Month: August 2015

http://churchgrowthmodelling.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/anglican-church-decline-in-west-data.html
http://churchgrowthmodelling.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/anglican-church-decline-in-west.html

The statistics make sobering reading. I think I understand why they reach the conclusion they do. I don’t believe that the church will be extinct in 2043. But it will almost certainly look very different

Most of our clergy and people recognise the challenge we face. There are important things to say about both the nature of the church and the nature of Scottish society. But at its simplest there are too many congregations which either have an age profile uncomfortably tipped towards the older end or which are just too few. There comes a point beyond which it is simply very difficult to grow back because the existing congregation doesn’t have enough contact across the spectrum of age in its own community.

As I say, most of our clergy and people understand the reality of that challenge. That’s why a commitment to mission and growth – call it Casting the Net or whatever you like – is becoming normative in most of our congregations. We have a far better understanding these days of what it takes to make disciples and to build congregations.

Of which more another day

I spent this morning with the three congregations of the Central Fife Group – St Finnian’s Lochgelly, St Luke’s Glenrothes and St Margaret’s Leven.

These congregations are going through a time of uncertainty since the loss of their Rector, Revd Thomas Brauer, who has become our Diocesan Missioner. But we have been moving to the point where each congregation has a person in ministry – Revd Margaret Dineley in Lochgelly, Revd Gerry Dillon in Glenrothes and soon-to-be-licensed Lay Reader Ian Scott in Leven. Along with the support of retired and other clergy, that provides consistent ministry and stability.

At the moment we exploring the possibility of a mission partnership with the Church Army as a way of helping the congregations into a new level of engagement with the local community.

This is what I said to them today

It’s good to be back. We always say that ‘if you were worried by bad weather you wouldn’t go on holiday to Donegal’. But I have to say that the first two weeks we were there were as bad as I have ever seen. The last week was much better – which was fortunate because it allowed more space for inter-generational sandcastle digging.

I’ve been working through the backlog – and it’s been a busy week as well with a major and very positive gathering for our clergy and the Institution of Revd David Cameron as Rector of St John’s, Forfar, this evening. I should be through all that just in time to spend next week in London with the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.

One of the interesting things which arrived while I was away was this material:

http://churchgrowthmodelling.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/anglican-church-decline-in-west-data.html
http://churchgrowthmodelling.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/anglican-church-decline-in-west.html

I have to say that I don’t think that the SEC will be extinct in 2043 but it may look rather different from its present shape. I need to re-read the material and then I’ll have something to say about it

Happy Birthday to Poppy – twenty years old today. A much-travelled cat, she has settled into Dunfanaghy for her holidays. Her Facebook page gives the full story. There will be readings from her pedigree throughout the day. The Brown Burmese is described as actually being sable with golden eyes.

She has had a varied life. Her years in Portadown were shared with Rollo, our Red Burmese. He wasn’t streetwise so they were both indoor cats for that period. The countryside of Perthshire has suited her. She was almost entirely silent for the first part of her life. Deafness now makes here somewhat noisy. Her greatest achievement – with the assistance of her personal physician Harvey from Tay Valley Vets – was to give up being diabetic after some four years and over 4000 insulin injections.

She expects to have a quiet day today – receiving some friends and admirers. Perhaps a trip to the beach later on …

We had a day out across the border yesterday.  It is still an extraordinary place.  Particularly at this time of year, the visual impact of the flags is everywhere.  Whatever else they symbolise, they are a sign of deep levels of conflict unresolved.  But that seems to have no impact whatsoever on the underlying kindness and warmth of the people.  Aspects of it seem almost brash – but there is a strong sense of a community where people still connect with one another in ways which have been lost elsewhere.  The constant use of ‘wee’ – as in ‘could I take your wee supermarket trolley, dear?’ and ‘just put in your wee PIN’ all helps to humanise.

We visited Belfast City Council’s Amenity Site on Kennedy Way in West Belfast – being still Belfast ratepayers.  That’s an area which would have seen more than its share of the conflict in times past.  I could have spent much more time there – delightful and friendly people telling me where to put the mattress and the carpet underlay.  Their post-conflict world now seems to be an ordered place focused on recycling.

We passed by Seagoe and called in to the churchyard.  It’s a society where cremation is probably the exception rather than the rule.  So I had a brief wander remembering people – wonderful people.  They are well-remembered in the community but I hope their story is written down as well.  It was sad to see Harry our former organist recently laid to rest – and Aubrey our former Sexton close by.  We shared some remarkable experiences like the day Daniel O’Donnell came to Sarah’s funeral with a red rose up his sleeve.

By now we were getting into the patois.  So we found ourselves in B&Q looking for a number of things – including of course a doofer for hoaking stuff out from between the paving slabs.  No problem at all.  And would we just go on the website to say that we hope the store won’t close ….

You know it’s a different climate out here in the Atlantic.  It’s been raining ‘quite a bit’.  We scan the forecast intently – knowing that we have already had the weather forecast for others tomorrow.  And then there is the fuschia which grows wild in our hedge here but shrivels up and dies in the Blogstead weather,   We are letting it bloom fairly chaotically even though I have periodic yearnings to get it into order.  The other thing which happens here is that people respond to the rain by going visiting.   People turn up and there’s talk …

Meanwhile, as my grandfather used to say, the reading rooms are open.

I’m enjoying a re-read  of Garrison Keillor’s ‘Lake Woebegon Days’.  His religious upbringing was with the Sanctified Brethren – ‘a sect so small that only us and God knew about it’

I’ve also got to his explanation of the FAA’s Coleman Course Correction – a result of the Coleman Survey of 1866 which omitted 50 square miles of central Minnesota.  The correction is experienced as a sudden lurch felt by airline passengers as flights descend into Minnesota airspace.

I’m also reading Lanark.  One of the reviews said that it is a challenging a read as James Joyce’s Ulysses.  I’ve never persevered long enough with Ulysses to know how challenging that might be.  But I’m keeping going for now