Always Hope

Today's C of E - related spat relates to the Telegraph's provocative Ageing Church of England will be dead in 20 years . This is a write-up of what would otherwise have been a footnote to one of the most uncontroversial General Synod meetings for some years.  I'm not sure which debate this took place in, probably the one on Mission Action Planning, but the Revd. Patrick Richmond assured the Synod that unless things change, "some extrapolations" show that the church "will not be functionally extant" by 2030.  Despite the obvious fact that "some extrapolations" translates as "my personal opinion", this is worth considering, as bloggers will.  Stuart at eChurch Blog takes it as a statement of the bleeding obvious.  Meanwhile, my blogging friend David at The Vernacular Curate is on good table-thumping form as he castigates Mr Richmond for his whingeing pessimism. So, we're all doomed, or just a bit of old-fashioned doom and gloom?...

This isn't new, but it's been doing the rounds of the UK blogs. Always Hope makes no particular claim to originality, so I share it with you in case you haven't seen it yet: OK, it doesn't work at every point, and some of it doesn't cross the Atlantic very well, but it makes you think, especially about the general naffness of so much of the stuff we do in church. My favourite bit is the "greeter" who blatantly ignores the people coming in - one of my bugbears in church, and something which I had the opportunity to experience personally last year when I visited some of England's best known evangelical churches (tell you which ones? perish the thought.) I think it's quite subtle too. The bit that really makes me think is when he's going on about "we got 75 converts last year - 75!". Don't misunderstand me - I do believe there's "rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents" [Luke 15:7], but I don't think that...