C of E Rejoicing over Christmas Twitter campaign; Expert solutions for heating churches; Bishop of Exeter to retire this year; Media Review – So gay bishops should have sex and lie about it. Really, Giles Fraser?; January – the busy month for marriage; Bishops share Prince’s succession concerns; Sentamu claims China more equal than GB; Deep fried cathedral; House of Lords could reject same-sex marriage
C of E Rejoicing over Christmas Twitter campaign
The Church of England yesterday released figures for its Christmas Twitter campaign #ChristmasStartsWithChrist.
Launched in November 2012, congregations and clergy in the 12,500 parishes of the Church of England were encouraged to get out their smartphones and livetweet the joy and meaning of Christmas in a series of 140 character messages to the 10 million people who make up the UK’s ‘Twitterati’.
Churches from across the country took part in the campaign, tweeting their sermons using the hashtag “#ChristmasStartsWithChrist” to share their Christmas messages. Figures revealed today show almost 9,000 tweets sent using the hashtags
“#ChristmasStartsWithChrist” and “#CSWC” with peak traffic occurring on Christmas Day at around 11am (GMT) and a smaller peak on Christmas Eve at 11pm (GMT).
Taken over a 24 hour period from 11pm on Christmas Eve to 11pm on Christmas Day these figures represent an average of 370 tweets per hour, 6 per minute or 1 every 10 seconds.
The cumulative reach for the 8,878 tweets using the hashtags was 9.6 million twitter users.
In addition to sermons from the UK, tweets were also sent from services in churches as far away as Brisbane, South India and Basel.
Led by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams (@lambethpalace), the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu (@johnsentamu) and Archbishop Designate Justin Welby (@bishopofdurham), churches took to the twittersphere to communicate the good news of Christ coming into the world.
Revd Arun Arora (@RevArun), Director of Communications at the Archbishops’ Council, said: “This was the first time the Church of England has adopted Twitter for a Christmas initiative and we are delighted with the results.
“Christmas is one of those times when the Church is at its best, proclaiming with joy and song the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. To see so many people communicating the joy of Christmas with a shared message of #ChristmasStartsWithChrist was a cause for rejoicing.
“We are already looking at using twitter for our Lent campaign, LoveLifeLiveLent (@LiveLent).
“This was a real team effort with Archbishops and Bishops, clergy and laity, on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, all joining in to proclaim the good news. As with the rest of society, there are many social media enthusiasts in our pews and it is each of them we have to thank for making this happen.”
Expert solutions for heating churches
Twenty-five per cent of churches can make simple savings using heating controls* and churches can possibly even become ‘zero carbon’ – just two key facts contained within presentations by contributors to the recent Heating without the Hot Air Conference, now online at http://www.churchcare.co.uk/about-us/past-events/heating-without-the-hot-air.
Other facts include:
• All churches can make quick savings from lighting
• Old boilers can be 30 per cent inefficient and a replacement can pay back in four to five years
• The First Zero Carbon Church – St Michael’s, Withington – saves 12.1 tonnes of carbon per year.
Keeping an historic church warm for community use while conserving its heritage features and minimising the environmental impact is a real challenge, especially at a time of rising energy prices.
Website pages regularly updated by the Cathedrals and Church Buildings Division accompany the conference presentations, and contain a helping hand through the range of solutions available, such as ground and air source heat pumps, biomass boilers, under-floor heating and condensing boilers, as well as guidance on insulation and ventilation, at http://www.churchcare.co.uk/churches/guidance-advice/looking-after-your-church/technical-matters/heating.
As speakers at the sell-out conference pointed out though, technology cannot solve everything, and some simple pointers on increasing the energy efficiency of a building can be found under the Shrinking the Footprint environmental pages at http://www.churchcare.co.uk/shrinking-the-footprint/taking-action.
Bishop of Exeter to retire this year
The Rt Revd Michael Langrish, Bishop of Exeter, has announced (Sunday 6 January) that he will retire this year.
Bishop Michael has served as Bishop of Exeter since 2000 and has been a priest for 40 years. His will be 67 this summer. His last service will be in Exeter Cathedral on 29 June.
In a letter sent to all clergy in parishes across Devon this morning, he said: “During the 13 years that I have had the privilege of serving as Bishop of Exeter I have grown to love this county and its people deeply.
“Although 2012 has been a challenging year, as have many others before it, I hope that I leave the Church of England in Devon in good heart. We have recently seen growth in the number of vocations to authorised ministry, positive indications in terms of the numbers of those who worship with us and cause for optimism in the financial contributions we receive. For all of these, I am enormously grateful for your support and the depth of your commitment to growing God’s Kingdom.”
MEDIA REVIEW
So gay bishops should have sex and lie about it. Really, Giles Fraser?
By Jake Wallis Simons, Telegraph
When a priest tells people to lie, you know there’s something wrong. I speak, of course, of Giles Fraser, who writes on the Guardian website that sexually active gay priests or bishops do not have a moral responsibility to tell the truth. “I’d go further,” he says. “In this situation, they have a moral responsibility to lie.”
He is commenting on the decision taken by the House of Bishops that gay members of the clergy can be elevated to bishophood so long as they remain celibate, even if they are cohabiting with a person of the same sex. “The only way the bedroom police could ever really know [if the candidate is homosexually active] is if they ask and play a moral guilt trip about honesty on those being interrogated,” he argues. “So do sexually active gay priests or bishops have a moral responsibility to tell the truth? Actually, I think not.”
There are times, he says, when “we lie because we don’t trust another with the truth.” In the case of sexually active gay priests and bishops, this is “wholly justified”. The blame for the untruth does not lie with the liar but with “the church itself”, which “encourages people to live a lie, to build their whole identity upon untruth. Thus so many gay clergy have clandestine existences, lavender marriages and unexplained holidays”.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jakewallissimons/100196949/so-gay-bishops-should-have-sex-and-lie-about-it-really-giles-fraser/
January – the busy month for marriage
Report that ‘according to the Church of England, the beginning of January has become one of the busiest times of year for vicars because of a rush of couples getting engaged’ noting increasing visits to www.yourchurchwedding.org.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9786116/Forget-divorce-day-January-is-the-month-for-love-says-Church.html
Succession issue
Bishops share Prince’s succession concerns Reports that ‘senior bishops share the worries of the Prince of Wales that legislation to give princesses equal rights to princes in line of succession is rushed, risky and could lead to unintended constitutional crises’.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3650607.ece
Sentamu claims China more equal than GB
Report that ‘communist China could teach Britain a lot about happiness because it is a more “equal” society, according to the Archbishop of York’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9785979/China-could-teach-us-about-happiness-says-Sentamu.html
Deep fried cathedral
Report that York Minister should be coated in olive oil-based fat to fight damp.
House of Lords could reject same-sex marriage
Report that ‘expectations that same-sex marriage could be defeated in the House of Lords are growing after the first poll of peers on the subject showed strong support for shelving the move’.