From the Telegraph UK:
More than a fifth of the Church of England's bishops could face the axe under new proposals being drawn up by its leaders.
The information comes from "secret documents" from the Church Commissioners, who handle the financial affairs of the Church of England, and is likely to make certain bishops angry. The bishops don't earn large salaries, but since some of them live in palaces and castles, their upkeep may be expensive. No "final decisions" have been made, but up to a fourth of the bishops' positions could be affected, according to the Telegraph.
The House of Bishops' Standing Committee, whose chairman is Archbishop John Sentamu, of York, is considering the recommendations. Some critics see the Church of England as too top heavy.
They (the critics) want more money to be pumped into missionary initiatives to attract people back to church such as Fresh Expressions, the Archbishop of Canterbury's scheme to promote alternative worship.
I'll leave it to the Brits to parse Fresh Expressions for us, but I picked up on a couple of quotes from the website:
A key element in vision building and advocacy is the clear articulation of the message that the church is not abandoning its traditional practices and the parish and circuit system in order to invest in fresh expressions of church life: we are seeking to move towards a mixed economy, valuing both. We also need to be very clear that developing fresh expressions of church life does not take away the need for continuous change and development towards mission in the life of every congregation. Because we are seeking to resource a process of change, Fresh Expressions needs to work across the whole church at every level, not simply among those initiating new ventures.
Here's the description of the "Mission shaped" course:
An inspiring and encouraging course, ideal for leadership teams, PCCs , whole congregations and larger gatherings.
New world, new church? Our world and our lives have changed radically in the last twenty years, but has the church adapted to this change? Do we need a changed church for a changing world? Are new forms of church really possible? If so, how can they be developed?
mission shaped intro looks at fresh expressions of church through a mix of
teaching, reflection and story. This course will be available for download from January 2008. It is is an enjoyable hands-on experience combining:
* presentations
* group activity
* film and music clips
* worship and prayer.
I was going to wait for MadPriest's post on this news, but he seems to be out to lunch today.
"Fresh Expressions2 = Emerging Churches. Is that the U.S. term?
ReplyDeleteAs my Bishop is non-stipendiary, I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for these poor Anglican purple-shirts.
We can have a "surplus stock" sale and sell of a few of the nuttier, more extreme bishops at bargain prices to the N American secessionist alphabet soup-ers.
ReplyDeleteThey can have Nazi rAli for starters!
ps Thank you for drawing the calendar line at "St" Thomas of Canterbury.
Because of everything I have learned off my American blogpals I think I must be the expert on (what I call) the emergent church. I've told my bosses this and shown them my stats to back it up and offered to help them with their "fresh expression" thing. But they don't want my help - they prefer to let middle class academics like MD cock it up with their patronising attitude to working people and kids. And nobody in the Fresh Expressions camp would ever camp it up or get down with the loonies.
ReplyDeleteDP, the quotes are from the Fresh Expressions site in the UK, however, I admit that I've heard the the terms used over here, too.
ReplyDeleteLapin, I didn't post on the saint of the day, because the dispute between Henry and Thomas seemed so trivial - certainly not something to result in a death. Did Henry truly mean to have Thomas killed? I don't know.
Then we have Eliot's play and the movie in our minds as more real than what actually happened in history. I could not tackle it.
It smacks of all those middle management seminars I went to when I was a middle manager. An occasional insight wrapped up in a lot of silliness taught by someone who probably couldn't do an honest job, wasting another day or two of everyone's time and costing exorbitant amounts of money. At the end of which you get a cheap certificate that will somehow justify a meager raise or occasional promotion--though it hasn't helped you do your job a whit better.
ReplyDeleteEmerging from what? Primordial soup?
As for thinning the herd, I think we all have our own list of candidates.
Whoa! His Augustness is back from lunch. MadPriest, I hope that I did not influence you in any way. May I ask who is MD?
ReplyDeletePaul, I thought you were gone. Thinning the herd? What can you mean?
I had a couple of days of a strategic planning seminar when I was on the vestry, and I was pretty much drowning in the sea of papers and information that we were given. I don't have the kind of mind that can take in that much information in a short period of time.
What we used was a modified business model adapted for church use. That doesn't seem right to me. The church is not a business.
The dispute between Henry & Becket was not trivial. It hinged on Becket's and the Papacy's claim that anyone in Holy Orders - essentially, given membership of the four lay "minor" orders, anyone at that date who could read - was exempt from civil trial and punishment, murder included. The recent cases of concealment of numerous incidents of child abuse by the RC hierarchy are a distant echo of the "cause" for which Becket died, but are unquestionably, to mix my metaphors, a branch of that same tree.
ReplyDeleteDP, I see that I didn't answer your question. You were asking if the equivalent of Fresh Expressions here in the US is Emerging Churches. Perhaps, or maybe Mission-shaped Churches. I see that both names are represented on the internet. I don't keep up, since I tend to tune out when I hear this type of talk.
ReplyDeleteFresh Expressions sounds like the name of a line of cosmetic products.
OK, Lapin, I stand corrected. It was not trivial. Grasping the terminology of law or church canons is not my strong point. I admit that. The dispute did not seem like something that anyone should be killed for, but I don't believe in state-sanctioned, cold-blooded killing anyway.
ReplyDeletewhat will they do with all of the soon to be unemployed bishops? force them to get real jobs? Episcopi vagrans for hire through a temp agency?
ReplyDeleteOf course every breakaway "old catholic" independent more-clergy-than-laypeople church in America will gladly pay them for conditional reconsecrations. No more having to produce voluminous charts showing how many different ways that they can trace their "orders" back to Arnold Harris Matthew and Joseph Rene Vilatte. They can all claim to be as valid as any English bishop. And then we are off to the races with cheap consecrations.
