Per Rupert Shortt, the ‘hollowing out’ was already very well advanced in many places prior to Welby. By the mid-2000s dioceses like Canterbury, Chelmsford or Winchester had already re-formed into very large benefices in which incumbents had become de facto area deans. The transformation of Exeter and Carlisle dioceses into mission communities began, respectively, in 2003 and 2011. Over a decade ago Whittam Smith remarked that the Commissioners risked becoming a large fund with a dead Church attached. What happened under Welby was the development of a formula which would reduce political pressure on the Commissioners for a return to… Read more »
I do wonder how much general parish visiting and pastoral care of parishioners, as opposed to gathered congregation, is done by the parish clergy of the shiny evangelical HTB/church plant clergy. In my experience, even 50 plus years ago, the evangelical parish clergy in South London were big on the gathered congregation but had not been ‘moved by God’ to visit ‘the parish’. In my experience the parish church can come to life if the people of the parish are cared for and served. Perhaps I am naive in thinking that it was those in particular that we were charged… Read more »
When working I considered pastoral care to be an essential part of ministry. However, I increasingly found that unannounced visits weren’t welcome, except sometimes among the elderly, committed, and more traditional members of the congregation. People of working age are usually far too busy, and many people regard cold callers as an intrusion. What did work was going to people’s homes, by appointment, to discuss weddings, baptisms, or funerals. Home communions, also by appointment, were usually welcomed by the sick and elderly. The other factor is that clergy nowadays have far more to do than the clergy of 50 years… Read more »
I am afraid that this is a response regularly trotted out and I am not convinced. Oddly enough I am still actively involved in the pastoral ministry and regularly hear expressions of delight that a priest has come to visit. Furthermore there is frequent comment heard that the clergy no longer bother to visit and it is good when they do. The clergy have far more to do, so let’s ditch caring for the parish and look after the holy huddle? indeed you comment on the large clergy team who could not seem to find time to conduct funerals other… Read more »
A clergy friend once delayed his summer holiday after the suffragan bishop said she was about to pay him a pastoral visit. Since she didn’t turn up, he confronted her on a subsequent occasion. She said she was very busy. Five years have passed. And she still hasn’t visited .
It probably depends where you are. In a parish with high crime levels and a transient population, unarranged visits to non-churchgoers are often viewed with suspicion. Conversely, in wealthy areas with tight security, impromptu calls can be extremely difficult, and also viewed with suspicion. But in close-knit communities with a more leisured population, visits may be very welcome. As with almost everything, it’s about knowing what’s right for a particular context.
In Donald Coggan’s Canterbury enthronement sermon, 50 years ago to the month, he summarised the work of a parish priest as ‘the careful ministry of the Word, the awesome ministry of the Sacraments, the visiting of the homes of the people.’
I have asked this very question about visiting many times during my travels across the country (now >7,000 churches), and I think that the answer is now ‘almost never’. If it is undertaken at all, then it is often done by lay pastoral assistants or volunteers, or by clergy (often retirees) taking the eucharist to the housebound. Too often it isn’t done. Many clergy seem to believe that the limited payoff in increased attendance does not warrant the effort of house to house visiting. This may well be true, but – honestly – how do many of them actually know,… Read more »
Cold calling or any visiting without purpose (besides trying to bring peeps back to church) in a parish where only. a fraction of the population would consider themselves Anglican is pastoral suicide. I can relate, I really love it when the Witnesses see the vicarage as a challenge. Not.
I once filled in a newcomer’s card and ticked the box saying I would like a visit. There were at least two if not three clergy in the parish. No one visited. The Vicar later became a Bishop. I conclude from this that not visiting parishioners who want to be visited is the royal road to preferment in the Church of England. On another occasion I was leaving a service at a different church when the Vicar came running after me anxious that no one had spoken to me. He was very keen to make an appointment to visit me… Read more »
That’s unconscionable, but it’s not at all the kind of unannounced visit Janet was talking about. The times when the vicar would be welcome to knock on any door have gone though, probably never to return.
