Church in Wales: Managed decline?

GB voting                                                                       Source: Church in Wales

 The Governing Body of the Church in Wales meets in September 2023.

From the Annual Report and Accounts 2022 of the Representative Body [Session 2, Agendum 9]:

Risk Management Policy

"3. Accelerated decline in church attendance

"The continuation of declining attendance and an increasing age profile would result in declining financial income for dioceses: this would lead to an inability to present established patterns of ministry to the whole of Wales. The Representative Body endeavours to maintain the highest financial support to dioceses possible. Also, a renewed focus on mission and evangelism, including additional financial resources being made available, aims to stimulate church growth."

News Posted: 23 August 2023

"The distribution of more than £137m to churches across Wales will be discussed at a key meeting of Church in Wales members next month.

"The money is being released from historic reserves over the next decade to help churches grow and serve their communities more effectively. Investment will be made in development of new ministries and initiatives, as well as in strengthening existing work."

'New ministries and initiatives'! No doubt awaited with eager anticipation. 

Money to burn in Bangor Diocese?

 

The Very Revd Kathy Jones to be ex-Dean of Bangor                                    Source: The Bangor Aye

The Bangor Aye reports that the Very Revd Kathy Jones is to leave her role as Dean of Bangor to take up a new role of Family Support Leader to Katharine House Hospice in Stafford.

Readers may recall that the dean was unhappy with the accommodation the deanery house provided her with, despite the former dean spending £89,000 on refurbishments. More to her taste was the £465,000 four-bedroom detached house purchased for her. 

Likewise, the Canon Precentor of Bangor Cathedral, the Rev Canon David Fisher, was provided with new accommodation because the town centre was 'too noisy'. 

In July 2018 it was announced that Canon Fisher was leaving the Church in Wales following his appointment as Priest-in-Charge (Rector Designate) of All Saints, Carshalton, by the Bishop of Southwark.

 The total bill for the two new homes which, it is claimed, could be up to £1m, is well above the average house price in the area, which is around £160,000.

This may seem like small beer to the Bishop of Bangor, the Rt Rev Andy John, who is the 'lead bishop of evangelism' in the Church in Wales and now the most senior bishop in the Church in Wales following the retirement of Archbishop John Davies.

The Evangelism Committee of which bishop John is a member oversees the spending of a £10m fund set up to 'breathe new life' into its churches.

Last gasps are more in evidence.

Evangelism?

In 2018 the Church in Wales announced that they would spend £10m to 'breathe new life' into its churches:
 

"In the wake of dwindling numbers, the Evangelism Fund will fund “ambitious projects” to get more people engaging with churches. Between 1996 and 2016 the number of signed-up Church in Wales members dropped from 91,247 to 45,759. Now, grants of between £250,000 and £3m will be available for new projects."

Llandaff diocese received £3 million from the fund for their Young Faith Matters Scheme which made possible the Citizen Church with a mission designed to create a new Christian Community for Cardiff students. - That doesn't say much for the Cardiff University chaplaincy which attracts just a handful of students compared with its early years when faith really did matter in the Church in Wales. 

To make the church plant possible, without prior consultation the congregation of St Teilo's in Cathays were to be moved to St Michael’s, also in Cathays, to make St Teilo's available for the experiment. 

Similarly parishes learnt at last week's Llandaff Diocesan Conference how they were to be grouped into Ministry Areas or Benefices, again without prior consultation.

Parishioners in Cathays now learn that they are to be combined along with the parish of Roath St Martin into a new Benefice of Roath where only one of its four daughter churches remains after many years of decline.

Citizen Church is part of the Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) network known mainly for its charismatic leader Nicky Gumbel and his Alpha course. At 65 some are questioning Alpha's survival following Gumbel's retirement.

Many former members of the Church in Wales who kept the faith, digging deep in pockets and purses for the Church, now find themselves on the outside seeing money squandered on fads and fancies.

In his address at the September meeting of the Governing Body, about the only part of the video proceedings that did work before the meeting was abandoned, the Archbishop urged all the church to embrace change. 

So far that has increased the number of senior posts while congregations dwindle. Liberal feminism has taken hold leaving traditional Anglicans unchurched.

That is the Church in Wales, where faith doesn't matter outside the bishops' guidelines.

£10 million church fund targeted to support free love

Note the Diocese of Monmouth's statement on mission and priorities: "Our mission and priorities. We work with stonewall.org.uk". 

