Updated 27 January, 12 February
All the papers for next month’s meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod are now available online
The first batch of papers for next month’s meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod are now available online. The remaining papers will be issued on 27 January and I will add links when these become available.
zip file of all first circulation papers
zip file of all second circulation papers
zip file of all papers from both circulations
Papers in numerical order with a note of the day scheduled for their consideration
Synod meets from Monday 13 to Thursday 16 February 2017.
GS 2014B – Draft Mission and Pastoral etc. (Amendment) Measure [Tuesday]
GS 2014Z – Report by the Steering Committee
GS 2027A – Draft Legislative Reform Measure [Tuesday]
GS 2027Y – Report by the Revision Committee
GS 2029A – Draft Amending Canon No. 36 [Tuesday]
GS 2029AA – Draft Amending Canon No. 37
GS 2029Y – Report of the Revision Committee
GS 2030 – Draft Statute Law (Repeals) Measure [Tuesday]
GS 2030X – Explanatory Memorandum
GS 2031A – Draft Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure [Tuesday]
GS 2031Y – Report by the Steering Committee
[Consolidation, Destinations and Origins]
GS 2032A – Draft Pensions (Pre-consolidation) Measure [Tuesday]
GS 2032Y – Report by the Revision Committee
GS 2042 – Agenda
GS 2043 – Report by the Business Committee [Monday]
GS 2044 – Anniversary of the Reformation [Monday]
GS 2045A & GS 2045B – Preliminaries to Marriage [Tuesday]
GS 2046 – Draft Church Representation, Ecumenical and Minister Measure [Tuesday]
GS 2046X – Explanatory Memorandum
GS 2047 – Draft Amending Canon No. 38 [Tuesday]
GS 2047X – Explanatory Memorandum
GS 2048 – The Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 [Tuesday]
GS 2048X – Explanatory Memorandum
GS 2049 – The Church of England Pensions (Amendment) Regulations 2017 [Tuesday]
GS 2049X – Explanatory Memorandum
GS 2050 – The Safeguarding (Clergy Risk Assessment) Regulations 2016 [[Tuesday]
GS 2050X – Explanatory Memorandum
GS 2051 – Legal Officers (Annual Fees) Order 2016 [deemed business – Tuesday]
GS 2051X – Explanatory memorandum
GS 2052 – Creation of Suffragan See for the Diocese of Leicester [Wednesday]
GS 2053 – Appointment to the Archbishops’ Council [Wednesday]
GS 2054A & GS 2054B – Fixed Odds Betting Terminals: Reduction of Maximum Stake [Wednesday]
GS 2055 – Marriage and Same Sex Relationships after the Shared Conversations: A Report from the House of Bishops [Wednesday]
GS 2056 – Setting God’s People Free: Report from the Archbishops’ Council [Thursday]
GS 2057A & GS 2057B – Mission and Administration [contingency business]
Other papers
GS Misc 1148 – Central Stipends Authority Report
GS Misc 1149 – Diocese Commission Annual Report
GS Misc 1150 – Update on Renewal and Reform
GS Misc 1151 – Ecumenical Relations Report 2016
GS Misc 1152 – Simplification of Ecumenical Regulations
GS Misc 1153 – Report on the Archbishops’ Council’s Activities
GS Misc 1154 – House of Bishops Summary of Decisions
GS Misc 1155 – Holding Office under Common Tenure
GS Misc 1156 – Statement on the Reformation Anniversary
GS Misc 1157 – Simplification – the story so far
My prayers will be offered for the G.S.Report of the House of Bishops on Marriage and Same-Sex Relationships, on Wednesday 15 February. Will this – like other recent meetings on this subject by the H.o.B – be held ‘in purdah’? Or will the Press be allowed to report on the proceedings? We in other parts of the Anglican Communion are vitally interested in any positive outcome for the Church of England on this important matter.
GS 2056 (‘Setting God’s People Free’) is a most interesting read, and one of the most important papers to be supplied by the secretariat for some time. It is worth reading it in conjunction with GS Misc 1150 (the update on R&R). GS 2056 is about making much greater use of the laity. GS Misc 1150 devotes some space to increasing clerical vocations; whilst it attempts to align with GS 2056 at some points, I cannot help but note the tension between the desire to make more of lay vocations and the anxiety to increase the number of ordinands (by… Read more »
“I often felt diminished by these encounters. I became a peripatetic worshipper seven years ago and have now lost any calling to orders”
I suspect an increasing number of people are called (by God) to peripatetic lay service. Even more than lay service in general peripatetic service is seriously underestimated by the Church and not really understood, particularly by ordinands for whom a geographical tie is of such importance.
Without yet having read “Setting God’s People Free” a number of things leap out: Para 1: A great opportunity lies before us. … It is an opportunity that arguably has not been fully grasped since the days of Wesley. Of course, it was the Methodists who took the opportunity. The CofE refused to listen and schism followed. On the term ‘free’: I searched for a definition and didn’t immediately see one. Of the 10 uses of the word 5 are repeats of the title. 2 are in one repeated paragraph which asserts that, if we don’t act, then we will… Read more »
Another job for the clergy. Quite so, Paul Bagshaw. Another stick for diocesan officials to beat parochial clergy with. I have read the report. Maybe my urban parishes are unusual, but despite my own experience as an enabler and talent spotter in another field, I see no horde of people aching to be set free for ministry. What I see are people working hard to support families and friends with increasingly little spare money or time or energy. Perhaps this is another CoE initiative directed at the suburban Home Counties churches.
I’ve skimmed the report but not read it in depth yet, but part of the emphasis seems to be in recognising that lay people have a ministry away from the church, in their work, families, neighbourhoods etc. The focus on ‘ministry’ is often a focus on ‘jobs that need doing to keep the church going’. Expanding that notion to the places people are 7 days a week, rather than confining it to the church, is a good move. Perhaps the problem is that we have made church life too complex, if there was less to maintain and manage, would we… Read more »
In answer to Father Ron Smith’s query on 20 January about GS 2055 (to be published on Friday 27 January), while the ‘Group Work’ on the afternoon of Wednesday 15 February will, necessarily, be in private, the introduction to the report by the Bishops of Norwich and Willesden (Graham James and Pete Broadbent – chairman and vice-chairman of “the bishops’ reflection group on sexuality”), at ‘not later than 12.00 noon’, and the ‘Take Note’ debate from 5.30 pm to 7.00 pm, will be in public session and available to view on the ‘live stream’ which can be accessed via the… Read more »
I’ve corrected the entry for GS 2027Y (which does have steering committee as part of the file name!).
Thanks, Peter. The erroneous heading ‘Steering Committee’ was on one set of the Revision Committee minutes, until the error was pointed out at the next meeting, so I suspect that there may have been a bit of ‘cut and paste’ (though the report itself, GS 2027Y, has the correct heading). It can be quite confusing: where a draft measure is not referred by Synod to a revision committee (as, for example, is the case with the draft Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure – a consolidation measure), it is the Steering Committee who are responsible for final drafting and… Read more »
Froghole: “Either that or the authorities are suffering from some sort of institutional cognitive dissonance.”
I’m afraid it would only be news if they weren’t.