In fact, when the buildings/land are sold the money goes into diocesan coffers and not to the local parish who, more often than not, financed them in the first place. Maintaining a vacancy for months does nothing to support the local congregation or increase the ‘giving’ that the CofE is trying to bring about. Something has got to change.
John Lloyd takes a look at the state of the church in Scotland.
Jonathan Baird (Salisbury) said that there was “one impressive thing about this report: it has rather attractive coloured photographs.” He noted that 1600 people had responded to the consultation, about…
The Bishop of Hereford, The Rt Rev’d Richard Jackson, has been speaking to the Church Times about the recent three year funding announcement by the Archbishops’ Council. “Bishops would prefer…
“Christianity in general is under threat, but the CofE has exacerbated this by “leaning in” to secular managerialism and politically divisive issues, moving counterculturally away from localism and underplaying its…
There is no excuse for the continuance of the interregnum for stipendiary clergy. Read original article here
“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.”