Local Mission Areas mask decline

A tranquil looking St Thomas a Becket Church in Haverfordwest, one of 12 redundant buildings being sold                BBC/DYLAN MOORE/GEOGRAPH

In September BBC News reported that data from the Church in Wales showed 115 Anglican churches have closed over a 10-year period, about 8% of the total, with 1,319 still in use.

One of twelve redundant churches currently being offered for sale is the former St Thomas à Becket’s Church, illustrated. It is a Grade II listed building in Haverfordwest in the diocese of St Davids. There are three others in the diocese, the former St Cain’s Church located in the village of Llangain, Carmarthenshire, the former St Mary’s Church, Ambleston 9 miles north-east of Haverfordwest and the former St Mary’s Church, Bryngwyn near Aberporth. 

The BBC report highlighted the fact that "the last census revealed Wales had the highest number of people with no religion in the UK" but instead of mission and evangelism the Church in Wales is re-organising into Local Ministry Areas (LMAs), something nobody wants but was nodded through by Archbishop Barry Morgan's followers after the change was recommended in the Church in Wales Review. The policy is being put into effect at varying speeds in the six dioceses.

By contrast there has been no action on diocesan structure (Section 15. Dioceses: their number and administration) which supports six diocesan bishops, six deans, numerous Archdeacons and an ever expanding number of LMA facilitators, coordinators, etc, not to mention their expensive administrative supporting structures.

In addition to appointing the first woman Dean of St Davids, the first female bishop of St Davids has 'promoted' another women to her senior staff, the Revd Marianne Osborne, as the diocesan Ministry Area Development (MAD) Officer. In an earth shattering announcement the Bishop "stressed that the harsh realities of a changing world meant new ways of working are now essential. We simply don’t have the money to sustain the existing pattern of ministry, she said". Odd that she has money to expand her senior staff! Well, there will be even less money as the oldies die and the disillusioned follow the sane and stop funding a church that lost its way while trying to be relevant to an indifferent society.

The differences by diocese are marked. In Monmouth where dissent earns a black mark, its CEO bishop has been racing ahead, beating parishes into the desired LMA shape as their Diocesan Conference 2017 Edition of Grapevine illustrates. Googling 'Local Ministry Areas' suggests that apart from St Davids the other dioceses have much catching up to do. One can understand Llandaff being behind with the  more pressing need to keep their Cathedral functioning but no doubt bishop June will want to catch up when she has finished working on her parity policy to ensure that ability and seniority are replaced by women and gender issues (see previous entry).

The bishop of St Asaph has been busy with his more important LGBTQI+ agenda, ensuring that the allegedly unwelcome in our midst are more visible and well supported. This follows the well tried policy that normality springs from familiarity. The bishop of Swansea and Brecon will of course have had other things on his mind with the Jeffrey John affair and the vacancy which he has now filled as Archbishop of Wales. 

Bangor? Well who knows what is going on in the Diocese of Bangor but their bishop comments on  an ITV Report to be broadcast this evening on S4C that "the main Christian denominations in Wales are suffering 'an alarming decline”'in membership leaving some fearing Christianity 'will disappear'."

The report claims that the Church in Wales "remains the largest denomination" with 45,759 members on its electoral roll which compares with 98,878 in 1990 - a drop of 54%." The reality is worse with regular Sunday attendance down to 28,291 according to 2016 figures.

"The Church in Wales are currently implementing a plan named ‘2020 Vision’. This plan is intended as a growth strategy to re-energise the Church before its centenary in 2020. 

"Bishop of Bangor, the Rt Rev Andy John is a member of the 2020 Vision strategy implementation group. He told the programme changes are afoot to make the Church 'more appealing'."

From another report a quarter of Anglican churches childless: "Twenty-five per cent of Church of England services do not have a single youngster among their congregations". I would imagine that the position in Wales is no better and probably worse given that Wales has the highest number of people with no religion in the UK.

'Fiddling while Rome burns'?