That statement sums up the current direction of church and state. 

The Church in Wales has initially allocated £10 million to an Evangelism Fund for dioceses to 'enact their strategies on evangelism and church growth'. The Diocese of Monmouth, soon to be headed by the first openly same sex partnered woman bishop, has targeted evangelism fund money to plug same sex relationships through @MissionMonmuth #lovewithoutlimit. 

Earlier this month Anglican Mainstream published an article “The Tory Party at prayer”?  If so says their Executive Secretary, Andrew Symes, the Church of England reflects the new ‘conservatism’ of the secular progressive elites, not tried and tested values.

Bishops fail to grasp the anti-Christian philosophy behind the LGBT agenda, he says:

"It is the Conservative Party which introduced the change in the definition of marriage; which has overseen and facilitated the exponential rise in ‘gender transition’, and is now pushing through the new Relationships and Sex Education programmes in schools. Rather than oppose this, or at least equip faithful Christians to understand the rapid cultural change and live distinctively in relation to it, the C of E has taken the side of the sex and gender radicals. This website has tracked many examples of this, but just in the area of education: following on from the release of Valuing All God’s Children, the C of E’s LGBT-affirming guidance on ‘homophobic and transphobic bullying’ co-written with Stonewall was released two years ago; Church of England primary schools are using the transgender lobby group Mermaids to ‘train’ staff and governors and backed by Diocesan education departments in doing so, and now senior leaders have expressed approval for the new RSE programme in this document released last week....

"No doubt many Bishops see RSE as a done deal and not worth risking the relationship between church and government; some see the new regulations as merely a way of teaching children to be positive about difference and kind to others, without understanding the anti-Christian philosophy behind the LGBT agenda. But this ideology like a virus has proved adaptable: previously attaching itself only to the political left and secular atheism, it has morphed to be find a home also among Conservative politicians and church leaders. The long march through the institutions is almost complete."

Transforming institutions means allowing drag queens to read same sex storybooks to children.

It means encouraging bishops to support pride events in which naked men parade in front of impressionable young children.

It is making a mockery of Christ's sacrifice when he was dragged through the streets to the Cross.

Police with Wesh Pride                                           Source: Twitter @PrideCymru

“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”

Lowlights September 2018

This tweet sums up the Highlights of latest meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales

There has been an increase in mid-week attendance with an extra 0.03% of the population who do not attend church on Sundays.

By contrast the average Sunday attendance by people over 18 continues to plummet. Down another 3% on 2016 figures to 27,359 representing 0.8% of the population of Wales. Attendance by those under 18 was down by 7%.

Baptisms were down by 10%, Confirmations down by a massive 36% and Weddings down by 8%.

Not regarded as sufficiently important to warrant an agenda item of its own despite concerns previously expressed the Membership and Finances Report 2017 was hidden away in presented as part of Bishop Andy’s presentation on the Evangelism, Pioneering Ministry and Growth report.

He said he was "encouraged by two of its statistics: the increase in attendance at midweek services, which suggested that new kinds of Christian gathering were bearing fruit; and the gentle increase in young people aged under 17 – 'That mustn’t be a fitful figure, but a normal investment in young people to hear the good news,' he said."

If it doesn't bear fruit and quickly the future for the Church in Wales is grim.

Pentecost - Welsh revival!

Bishop Andy John, the lead bishop on evangelism                                         Source: Church in Wales

From a Church in Wales Provincial press release: Church launches £10m fund to inspire new Welsh revival.

+Andy has drawn the short straw as the lead bishop on evangelism. Perhaps it is not surprising since his Easter messages have made the rest of the bench look like amateurs but is it good news?

There is more to evangelism than saying the right things, a problem exemplified when bishop Michael Curry preached about love at the marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle earlier today.

Many thought he preached a powerful sermon, drawing attention to the need to love God and one's neighbour. But the US Episcopal Church and Anglican bishops in Great Britain have distorted scripture, using 'love' as a password to permit virtually any permutation for sexual freedom.

A passionate supporter of same sex marriage, Curry's beliefs are curiously at odds with the beauty of the marriage service, clearly intended to apply to the union of one man and one woman for the procreation of children.

Easter messages reached rock bottom in 2014 when Archbishop Barry Morgan spoke of solidarity and forgiveness. He said: "Solidarity and forgiveness sum up the meaning of Easter and when one sees these values exemplified, one begins to realise the significance of what it means to believe in the God of Jesus."