Indeed, and that is why I used the word ‘demographics’ as a reason for not doing it. However, there are parts of the country where that impediment does not apply at all, or does not to anything like the same extent as it might do in some urban areas.
i remember in about 1975 that my college did a week ‘mission’ in a parish in the north, the vicar was an old alumni, and I think the parish had some other connection with the college. The right to choose and appoint the vicar? There were about 15 of us. We stayed in parishioners homes. the vicarage was top of the hill in a nice area. Our goal was to visit, in pairs, the many high rise 1960’s tower block at the bottom of the hill. We didn;t ‘visit’ but simply knocked on the door and handed out a business… Read more »
You were all alumni (plural.As an individual you were an alumnus (single).
You referred to ‘an alumni’.
But as the Beeb and politicians constantly spit infinitives and use adjectives instead of adverbs I fear I am just an old train spotter!!!
yes I know. I did study Latin once. Alumnus alumnus alumnum alumini alumno alumno. Almuni almuni alumnos alumnorum alumnx alumnx
or something like that. My latin went downhill after the age of 12. Our first teacher was ex Japanese prisoner camp, handi hock and a whack whenever we got something wrong.
The ending of a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
I’m fairly certain that for political parties, doorstep canvassing’s main function is as an initiation rite for members, rather than as a means of winning votes. The same goes, a fortiori, for the hard left’s hobby (and I believe it is a hobby, not an effective form of campaigning) of selling Socialist Worker, Workers’ Hammer and similar agitprop. Certainly on the odd occasions I’ve campaigned door to door, in a solidly working class constituency, the main response is one of annoyance (or worse) at being disturbed. Perhaps a generation or two ago people were less defensive of their personal space… Read more »
Prior to a lunchtime snooze I watched a recorded interview on the 1 o’clock News with Kevan Jones MP (later Baron Beamish). I was discombobulated to be awoken by a knock on my door by the aforesaid who came to hand me a leaflet. I reflected how I’d had a visit from a Baron but never from my vicar .
This targeting is an important point, I did some canvassing in the last election, partly to discover what it was like, and the whole operation depended on mobile phones continually updated from a central database in which every house was marked by its potential usefulness.
“Usefulness” is of course context sensitive. Political parties have two purposes: “get out the vote” of those that are basically inclined to vote for you but may not vote at all, and an attempt at winning over undecideds. The analogies would be knocking on the doors of lapsed attendees at a church, and knocking on the doors of people whom you believe might be tempted to attend. But the balance is different, because political parties also want to avoid working up people who might have stayed at home but might vote for your opponents if sufficiently annoyed. That’s a reason,… Read more »
“Many clergy seem to believe that the limited payoff in increased attendance does not warrant the effort of house to house visiting.” This is a consequence of trying to run our national church as a corporation (HTB PLC). I believe that the Church of England urgently needs to ask searching questions about what it is for. A church where priests spend several days a week on pointless bureaucracy at the expense of the needs of the sick and vulnerable has very clearly lost it’s way. I think a good example is “safeguarding” parishes are snowed under with ‘training” with no… Read more »
The body Christ is made up of many parts, this is where the word ‘corporate’ comes from, with each member being regarded as part of the priesthood of all believers. So bums on seats – no, but corporation yes.
In my career before ordination, I was required to record how I spent my time to the nearest 15 mins. Many in jobs that bill customers for time spent doing things on their behalf will do the same. Transferring that approach to being a vicar, that would have meant that time spent dealing with admin for or about funerals, for example, would be recorded as ‘funeral’ not ‘admin’, pastoral visiting as ‘pastoral care’ and so on. Looked at in this way, little I did as vicar/rector was ‘admin’, and most of that was done for the Diocese or national stats,… Read more »
I think it is unfair to single out evangelical clergy. We see it here on TA with a lot of clergy of all traditions these days referring to themselves as “priests” rather than “ministers”.
