‘This will look great in the papers,’ thought the Bishop to himself.’ He was right.
#CODA 2 DISCOUNT 2015 PORTABLE#
This will give power back to the people, and will make clergy and churches more accountable to the parishes they are supposed to be serving….īishop Michael held up the glossy volume camera motors whirred, and journalists began punching in copy into their portable faxes. Today we hope to put the Church of England back on the road to recovery, with the launch of The Churchgoer’s Charter.
Congregations have declined in number: confidence in the Church has dwindled. There has been too much bureaucracy and red tape, and not enough action. The House of Bishops has felt for some time that the church is too unwieldy in its structure to meet the needs of the people. As you will know, today sees the launch of one of the most important documents the Church of England has produced this Century…even though we are less than a few decades into a new Millennium.
#CODA 2 DISCOUNT 2015 PLUS#
Flanked by Bishops, plus other officials from Church House and Sir Marcus Lloyd from the Church Commissioners, Bishop Michael began his speech The Bishop of Southbury, Michael Talent, blinked. The bright flash and camera lights of the nation’s press reporters filled the Hall at Church House. The Story is in five parts: Present-Future The time is set some years in the future. Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian The Story of the Churchgoer’s Charter It’s about how we divvy up the money to go to places that can use it well and have the greatest need.” “And some dioceses are underfunded, but are doing an amazing job in trying circumstances. “Some dioceses are being funded to do not very much,” said Broadbent. Unless we do something, the church will face a real crisis.” Among the changes is a redistribution of funding, largely away from struggling rural parishes to churches in deprived urban areas and those seen as innovative and energetic in adapting to social change.
Now we’re 20 years older than the population. “Twenty years ago the demographics matched the population as a whole. The evidence was “indisputable”, said John Spence, chair of the church’s finance committee and a former Lloyds Bank executive. There are those who say this is alien and who want to dig their heels in, but we’re facing a demographic time bomb.” “All the demographic evidence shows that, unless we do something in the next five or 10 years, we’re shot. “We’re in the last chance saloon,” said Pete Broadbent, bishop of Willesden and one of the architects of Reform and Renewal. As church polity is increasingly shaped by market forces, and by targets, strategies and plans – representing a kind of rather inward-looking cluster of concerns that are clothed in apparently missional rhetoric – the story might serve as a timely, even prophetic caution. Technology has developed even faster with mobile phones, tablets and handheld computers. There are quirky details here that seem quaint now: the invention of the portable fax machine has not come to pass in quite the way one might have envisaged thirty years ago.
The story was written at the height of free-market ideology triumphing in Britain, and asked what might happen if the church were to adopt the same economic, political and ideological pulses that were also shaping the nation? It was written and published some thirty years ago (in 1992), and published in MCU’s Signs of the Times. It is a story of exile, and a Coda that celebrates the return home, the virtues of faithfulness, fortitude, resilience and patience. This Coda (or story) is offered as a cautionary satirical tale of what the future might hold for a church that unintentionally embraces the gods of our age – growth and success, with its High Priests from corporations and business – and in so doing, evacuates itself of patience, charity, hope and faithfulness.