Of course Lapin and Mimi should be the first of our crowd to get the bishop pixie dust sprinked on them.
Purple shirts for everyone!
Dennis, Lapin is going to fight John David for the Southern Cone spot. As for me, I'll pass on the bishop thing, unless it strictly honorary, and I get to dress up, but I don't actually I have to lead any one. I am not leadership material. I have a hard time leading Diana on a leash.
ReplyDeleteFresh Expressions, same old smell. The CofE trying to be all post-modern,ironic and groovy. It is a kind of second hand car sales stunt,which in reality is filling the holes in the bodywork with newspaper and drawing tread on the tyres in permanent marker pen and rewinding the mileage enough to forget about the last century.
ReplyDeleteTheMe, so it is a line of cosmetic products! I knew it!
ReplyDeleteWithout the make-up, yes.
ReplyDeleteDennis, the reference to my fighting Schofield for the Snow Cone bishopric was occasioned by my saying this in an email to Mimi a few hours back, excusing my girth in a Christmas Day photograph by saying that I am now, alas, large enough to meet the exacting weight standard for consecration as a secessionist bishop. I have to add that in recent days I have looked so many times the Schofield "here I sit" photograph that I have developed an entirely new theory to explain the origin and design of the fiddle-back chasuble,
ReplyDeleteand you aren't going to share your theory with us?
ReplyDeleteDennis, here's a picture from Wiki. Maybe you can work out the theory. I believe that Lapin has gone to bed.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts were the same as Paul's... corporate bullsh*t!
ReplyDeleteRight, Fran. Not suitable for churches, in my humble opinion.
ReplyDeletePerhaps, my opinion should not count for much, because I was ill-suited to serve on the vestry. I felt I should take my turn, but it was not a success. I pretty much warmed a chair during the meetings. I knew that was how it would be, but I had said "no" several times, and I finally agreed to serve.
oh I know what one is. I was just trying to play the straight man to see if he would have something funny to say.
ReplyDeleteyes, me playing straight, I know.
Dennis, you knew more than I did. I learned something in the process of answering your question. Of course, fiddle-back is fairly descriptive.
ReplyDeleteYes. You straight. What a thought!
Mimi, since you can see so clearly that the church is NOT a business and thus should not be looking to business models, I think that made you eminently qualified to be on a vestry. Alas, we don't usually get entire vestries who realize this basic truth and those who do are left to endure stultifying business focused minutiae.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching a vestry meeting on the Vicar of Dibley my ex and I concluded that it cut way too close to the bone and was too painful to watch. Others may have found it hilarious; we did not.
Well, wasn't it you, Mimi, who said that if I got near a computer you would hear from me? We had our breakfast, baked homemade bread, and went off to the potluck of New Mexican Kossacks (the folks who read and comment on Daily Kos). So a refreshing time among the local online progressives. We have come back, yakked, and now I am unwinding online.
Love the reference to a line of cosmetics. Too fine.
Don't come all over coy with us, Mimi, you know very well what I meant by thinning the herd. Perhaps you were confused about whether I was being figurative or suggesting Dick Cheney go hunting near the next HoB meeting? I hadn't really thought of the latter at that point and I do try to eschew calls for violence. Which isn't to say that, in a manner similar to a former president, I haven't committed murder in my heart. Still, both the law and moral theology distinguish between thinking evil and acting on it. I will thus limit myself to fantasies of whacking a few bishops with their crook and let it go at that.
Paul, yes, I did say we'd hear from you, and wasn't I right!
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you meant by "thinning the herd". You really must pay more attention to that irony thingy on my right sidebar.
Just to play Devil's advocate (is that a brand of booze?) for a moment, there are several folk on my course who are from Fresh Expressions churches and it seems to be working.
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly not knocking it yet as the "primordial soup" comment was a little too close to home in terms of my recent experiences of church.
DP, I don't know anything about Fresh Expressions, and as you see, I commented only on the name.
ReplyDeletethere are several folk on my course who are from Fresh Expressions churches and it seems to be working.
In what way are they working?
Teehee, I know your coy act is just that, Mimi. We do have fun teasing each other. Sigh, where would we be without irony?
ReplyDeleteMimi, they talk of more people coming to church who would not before because they were intimidated by traditional church.
ReplyDeleteDP, do the folks stay around? Many of the mega-churches in the US are basically revolving doors with folks in and out constantly, with a core group remaining. To continue as a mega-church, they must have new people coming in, because folks are always going out.
ReplyDeleteI believe that's true in any church, to an extent, but with them, more so than the mainline denominations.
No question that the numbers of regulars attending church are going down, and it's a problem that needs to be addressed.
I'm late to this conversation and my head is spinning. I'm going to have to read everything again to figure it out.
ReplyDeletethen maybe I'll come up with a comment, intelligent or not.
Group activities? Film and music clips? Oo oo, sign me up!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds more like the "market-driven" church than the "emerging" framework, at least as far as I understand it. However, after fleeing Evangelical Land, I no longer follow such things/trends. Exhausting.
The marketing church is always focused on how to bring people to it. Am I missing something, or aren't we supposed to be heading out to be the face of Christ to the world, not figuring out how to trick the world into coming to church and discovering it's only half as bad as they thought? Jesus changed people by being with them -- by being incarnational -- by loving them, not by helping the religious leaders "trap" them. Oy! I despair!
Diane, take your time, love.
ReplyDeleteKJ, I like the words attributed to Francis of Assisi, but not actually spoken by him - or so they say - "Preach the Gospel. Use words if necessary."