I am not wanting to argue that here. The point I am making is that the choice of term used as a self-descriptor reveals what a cleric sees as their priority.
Probably a bit contentious, but we are all, ‘lay’ and ‘ordained’, “kings and priests unto God” in our different ways and roles according to Paul and others in the scriptures. Takes a bit of working out in practice, and a lot of mutual respect, but everybody has a purpose in God’s plans.
In what way is it entirely different?
I don’t see any essential difference between my role as a Christian priest and that of a Muslim imam or a Hindu pandit. Take the external trappings away and we’re all doing pretty much the same thing for our people, aren’t we? We’re all ‘ministers of religion’ on our tax returns.
Evangelicals seem to think that the ‘priesthood of all believers’ is a New Testament concept. It is established in the book of Exodus, where, nevertheless, a professional priestly caste is established too.
It is more a Reformation ‘concept’ I think, in reaction to a particular priestly caste? I wonder where you find any ‘priestly caste’ in the New Testament? (I ask as someone who calls himself a Christian priest and an evangelical)
Yes, I am serious. Timothy and Titus? I assume you mean the very brief reference to ‘elders’ there (by far the most common translation)? It is a stretch to call what is found there a ‘priestly caste’. There is actually no one pattern of ministry in the emerging NT church.
I am not singling out evangelical clergy but at the time they did seem to be the worst offenders, leaving all to God rather than getting on doing that work for God.
In a relatively well-off market town, the tactic I used to persuade the faithful to pay their parish share was to look on it as helping to fund Christian ministry in a deprived inner-city parish at the other end of the diocese. It worked very well, but I am left with the feeling that I sold the people of God a false prospectus.
Exactly so. What we’re seeing is a strong gravitational pull towards the centre as the parishes are mostly left to fend for themselves. The centre can be defined as the Commissioners’ investment fund, accompanied by the satellite diocesan boards of finance and cathedral chapters, and their associated bureaucracies. It is almost as if we have two parallel organizations: central funds pay the stipends and pensions of bishops, deans and residentiary canons; whereas parish share pays the stipends of rank-and-file clergy via the DBFs. Dioceses and cathedrals have the funds to pay for their overweening bureaucracies, vastly out of proportion to actual… Read more »
Thank you Froghole. Anyone remember who was promoting dominionism theology in the mid 1990s?
Nigel Ashworth
4 days ago
For a different overview of ++Justin’s ministry – and with some comment back to the archiepiscopate of ++Rowan – please see this thoughtful analysis by the Revd Dr Yazid Said under the William Temple Foundation imprimatur. It creatively references the thought of the 5th Century theologian Mark the Ascetic: https://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/church-and-state-in-a-post-welby-era/
Yes that is linked by TA on the previous January 8th Thread. Very Interesting. I commented there so i shan’t here.
Dr John Wallace
3 days ago
How do you do visiting in a parish of 28000 like mine with a sole incumbent? The Kilvert model is broken, unless we suddenly have hundreds of clergy which none of us can afford. If clergy are visible, and my research suggests dog walking, there becomes a point of contact. Otherwise we should try to keep our churches open every day and post contact details and also have, whenever possible, people around to talk.
But of that 28000, maybe less than 300 would welcome a visit. So, although the number of clergy has fallen, so too has the number of Christians within the community.
Great point. Deliberately finding ways to be visible around the area, making use of the points of contact there are and allowing local networks and grapevines to do their stuff. Oh, and trying to avoid the corrosive anxiety that the church has been prey to for many years.