He expanded his message in a newspaper article at the time. Lecturing politicians on ethics Morgan suggested that "people of all parties could work to bring something of the generous spirit of the governing body to wider politics and work to build a society in which are neighbours are not just tolerated but loved."

That 'generous spirit' led the Governing Body to show a complete absence of love for traditional Anglicans when it voted for a code of practice that abandoned the faithful. Instead it ushered in a feminist cult hell-bent on feminising the church and allowing same sex marriages.

So what of the Evangelism Fund? The chair of the committee overseeing the Fund said, “We are keen to give grants to effective, well-constructed projects and to ensure the Church’s money is well spent. We will be looking for ideas, for example, that create growth among people in age groups under-represented in our churches, create new forms of ‘church’ to appeal to people not currently going, and projects which lead to changes in culture or provide teaching and learning in faith all over Wales.”

Over represented in terms of numbers are elderly women. Traditional Anglicans have been made unwelcome while every effort is being made to accommodate more LGBT people by pretending they have been unwelcome in church despite their disproportionate presence in many congregations and especially among the clergy.

'More of the same - but faster', as the new archbishop put it, can only quicken the eventual demise of the  Church in Wales which in 2015 was given a potential extinction date of about 2040.

What most congregations now lack are traditional Christian families with children in the choir, Sunday school, youth club, Scout and Guide organisations, etc, looking forward at Pentecost for their annual Whitsun treat.

That women were more in evidence was not a problem as there were sufficient men in the choir and serving at the Altar to carry out essential tasks. If not, willing husbands and non-church people would often help-out.

To correct the imbalance today is a near impossible task. The Anglican church is no longer about 'otherness', just more of the same in vestments. A failed strategy that has resulted in empty pews because mystery has been replaced by what is commonplace in society.

As for new forms of ‘church’ to appeal to people not currently attending, there are toddler groups,  'messy' church, cafe style worship, animal blessings, LGBTQI+ eucharists. Everything in fact but repentance.

How much better it would have been at no extra cost to appoint Welsh speaking bishops in the  Church of Wales to make Welsh speakers feel welcome as outlined in the Welsh Language Guidelines published by the Church in Wales: "In general, what is expected is a positive and imaginative approach to extend the use of the Welsh language in the life of the Province".

The Welsh bishops like to lecture others but rarely practice what they preach beyond enforcing their secular agenda. They have ignored consultations and used positive discrimination to achieve their objectives, alienating many to gain a few.

As for a Welsh revival, dream on. Thanks to liberal minded bishops Anglicanism hangs by a thread. They are stretching it to breaking point.

From the press release: "The Evangelism Fund is being launched on Pentecost Sunday – May 20 – the day traditionally regarded as the Church’s birthday when Christians focus sharing their faith and growth."

Received faith has been abandoned resulting in constant decline. Tradition has been thrown out of the window while appealing to the faithless.

"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place"  (Acts 2). Those were the days.

A promising start

Senior bishop, the Rt Rev'd John Davies, Bishop of Swansea & Brecon.  CinW

A welcome change from many previous Presidential Addresses used to further the former Archbishop's political agenda, the Governing Body of the Church in Wales has been told to "put evangelism at heart of ministry".

Rather than 'take note' of the ever decreasing number of regular attenders at Sunday services, the bench of bishops now appear ready to confront the problem head on. Bishop John Davies echoed the feelings expressed on this blog when he said "Some GB members felt strongly and, I believe correctly, that the time was right for us to stop agreeing to simply ‘take note of’ the report.

"By means of an amended motion, GB was invited to take note but to do so ‘with a heavy heart’. Furthermore, GB was invited to ask the Standing Committee to take a careful look at the minority of parishes which were actually growing, and to identify good practice from which others might learn something, do something and, hopefully, begin to arrest the cycle of decline."

Amen to that.

Church in Wales attendance down 5% 2014-2015

Source: The Church in Wales Membership and Finances 2015

The average Sunday attendance of worshippers over 18 in the Church in Wales dropped another 5% between 2014 and 2015 according to the latest figures published in The Church in Wales Membership and Finances 2015. That represents just 0.9% of the population of Wales.

