Last updated 2 March 2019
Videos of all sessions of last week’s General Synod are available here on YouTube.
Rachel Mann looks back at the sessions: ‘In Company’ – A Few Remarkable Days at Synod
[I’ll add articles below as more are published.]
Ivan Ball The Guardian Letters Church of England bureaucracy needs an update
Zachary Guiliano The Living Church ‘The Synod for Evangelism’
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Mission & Evangelism: ecclesiology and liturgy. Reflecting on General Synod
Tim Hind Open Synod Group Overview of the Group of Sessions
William Nye The Guardian Letters Update on Church of England rules for parishes
a response to Ivan Ball’s letter by the secretary general of the Archbishops’ Council.
Meg Munn Chair of the National Safeguarding Panel My First Synod
Church Times has published its usual detailed reports on the Synod. Non-subscribers can only read a limited number of these reports.
I would add to Ivan Ball’s points about volunteer fatigue: voluminous correspondence from the ‘centre’ to hard pressed volunteers about the unrelenting mission initiatives which have different names and acronyms but are essentially the same – the Decade of Evangelism; Vision for Action; Living God’s Love; Reaching New People in New Ways; Thy Kingdom Come; Leading Your Church Into Growth; Follow the Star. We also annually get archdeacon’s Articles of Enquiry for each small rural church, requests for Statistics for Mission for each church and a separate mission hall now used only once a month. These articles of enquiry are… Read more »
The simplification working party ought to be simplifying this- that is what we wanted to happen. (Though to be honest much of what you mention is a diocesan thing- dioceses need to simplify too.)
Ivan Ball overlooks one way for the parishes in a joint benefice to overcome many of the problems he mentions. This is for them to be combined into a single parish, with one PCC, one electoral roll and one bank account. This is possible now without any change in current legislation.
I am amazed how few benefices / parishes do this. One of our archdeacons sen an email detailling this process, but few if any took it up. You don’t lose your independence, only the bureaucracy. You have a joint PCC meeting for an hour then split off into your own parishes to discuss your drains!
Fewer meetings, less stress for icumbents and PCC members. Perhaps Diocesan Admin / Mission and Pastoral Committees / Archdeacons aren’t being proactive enough in PUSHING this solution
John, I’m sure JPCCs work well in some situations, but as a rural incumbent the image I often have is of being the parent of multiple grown-up children – my congregations all look similar in some respects, but the ‘personalities’ are vastly different ! Like different families, some groups of churches like to function closely together, but others are much happier largely doing their own thing.
As incumbent of a group with 3 villages (all very different) and a town of 12,000 or so, I’d echo this – I suspect we’d end up with a PCC every couple of months and a DCC at the current frequency of PCC’S. The divergence feels to great to handle within one legal entity.
William Nye makes the same point as me in the letter now linked above.
I like Tim Hind’s reflections, but need to correct him on one point. This was not the first time General Synod met in London on a Saturday. We met on Saturday 10 February 2018 for, amongst other items, a debate on valuing people with Down’s.