SDF has enabled many people to be “brought to faith”, a new review of the programme concludes, despite the difficulty of measuring the creation of new disciples. The programme has also served as a “lightning rod” for a lack of trust within the Church of England, the authors say.”
Our country desperately needs a new sense of what it is to be English to guide our future development, one which will embrace all who live here and not the slogan of racists. True patriotism comes, as Rumsey notes, from realising we do not own the land but that it belongs to God. Renewal will come from an ‘imagined community’ that memory creates.
“Where is the accountability for such mismanagement? The Bishop of Grimsby is quoted as saying that Lincoln plans more clergy reductions, despite its being “the diocese that proved that cutting stipendiary clergy is disastrous”. Rather than embark on more restructuring of parishes, perhaps this diocese should be put into special measures, whereby (i) its bureaucracy is put into the hands of a financially competent diocese, (ii) all the ordained staff from Church House, including archdeacons, are put into parishes, and (iii) the space thereby made vacant in Church House is let out.”
Should the Archbishop of York focus on the emptying pews, falling subscriptions and general disquiet in those areas being converted into mega parishes? Read original article here
“[Priests] are good, giving people, and they need to be properly paid and they need to be properly housed because they are the bedrock of our Christian faith. They are the people that are going around talking to parishioners, and they can learn a great deal of what is actually needed by the man in the street. Unfortunately, the Church of England is reducing their number and of course in turn that is going to reduce the churches, and they will be sold. So it is something that really needs to be supported.”
William Sitwell questions the Church’s rules which makes vicars retire at 70 if they don’t want to. As Job puts it (12.12 King James Version, 1611, ): “With the ancient…