Postscript [26.10.2017]

Mathematics to solve Monmouth Local Ministry Areas problem.

The bishop of  Monmouth has proclaimed that  "A third archdeaconry is to be created in Monmouth Diocese following overwhelming support for the move at this year’s Diocesan Conference (21 October)". He said, "As Bishop I am charged with the leadership of this Diocese.  Faced with such a challenge I could ignore it and almost certainly let the Anglican presence in the Valleys fade away. Or I could do – what any organisation would do – let alone the church – invest in the area and try and turn it around."

Currently, the Archdeacon of Monmouth is working with 8 Ministry Area Leaders, while the Archdeaconry of Newport, which includes the Valleys, has twice that number at 16, a total of 24.

The solution? Divide 16 by 2 and hey presto, 3 x 8 = 24.
Also, 16 - 4 = 12, 8 + 4 = 12. 12 + 12 = 24 the number started with at no extra cost.

Ah! But “We need mission and evangelism otherwise this Diocese will find it difficult to survive,” bishop Richard warned. Back to 2005.

Monmouth has been here before. In 'Hope for Monmouth, the diocesan strategy document' which was launched at the Diocesan Conference in October 2005 the previous bishop wrote at length in his Preface, including this under 'Mission':

 "Mission includes evangelism but it also includes pastoral care, social concern, teaching the faith, peace and justice issues and worship. What is important is that we connect with all of them! A church that has fine worship but no social concern will become like a cult; a church that is good on pastoral care and social action but is weak on the study of the scriptures and worship will be a church without a gospel. Our worship must connect with our own discipleship, with evangelism and with the suffering world."

What happened?

From my entry Church in Wales attendance down 5% 2014-2015

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.

A sad commentary

Source:Source: Daily Post 

This is one of twelve redundant churches for sale referred  to in a May entry Your new home? The former Christ Church is located in the centre of the village of Rhosybol between Llanerchymedd and Amlwch on the Isle of Anglesey. It is still on the market.

The BBC is reporting that 110 Anglican churches have closed in Wales in 10 years or, as Premiere succinctly put it: "Eight per cent shut their doors for good during the decade covered, the Church in Wales statistics show. The decline leaves 1,319 Anglican churches in Wales still open."

Using the latest regular attendance figures that gives an average congregation of just 21 souls.

A Church in Wales spokesman said "there was a move to take a regional look at churches rather than let each one deal with the issue on its own. We're grouping a lot more parishes and congregations together, about 10-15 churches in an area, and thinking which ones can we sustain.

"There's a little bit more strategy - what's a sustainable congregation and where's the best place to do it?" The National Churches Trust said the rate of closures in Wales was relatively higher than England, given relative population size, where about 20 close each year.

Meanwhile in one of the buildings remaining open, at least for the time being, in the Church of England, the Rev Richard Coles, "radio presenter and Strictly Come Dancing 2017 star", has been seen entertaining his congregation with some mincing steps in a preview of his performance on Saturday evening.

The verdict? From the Telegraph: Ruth Langsford and Reverend Richard Coles were also down there at the bottom of the scoreboard but they possess both the entertainment value and fan base to keep them in the contest. We shall see next Sunday. 

After the launch of this year's series which includes a lesbian comedian as well as a gay vicar, there was a debate over whether gay contestants should be coupled with a dancing partner of the same sex prompting a previous gay contestant, Judge Rinder, to protest that the same-sex partner idea was 'absurd'.

If only the Archbishop of Canterbury could have been as forthright when he was asked in a LBC radio interview what his reaction was to a six year old boy being sent into a Church of England school dressed as and identifying as ‘a girl’. The Archbishop's reply was a boy wearing a dress to school was 'not a problem' indicating how far Anglican bishops have strayed like lost sheep.  A more profound response to the theology of cross-dressing amongst 6 year olds can be read here.