British Religion in Numbers (BRIN) puts the problem of declining numbers into perspective. In 2004 the Over 18 average attendance on Sundays was 41,771 making the 2015 figure of 29,019 all the more startling, a fall of 12,752 on the 2004 figure (-31%), but the Church in Wales simply carries on regardless continuing its "Gadarene slide" as VirtueOnline puts it in Viewpoints.

Attempts to bolster numbers by adding 'Non-traditional Acts of Worship' such as Animal blessings, Café churches, Teenscreen clubs and Interfaith engagement have served only to emphasis the decline: "Overall, it would seem that just over 30,000 people in total participate in some form of nontraditional worship, compared with 36,000 in 2014".

The Membership and Finance Report (pdf) is way down the Agenda at item 19 for the next meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales to be held 14 - 15 September 2016. There will be a Motion: That the Governing Body do take note of this report.

Given the seriousness of the situation one would have thought that 'taking note' of the Report is somewhat short of the mark but with "Evangelism" coming last on the agenda it puts the current state of the Church in Wales in context. 

The Report follows "Admission to Holy Communion – Pastoral Letter " [item 18]. There is no clue as to what surprises the bishops have in store in their Pastoral Letter which is to be "distributed at the time", a device favoured by the bench sitters to avoid anyone with an enquiring mind being forewarned.

This is reminiscent of the same sex marriage manoeuvring and of the women bishops saga which provided a worthless code of practice for anyone who holds their faith in conscience making the forthcoming Conference to "preserve the breadth of Anglicanism in Wales" all the more confusing. Dr Morgan has remained true to his word that there would be alternative Episcopal oversight in Wales 'over his dead body'. He retires as Archbishop of Wales in January 2017 so is there to be new life? Simply to carry on as before would make nonsense of the conference.

The un-Christian Jackson/Wigley Amendment to the women bishops legislation established that unlike other Anglican provinces 'provisions for conscience should not be included in the body of  formal legislation' and that 'legislation should not include structural provision to accommodate dissent' thus removing the prospect of any meaningful sacramental and pastoral provision for church members who in conscience could not accept the ministry of women bishops.

It would be absurd to have a male assistant to a woman bishop on whose authority he would act so given that there will be no "structural provision to accommodate dissent" in Wales the way forward must be to allow Society bishops to minister in Wales. The Welsh bishops have already invited US women bishops to celebrate the Eucharist in the Church in Wales and I see from Item 20 on the GB agenda, "Evangelism – Report from the Evangelism Conference", that Bishop Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford, was able to lead 2 key sessions. To refuse loyal Anglicans access to Society bishops would not just be uncharitable, it would be hypocritical.

As the Church in Wales continues to decline in numbers the Ordinariate is increasing and is gaining more priests. In this month's edition of New Directions, the Chairman of Credo Cymru (FiF Wales) quotes the previous Archbishop of Wales Rowan Williams who stressed the value of promoting internal ecumenism. By allowing bishops from outside Wales to minister to 'traditionalists' the bench would regain some much needed credibility and provide a reason for worshippers to remain in the Church in Wales.

The Church of England Lunch Party

The Church of England has announced plans for the big lunch party in association with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. From the Church Times:

Churches are being encour­aged to take their trestle tables and tea urns out to the street and to host a “Big Jubilee Lunch” on the after­noon of Sunday 3 June. Dr Rachel Jordan, national ad­viser for mission and evangelism, said that churches could be “known as places that hosted and helped to catalyse the biggest party the nation has ever had. . . . It’s a simple idea, and it doesn’t take much resourcing.” 

This initiative comes in tandem with 'The Big Jubilee Thank You' plan when letters sent to Her majesty from each diocese will give people the opportunity to add their own comments. The three big thanks are:

Thank you for your Majesty’s faithful witness to the Christian faith.

Thank you for your Majesty’s gracious leadership as Supreme Governor of our Church.

Thank you for your Majesty’s devoted service to our nation over the past 60 years.

After the Queen's appointment of a traditionalist chaplain, signatories may wish to add an appropriate apology for the church's departure from the traditional Christian faith:

Sorry, your Majesty, that the Church into which you were born does not now follow your faithful witness to the Christian faith having moved with the times rather than followed your example of devoted service and leadership.

Personally I would have hoped that the church Her Majesty and I were born into would be remembered for something other than 'a simple idea' of the biggest lunch the nation has ever had; real mission and evangelism based on our traditional Christian faith perhaps?