Your point is well made and highlights the fact that context matters hugely. When I was an inner city vicar in Newcastle visiting was indiscriminate and always welcome. In the village where I am now 0.5 it is similar and I aim to visit between 3 and 8 people at home each week. By contrast in the three large urban churches I served in between, in two the parish population was under 200 and largely transient young professionals. In Harrogate – a large congregation serving a big parish it was clear that a) no visiting without prior arrangement and b)… Read more »
I have countless daily conversations with strangers whilst walking our dogs. They are the Church’s best friend.
Last edited 3 days ago by FrDavid H
David
3 days ago
It’s surprising given the debate about how to fund our parish churches, stripping the countryside of resources to support urban churches and vice-versa, the question needs to be asked whether a given community actually wants one. If a community doesn’t support its parish church by attending it or financially, then it’s hard to argue that it wants one. My previous bishop made it clear that a parish with a congregation less than eighty wasn’t viable without historic endowments to its name or property to rent. He has made a name for himself forcing mergers and closing churches. My present bishop… Read more »
David, I could not agree more. Regretfully whilst we are slowly growing in attendance at special events and Messy Church etc, our aging congregation depletes by one or two every year. We have a property rental income but that is worthless without a living congregation. I estimate extinction at 2030… unless Lambeth, Synods, Representative Bodies and Bishops face up to the reality of their calling by God to serve others, not just themselves or their “importance”
Per Rupert Shortt, the ‘hollowing out’ was already very well advanced in many places prior to Welby. By the mid-2000s dioceses like Canterbury, Chelmsford or Winchester had already re-formed into very large benefices in which incumbents had become de facto area deans. The transformation of Exeter and Carlisle dioceses into mission communities began, respectively, in 2003 and 2011. Over a decade ago Whittam Smith remarked that the Commissioners risked becoming a large fund with a dead Church attached. What happened under Welby was the development of a formula which would reduce political pressure on the Commissioners for a return to… Read more »
Perfectly expressed, thank you.
I do wonder how much general parish visiting and pastoral care of parishioners, as opposed to gathered congregation, is done by the parish clergy of the shiny evangelical HTB/church plant clergy. In my experience, even 50 plus years ago, the evangelical parish clergy in South London were big on the gathered congregation but had not been ‘moved by God’ to visit ‘the parish’. In my experience the parish church can come to life if the people of the parish are cared for and served. Perhaps I am naive in thinking that it was those in particular that we were charged… Read more »
When working I considered pastoral care to be an essential part of ministry. However, I increasingly found that unannounced visits weren’t welcome, except sometimes among the elderly, committed, and more traditional members of the congregation. People of working age are usually far too busy, and many people regard cold callers as an intrusion. What did work was going to people’s homes, by appointment, to discuss weddings, baptisms, or funerals. Home communions, also by appointment, were usually welcomed by the sick and elderly. The other factor is that clergy nowadays have far more to do than the clergy of 50 years… Read more »
I am afraid that this is a response regularly trotted out and I am not convinced. Oddly enough I am still actively involved in the pastoral ministry and regularly hear expressions of delight that a priest has come to visit. Furthermore there is frequent comment heard that the clergy no longer bother to visit and it is good when they do. The clergy have far more to do, so let’s ditch caring for the parish and look after the holy huddle? indeed you comment on the large clergy team who could not seem to find time to conduct funerals other… Read more »
A clergy friend once delayed his summer holiday after the suffragan bishop said she was about to pay him a pastoral visit. Since she didn’t turn up, he confronted her on a subsequent occasion. She said she was very busy. Five years have passed. And she still hasn’t visited .
It probably depends where you are. In a parish with high crime levels and a transient population, unarranged visits to non-churchgoers are often viewed with suspicion. Conversely, in wealthy areas with tight security, impromptu calls can be extremely difficult, and also viewed with suspicion. But in close-knit communities with a more leisured population, visits may be very welcome. As with almost everything, it’s about knowing what’s right for a particular context.
A very sensible comment.
North Brixton was not noticably leisured.
I think pastoral care and mission are not exclusive. And in a C of E context most mission occurred as a result of pastoral care.