Back in Wales they have at least one claim to fame. According to 2011 census figures, Wales had the highest number of people in the UK with no religion. As attendance continues to fall more closures can be expected. Something for the bishops along with the Representative Body to ponder over in their spanking new Provincial office in the heart of Cardiff as the remaining 28,291 worshippers are encouraged to give far more than the average £9.41 per Sunday attender according to the latest (2016) membership and finance figures.

The Church in Wales recommends that its members should "give 5% of their take-home pay to the Church". For a single pensioner with no other source of income that amounts to £7.98 out of a weekly State Pension is £159.55 per week.

The current model is unsustainable with increasingly elderly congregations, that is, where the church still functions. Apart from toddler groups, messy church and the like, the traditional family where children sang in the choir, became servers, joined youth clubs, Scouts, Guides has become as scarce as the traditional parish church.

Traditionally the parish church has been at the heart of local communities. From the Church in Wales' Introduction to The Cure of Souls (1996): 

"The Church is at one and the same time a spiritual, moral and institutional community. Any attempt to isolate one aspect from the others misrepresents its reality.

What distinguishes the Church from other communities, at least in its own self-understanding, is that it is a ‘spiritual’ community – a fellowship/community of the Holy Spirit. That is, it claims to participate in the Spirit of God and to be established as the community it essentially is by the Spirit of God."

That should be the 'strategy' but Anglican bishops have decided to follow the failed TEC model, plodding along while becoming irrelevant to society as the edifice crumbles. What a sad commentary.

Your new home?

Christ Church, Rhosybol, on sale for £45,000                                                       Source: Daily Post

This is just one of twelve redundant churches currently offered for sale by the Representative Body of the Church in Wales following closure for worship which could be your new home. How many more to follow?

Worship often took place twice and more in bigger churches on Sundays, many with a daily Eucharist during the week. That was before they became the means of spreading political correctness, misapplying notions of gender equality to the priesthood, substituting equality for theology.

With few exceptions Church attendance continues to fall year by year. Ironically, in one of the largest ever surveys of peoples' attitudes towards the role and influence of churches in local communities published in Christian Today, more than a third of UK adults surveyed said that they would "campaign to keep their nearest church from closing because it provides 'vital' services to its local community." Without supporting members, who would maintain them?

MAE Cymru supporters. Source Church in Wales

 In former years five of the bishops of the Church in Wales held Oxford Firsts in Theology. The bishop designate of Llandaff studied social sciences. When interviewed by BBC TV News she was very much into gender parity so regardless of merit no doubt there will be an explosion of female appointments in Llandaff along with St Davids where the first woman bishop was appointed. Bishop Penberthy is a strong supporter of MAE Cymru, an organisation spreading feminism in the Church Wales under the guise of equality but only as they see it.

In response to my previous entry some commentators became exercised over a suitable spiritual home for disillusioned Anglicans. Sadly, as the declining numbers indicate in all but a few churches, most Christians do not look for an alternative. They give up in despair and stay home. Robbed of its mystery and otherness, church-going has for many become another weekly social occasion while others turn up at Easter and/or Christmas expecting their church to be there for them.

The obsession with gender politics has been a disaster. It has spread from the acceptance of the ordination of women to demands for acceptance of just about every sexual permutation including same sex marriage, the red line for many Anglicans.

Woe betide anyone who dares to hold a contrary opinion or to question the basis of different beliefs. Witness the Tory MP forced to stand down after a sixteen year old student and LGBT rights campaigner did not like the answer to her question after she asked him if he was planning on attending the Isle of Wight's first ever pride event.

Shades of Germaine Greer who was pilloried for expressing her personal opinion that she did not think post-operative transgender men are women, an opinion shared by experts.

Devout Christian Tim Farron the leader of the Liberal Democrat party was hounded until he gave a politically correct answer when asked if he thought that homosexuality was a sin. He had no support from the Church of England.

The first Church of England vicar to marry his same-sex partner has announced his resignation as a parish priest complaining that the CofE is 'institutionally homophobic'. He claimed that he and other gay and lesbian clergy were 'barely tolerated'.

