Large Anglican Evangelical churches looking to plant new congregations are being increasingly vociferous in claiming to support smaller parish churches, for obvious reasons. To get diocesan backing for their ventures, they must not be seen to be threatening established churches. Here are some suggested ways those protestations of support can be more than lip-service:
• Face the reality that many parish churches, sadly, have become small and unsustainable because they have not been preaching the biblical gospel of the crucified, risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ. If the large, net-giving churches can find ways of saying that clearly and humbly to diocesan authorities, that is enormously helpful to orthodox Anglicans in small turnaround situations.
• Be clear about your expectation that the churches you subsidise through parish share should be upholding the doctrine of the Church of England and proclaiming the biblical gospel. Playing the ‘diversity’ game, the rules of which are that we should all be celebrating the range of ‘churchpersonships’ in a diocese, is most unhelpful to orthodox ministers in turnaround churches. But stating clearly your expectation as net-givers that the spiritual culture of an unsustainable church needs to be challenged and changed by the Word of God faithfully proclaimed and acted upon really does help.
• Try to persuade Evangelical commuters to your church to support a turnaround situation nearer to where they live. That could be a game-changer for that ministry. A switched-on, clued-up individual or couple can make a significant difference at the prayer meeting, on the PCC, and to the children’s work if they bring a family with them. The church Cranmer's Curate serves cannot currently sustain a Pathfinders group (11-14s) because there are not enough Christian families with children of that age to support it.
• Pray for ministers in turnaround situations in your diocese, even if you are not formally linked with them, at your central prayer meeting. If the excuse for not doing that is that you would have to include all Evangelical ministers in your area, the criterion is that you are praying for Evangelical ministers in non-Evangelical churches.
This support will be costly. Challenging the plausibility structure of ‘diversity’ is bound to lead to problems in negotiations with diocesan authorities over church plants and curates. Giving away people to smaller churches is costly. Raising the reality of conflict in churches in your area at your prayer meeting could be uncomfortable. But if you are protesting your support for small churches in your diocese, the price of not doing these things is your integrity.
This piece on Western Anglicanism's empty talk about diversity appeared on the US-based orthodox Anglican news service VirtueOnline.
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Two key things in what you say.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, yes, too many churches have failed to preach the true Gospel - and no-one has done anything about it.
Secondly, too many people have commuted to some 'evangelical' CofE church instead of making the effort to reclaim their local one for that true Gospel.
I'd just like to add - as minister of a small, independent, but anglican-style congregation that too many people put Anglicanism before the Gospel and carry on travelling and attending churches that might have been Protestant but are now charismatic, "seeker-senstiive" and the like, simply because they are too fixated on being part of the CofE. If locals who do such in my town came to us instead we would double in size overnight, but what matters to them? It doesn't seem to be the Gospel, but an institution.
Gospel first, and much of the problems would disappear.
Finding myself in a small church which is Bible-Based and has been growing consistently in a UPA setting, I wish some of the 'big' evangelical churches would come and support us!
ReplyDeleteI only ever hear of such things happening in places where it is trendy to do such or where the socio-economic indicators mean that there is a chance of added more of the same (i.e. comfortably situated middle-class). is it any wonder that the more liberally-minded find themselves to be so successful in the the poorer areas - the evangelicals appear to shun them these days.
Just a thought.
Pax
I want to say "thank you" to my local "big church"- St John's Hartford- who have been a big support to me.
ReplyDeleteStephen Walton, marbury
Nice to see a testimony from someone being helped - mind you, having been through Marbury it does support my previous thinking. Well done to St John's anyway.
ReplyDelete:)
V
Vic-
ReplyDeleteyou may be thinking of a different Marbury. This is not the one just outside Northwich.
Stephen Walton, Marbury, Tushingham, & Whitewell