Amen to that!!!!
I heartily agree. I think there is no mission without pastoral care. It’s the love of God in practice.
In Donald Coggan’s Canterbury enthronement sermon, 50 years ago to the month, he summarised the work of a parish priest as ‘the careful ministry of the Word, the awesome ministry of the Sacraments, the visiting of the homes of the people.’
Yes, but that was 50 years ago. Times have changed. And he doesn’t say that clergy must visit the homes of people who don’t want to be visited.
I should think that Coggan intended ‘visiting the homes of the people’ to allow for selectivity in visiting.
I have asked this very question about visiting many times during my travels across the country (now >7,000 churches), and I think that the answer is now ‘almost never’. If it is undertaken at all, then it is often done by lay pastoral assistants or volunteers, or by clergy (often retirees) taking the eucharist to the housebound. Too often it isn’t done. Many clergy seem to believe that the limited payoff in increased attendance does not warrant the effort of house to house visiting. This may well be true, but – honestly – how do many of them actually know,… Read more »
Cold calling or any visiting without purpose (besides trying to bring peeps back to church) in a parish where only. a fraction of the population would consider themselves Anglican is pastoral suicide. I can relate, I really love it when the Witnesses see the vicarage as a challenge. Not.
I once filled in a newcomer’s card and ticked the box saying I would like a visit. There were at least two if not three clergy in the parish. No one visited. The Vicar later became a Bishop. I conclude from this that not visiting parishioners who want to be visited is the royal road to preferment in the Church of England. On another occasion I was leaving a service at a different church when the Vicar came running after me anxious that no one had spoken to me. He was very keen to make an appointment to visit me… Read more »
That’s unconscionable, but it’s not at all the kind of unannounced visit Janet was talking about. The times when the vicar would be welcome to knock on any door have gone though, probably never to return.
I think that that is untrue.
Indeed, and that is why I used the word ‘demographics’ as a reason for not doing it. However, there are parts of the country where that impediment does not apply at all, or does not to anything like the same extent as it might do in some urban areas.
I’m in London. You need only get the address of a parishioner wrong to see how welcome clergy cold-calling is!
That has not been my experience at all.
i remember in about 1975 that my college did a week ‘mission’ in a parish in the north, the vicar was an old alumni, and I think the parish had some other connection with the college. The right to choose and appoint the vicar? There were about 15 of us. We stayed in parishioners homes. the vicarage was top of the hill in a nice area. Our goal was to visit, in pairs, the many high rise 1960’s tower block at the bottom of the hill. We didn;t ‘visit’ but simply knocked on the door and handed out a business… Read more »
Alumnus?
Yup! But we were all alumni.
We were also granted a visit to a cutlery factory to find out how cutlery was made. We were amazed at the quality. Forks bent!
It was just sheet metal bent into shape and dipped to silver plate. i think it has improved again since then.
You were all alumni (plural.As an individual you were an alumnus (single).
You referred to ‘an alumni’.
But as the Beeb and politicians constantly spit infinitives and use adjectives instead of adverbs I fear I am just an old train spotter!!!
yes I know. I did study Latin once. Alumnus alumnus alumnum alumini alumno alumno. Almuni almuni alumnos alumnorum alumnx alumnx
or something like that. My latin went downhill after the age of 12. Our first teacher was ex Japanese prisoner camp, handi hock and a whack whenever we got something wrong.
The ending of a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
The vocative singular is ‘alumne’, I think you’ll find.
I’m fairly certain that for political parties, doorstep canvassing’s main function is as an initiation rite for members, rather than as a means of winning votes. The same goes, a fortiori, for the hard left’s hobby (and I believe it is a hobby, not an effective form of campaigning) of selling Socialist Worker, Workers’ Hammer and similar agitprop. Certainly on the odd occasions I’ve campaigned door to door, in a solidly working class constituency, the main response is one of annoyance (or worse) at being disturbed. Perhaps a generation or two ago people were less defensive of their personal space… Read more »
Prior to a lunchtime snooze I watched a recorded interview on the 1 o’clock News with Kevan Jones MP (later Baron Beamish). I was discombobulated to be awoken by a knock on my door by the aforesaid who came to hand me a leaflet. I reflected how I’d had a visit from a Baron but never from my vicar .