That is an odd claim given the experience of remaining churchgoers, a claim which also contradicts the experience of the Rev Sally Hitchiner who told viewers of the BBC Breakfast programme on 30 April while discussing the marriage of Pippa Middleton that she was to "marry" her same sex partner next month.

Many, particularly younger, people today simply shrug their shoulders and say, So what? It doesn't affect me. But it does. As churches close some are converted into mosques while new Islamic centres are being built to accommodate the growing number of Muslims resulting from immigration and higher birth rates. Mohammed already tops the list of most popular baby boy names in England and Wales.

Islam is not tolerant of homosexuality. Woman count for less than men. It is ironic, then, that the politics which have split the Church will be unacceptable to the predominant faith group when Islam becomes the largest religion in the world by 2070.

If church leaders spent as much time exposing the ideology that is stamping out Christianity in its birthplace as they do on gender politics and affirming Islam there would be less need for GAFCON to send a missionary bishop to our shores to speak for traditional marriage.

Meanwhile in New Zealand a transgender weightlifter is causing controversy. Olympic Weightlifting NZ high performance manager Simon Kent described Hubbard's performance as 'magnificent'. "This is such a new issue for society to have a conversation about," said Kent, of the transgender question. "It really challenges how people respond to it - it's not something that is openly discussed and talked about." [My emphasis - ED.]

Transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard  Source: NZ Herald Photo: Doug Sherring

Let us not pray

"Atheists are to hold a service in St John the Evangelist Church, Leeds" Photo: Yorkshire Evening Post 

"We’d like to take all of the good bits out of church and leave the religious stuff behind."

No, that is not the voice of the New Anglicanism although many may think so as coffee time replaces faith as the central act of 'worship' in the Church of England. 

St John the Evangelist, the oldest church in Leeds, dates from 1634. The Grade I listed building which is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust after being made redundant in 1977 is to echo again to the sound of music although there will be no prayers. In a move designed to "take all of the good bits out of church and leave the religious stuff behind" the church's dedication to St John the Evangelist now sounds singularly inappropriate - story here - but who knows!

The disposal and further use of redundant Christian churches is bound to cause problems of identity simply by their appearance on the basis that 'an elephant is an elephant'. What appears to be a house of God will be seen by observers as a house of God even after deconsecration, a process most will know little if anything about. Although a deconsecrated church becomes just another building, its very appearance in most cases still makes it an act of witness, albeit historically.

Like it or not there is an odd sense of unrecognised 'Godliness' in what the Sunday Assembly movement is doing in a church building. God is love! What they seek is professed to be 'for good'. That can't be bad. One day the 'non-worshippers' may sit in silent contemplation and look around wondering what inspired people to construct the ancient building they are not worshipping in.

Another church in the news is St Peter's Catholic church in Stoke-on-Trent which has been sold to the local Muslim community after they made the best offer. That is not so good. Christ's kingdom is not about money but it is under constant threat from Islam. Providing Muslims with another safe haven where radicalisation may take place looks like another act of submission (the meaning of Islam) while Muslims continue to oppress non-Muslims around the world with muted self criticism and implied approval here by constantly giving ground to an oppressive religio-political system of Islamic expansionism.

Also in the news, reported here, the Prison Officers Association has expressed their concern about the growing power and influence of Muslim gangs in prisons. Inmates are being bullied into converting to Islam with fears that some of the converts could be radicalised, a process which inevitably leads to the slaughter of innocents, here, contradicting claims that Islam is a religion of peace.

Communities around the world constantly suffer under Islam particularly when they are minorities as demonstrated by the latest outrage in Egypt here where drive-by, masked gunmen sprayed a wedding party outside a Coptic Church in Cairo with bullets from automatic weapons killing four people including two young girls. Check 'Voice of the Copts' here for what life is like for minorities under Islam.

In these circumstances 'Let us not pray' is far more attractive than the prayers of those called to prayer five times a day while carrying out their barbarous acts in the name of religion.