the range of theology with which they engage is minute - one is "sound" or one is simply invisible. The sort of exploratory church I joined many years ago was never the majority model, as it were, but it was a legitimate variant. Now it's regarded as esoteric, almost heretical, and is vanishing. Nothing thrives when the culture around it is so thoroughly adverse - it's like asking why penicillin isn't thriving in a petri dish flooded with bleach.
I'm very glad that the people who are helped by their programmes get that help, but my observations from the plant around me do not back up any idea that they will provide what the area needs. Here, their provision is, and always has been, also focussed on young families, in spite of the fact that new immigrants and isolated elderly people are far more numerous among the population, and likewise lacking alternative means of support. Young families bring greater potential for both income and membership, so that is where the effort goes.
Yes, and there isn't a pool of neutral volunteers at the other end, there are people with their own struggles, needs and preferences.
The fact that it's in the middle of a student area and they aren't there already says something about their revealed preference, so the "solution" can't consist of expecting people to attend a church that you wouldn't apparently want to attend yourself.