This targeting is an important point, I did some canvassing in the last election, partly to discover what it was like, and the whole operation depended on mobile phones continually updated from a central database in which every house was marked by its potential usefulness.
“Usefulness” is of course context sensitive. Political parties have two purposes: “get out the vote” of those that are basically inclined to vote for you but may not vote at all, and an attempt at winning over undecideds. The analogies would be knocking on the doors of lapsed attendees at a church, and knocking on the doors of people whom you believe might be tempted to attend. But the balance is different, because political parties also want to avoid working up people who might have stayed at home but might vote for your opponents if sufficiently annoyed. That’s a reason,… Read more »
“Many clergy seem to believe that the limited payoff in increased attendance does not warrant the effort of house to house visiting.” This is a consequence of trying to run our national church as a corporation (HTB PLC). I believe that the Church of England urgently needs to ask searching questions about what it is for. A church where priests spend several days a week on pointless bureaucracy at the expense of the needs of the sick and vulnerable has very clearly lost it’s way. I think a good example is “safeguarding” parishes are snowed under with ‘training” with no… Read more »
The body Christ is made up of many parts, this is where the word ‘corporate’ comes from, with each member being regarded as part of the priesthood of all believers. So bums on seats – no, but corporation yes.
In my career before ordination, I was required to record how I spent my time to the nearest 15 mins. Many in jobs that bill customers for time spent doing things on their behalf will do the same. Transferring that approach to being a vicar, that would have meant that time spent dealing with admin for or about funerals, for example, would be recorded as ‘funeral’ not ‘admin’, pastoral visiting as ‘pastoral care’ and so on. Looked at in this way, little I did as vicar/rector was ‘admin’, and most of that was done for the Diocese or national stats,… Read more »
I think it is unfair to single out evangelical clergy. We see it here on TA with a lot of clergy of all traditions these days referring to themselves as “priests” rather than “ministers”.
Even evangelicals in the CofE are ordained as priests not ministers , although they might not like it
Indeed!!!
I am not wanting to argue that here. The point I am making is that the choice of term used as a self-descriptor reveals what a cleric sees as their priority.
Presumably you think a Methodist Minister has a higher priority than an Anglican priest.
You are comparing apples and oranges so your logic is flawed.
Many evangelical Anglican oranges regard themselves as being the same as Methodist apples. My logic is perfect.
Probably a bit contentious, but we are all, ‘lay’ and ‘ordained’, “kings and priests unto God” in our different ways and roles according to Paul and others in the scriptures. Takes a bit of working out in practice, and a lot of mutual respect, but everybody has a purpose in God’s plans.
I agree. But being a priest is entirely different from simply being a ‘minister’ – a distinction lost on today’s CofE evangelicals.
In what way is it entirely different?
I don’t see any essential difference between my role as a Christian priest and that of a Muslim imam or a Hindu pandit. Take the external trappings away and we’re all doing pretty much the same thing for our people, aren’t we? We’re all ‘ministers of religion’ on our tax returns.
Since when did a Hindu Pandit offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice?
And when did you offer Puja?
Never. It’s not in the CofE liturgy. I suppose you think you are the same as a voodoo Haitian mambo sacrificing a chicken to the Lwa.
Evangelicals seem to think that the ‘priesthood of all believers’ is a New Testament concept. It is established in the book of Exodus, where, nevertheless, a professional priestly caste is established too.
It is more a Reformation ‘concept’ I think, in reaction to a particular priestly caste? I wonder where you find any ‘priestly caste’ in the New Testament? (I ask as someone who calls himself a Christian priest and an evangelical)
Are you seriously asking that?
