Bishop of Croydon on alternative uses for church buildings, not least for after school clubs.
A lively debate between Chris Loder MP and Dominic Grieve, an erstwhile Attorney-General at about 35 mins into the programme.
“The Archbishop’s interrogator was Canon Giles Fraser, Vicar of St Anne’s, Kew, and a member of the Save the Parish steering committee. He spoke of “anxiety that the centre of gravity is shifting away . . . as clergy numbers have been cut and parishes become more and more amalgamated and bigger, and that there are more and more people around the diocesan photocopier doing jobs that we don’t understand, and this creates a sort of crisis of trust.” This generated loud applause.”
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Frontline parish ministry is tough and getting tougher. Clergy cuts mean ever greater demands on the dwindling band of vicars or ‘priests-in-charge’ often running around several churches. How many CofE bishops know how it feels looking after multiple churches with the growing burden of bureaucratic demands from diocesan HQs?”
Reverend Canon Andrew Lenox-Conyngham suggests that the Church has 9 times as many bishops relative to congregations than the Victorians had. Surely something is badly awry in the Church of…
“…Instead it could become simply a prescriptive sect: an organisation with an official line which its prelates are expected to toe. If ever there was an effective way to make a church unattractive to all but the dreariest of zealots and and empty its pews still further, this is it.”
The National Church Governance Measure presents a chance to redirect money where it is needed most, says Marcus Walker