A Big Jubilee Thank You to Her Majesty; Durham church leaders speak out after wave of job losses; George Pitcher on the next Archbishop of Canterbury; Vicar says church must shed its boring image; Marking 350 years of the book which divided the church; Lincolnshire clergy ‘feel undervalued’ by church leaders
A Big Jubilee Thank You to Her Majesty The Queen
A letter thanking Her Majesty The Queen for 60 years of service has been delivered to Buckingham Palace today. The Big Jubilee Thank You, coordinated by the Church of England and HOPE Together, was signed by the public in churches and cathedrals throughout the year and contains thousands of signatures from all over the country.
Letters of thanks (download high res picture above) were first signed by bishops, vicars and pastors, before being made publicly available in churches for the public to add their own comments and signatures. They have been pouring into Church House in London for several months, some dioceses and churches choosing to use the Big Jubilee Thank You downloads available from the Church of England website, others choosing to create their own ways of saying thank you.
http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2012/09/a-big-jubilee-thank-you-to-her-majesty-the-queen.aspx
Durham church leaders speak out after wave of job losses
Journal Live – The Right Rev Justin Welby Bishop of Durham and other senior clergy from the Church of England Diocese of Durham have spoken out after the announcement of two lots of job losses in the Sunderland and Wearside areas. They have made a call for a …
http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/09/24/durham-church-leaders-speak-out-after-wave-of-job-losses-61634-31893317/
George Pitcher on the next Archbishop of Canterbury
In a major article in the New Statesman, George Pitcher, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s secretary for public affairs from 2010-2011, ponders the challenges confronting the Archbishop’s successor: Between church and state.
Politicians are accustomed to the media distorting whatever they have to say for dramatic effect – every discussion is a row, every initiative a push for power. So it is with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Anglican apparatchiks have been busy playing down the suggestion that their Church is planning to appoint a “global president” to relieve the next archbishop of some of the workload. The line is that Dr Rowan Williams, in a valedictory interview in the Daily Telegraph, merely said that the job was too big for one person. The Telegraph thought otherwise.
But the story stirred some emotions, not least relief that Tony Blair had converted to Roman Catholicism and so would not be available for the job. And it drew attention to just how political is the role of archbishop of Canterbury. Not only is Williams presented as a more virulent opposition to the present government than the Labour Party, but what he has to say is presented in the media about as sympathetically as Boris Johnson’s denials that he wants to be prime minister…
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2012/09/between-church-and-state
Vicar says church must shed its boring image
At a time when attendance is falling across the country, the Rev Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes believes the church must move with the times if it is to remain relevant. As she takes up her new post as vicar of Belmont and Pittington in County Durham, Dr Threlfall-Holmes has a vision for the church to be vibrant and exciting. She admits that people are being put off attending church because they find it boring. Dr Threlfall-Holmes is an academic specialising in church history and comes to the post after being Interim Principal of Durham University’s Ustinov College.
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/3/vicar.says.church.must.shed.its.boring.image/30697.htm
Marking 350 years of the book which divided the church
West Sussex County Times – To mark the 350th anniversary of the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer, Colgate parish church is holding a service of Evensong on Sunday September 30 at 4pm. Just as the King James Bible was celebrated as a national treasure last year when …
http://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/community/our-church/marking-350-years-of-the-book-which-divided-the-church-1-4295554
Lincolnshire clergy ‘feel undervalued’ by church leaders
BBC News – The clergy in Lincolnshire feel “undervalued” by their leaders and suffer from low morale, a report has claimed. The document, commissioned by the Bishop of Lincoln, also highlighted concerns over governance and the management of churches. The bishop …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-19707598