The first letter of Paul to Timothy and the one to Titus.
Yes, I am serious. Timothy and Titus? I assume you mean the very brief reference to ‘elders’ there (by far the most common translation)? It is a stretch to call what is found there a ‘priestly caste’. There is actually no one pattern of ministry in the emerging NT church.
I am not singling out evangelical clergy but at the time they did seem to be the worst offenders, leaving all to God rather than getting on doing that work for God.
In a relatively well-off market town, the tactic I used to persuade the faithful to pay their parish share was to look on it as helping to fund Christian ministry in a deprived inner-city parish at the other end of the diocese. It worked very well, but I am left with the feeling that I sold the people of God a false prospectus.
Exactly so. What we’re seeing is a strong gravitational pull towards the centre as the parishes are mostly left to fend for themselves. The centre can be defined as the Commissioners’ investment fund, accompanied by the satellite diocesan boards of finance and cathedral chapters, and their associated bureaucracies. It is almost as if we have two parallel organizations: central funds pay the stipends and pensions of bishops, deans and residentiary canons; whereas parish share pays the stipends of rank-and-file clergy via the DBFs. Dioceses and cathedrals have the funds to pay for their overweening bureaucracies, vastly out of proportion to actual… Read more »
Thank you Froghole. Anyone remember who was promoting dominionism theology in the mid 1990s?
For a different overview of ++Justin’s ministry – and with some comment back to the archiepiscopate of ++Rowan – please see this thoughtful analysis by the Revd Dr Yazid Said under the William Temple Foundation imprimatur. It creatively references the thought of the 5th Century theologian Mark the Ascetic:
https://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/church-and-state-in-a-post-welby-era/
Yes that is linked by TA on the previous January 8th Thread. Very Interesting. I commented there so i shan’t here.
How do you do visiting in a parish of 28000 like mine with a sole incumbent? The Kilvert model is broken, unless we suddenly have hundreds of clergy which none of us can afford. If clergy are visible, and my research suggests dog walking, there becomes a point of contact. Otherwise we should try to keep our churches open every day and post contact details and also have, whenever possible, people around to talk.
But of that 28000, maybe less than 300 would welcome a visit. So, although the number of clergy has fallen, so too has the number of Christians within the community.
Great point. Deliberately finding ways to be visible around the area, making use of the points of contact there are and allowing local networks and grapevines to do their stuff. Oh, and trying to avoid the corrosive anxiety that the church has been prey to for many years.
Your point is well made and highlights the fact that context matters hugely. When I was an inner city vicar in Newcastle visiting was indiscriminate and always welcome. In the village where I am now 0.5 it is similar and I aim to visit between 3 and 8 people at home each week. By contrast in the three large urban churches I served in between, in two the parish population was under 200 and largely transient young professionals. In Harrogate – a large congregation serving a big parish it was clear that a) no visiting without prior arrangement and b)… Read more »
I have countless daily conversations with strangers whilst walking our dogs. They are the Church’s best friend.
It’s surprising given the debate about how to fund our parish churches, stripping the countryside of resources to support urban churches and vice-versa, the question needs to be asked whether a given community actually wants one. If a community doesn’t support its parish church by attending it or financially, then it’s hard to argue that it wants one. My previous bishop made it clear that a parish with a congregation less than eighty wasn’t viable without historic endowments to its name or property to rent. He has made a name for himself forcing mergers and closing churches. My present bishop… Read more »
David, I could not agree more. Regretfully whilst we are slowly growing in attendance at special events and Messy Church etc, our aging congregation depletes by one or two every year. We have a property rental income but that is worthless without a living congregation. I estimate extinction at 2030… unless Lambeth, Synods, Representative Bodies and Bishops face up to the reality of their calling by God to serve others, not just themselves or their “importance”