Twenty year high for young priests; Archbishop of Canterbury supports response to Winchester safeguarding report; C of E must be ‘distinctive’ – Nazir Ali; Praise for church winter shelter volunteers; Church: perfect in all its imperfections; New director of the Central Secretariat and Clerk to the Synod; Media review
Twenty year high for young priests
New statistics for 2012 show that the number of young people (under 30s) accepted for training for the Church of England ministry last year was 113, 22% of the total. This is the highest number in the past twenty years.
The Ministry Division of the Archbishops’ Council is continuing to be proactive in recruiting both young ordinands and those from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds (BME) and this month sponsored two separate conferences for those thinking about ordination.
Sixteen young people, aged 15-19, attended a young vocations conference in Cambridge and feature in a Church of England podcast. ( www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/engage-with-us-online/podcasts.aspx)
“The opportunities for young people to serve are there,” says Amie, one of the delegates. “I’ve been very encouraged by this conference and that’s a real positive, because a few years ago it might not have been the same. Diocesan Directors of Ordinands are not saying, ‘Go away you’re 18 or 19. They are saying come and explore with me.'”
Southwark diocese hosted the conference for those considering ordination from a BME background with nearly 30 participants on the weekend and further names on the waiting list.
Dr Elizabeth Henry, the CofE’s national Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns Adviser, said: “In many locations, BME Anglicans keep the Church going but don’t always feel welcome to share in the leadership of the Church at local and national level. This was an occasion when the Church recognised them and their ministry within the Church. It will be great to build on this success at a national Vocations Conference planned for 2014.”
Dr Stephen Ferns, the CofE’s Senior Selection Secretary, commented: “I’m delighted by the success of both these initiatives. The Church needs to encourage more young vocations and more vocations from people from minority ethnic backgrounds so that our ordained ministry can better reflect and reach out to the communities that we serve.”
Archbishop of Canterbury supports response to Winchester safeguarding report
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has supported the response of the Bishop of Winchester to (8 March) publication of an independent report into a safeguarding complaint in Jersey from 2008.
The report raises concerns that the Dean of Jersey did not comply with key safeguarding procedures in dealing with the complaints of a vulnerable adult parishioner, who had made a complaint about abusive behaviour by a Churchwarden.
Following the publication of the report, the Bishop of Winchester announced he was withdrawing the commission of the Dean of Jersey, effectively suspending him, and he has begun an investigation into the conduct of the case by the Dean and other matters raised by the report.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said:
“The Bishop of Winchester’s swift, decisive and wholly necessary actions following his receipt of this report are to be commended. I too wish to add my own personal apologies to the young woman who was so badly let down by those she had turned to for help and I wholeheartedly support the investigation that the Bishop has launched. He must receive full cooperation from all involved.
“We cannot place a high enough importance on safeguarding issues and it is vital that lessons are learned from this case, not just in Jersey but throughout the whole of the Church of England. Every day, the vulnerable come to us for shelter, for support and for comfort. Their trust cannot be taken for granted.”
CofE must be ‘distinctive’
The former Bishop of Rochester has spoken of his desire to see the Church of England be more distinctive in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
In a society afflicted by high levels of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and drug and alcohol consumption, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali said the good news of Jesus Christ must be shown to meet the “deepest needs” of people.
In order to be effective in this, he said the people who make up the Church of England must be “properly equipped” and “used for ministry”.
“Resources need to be released away from lawyers, experts and civil servants towards such equipping of those in the pew,” he said.
“This will lead to a lightening of bureaucracy at every level and to church gatherings which are characterised by prayerfulness and attention to God’s word rather than the ‘dead hand’ of parliamentary procedure.”
Reading out his letter to the Archbishop on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, Bishop Nazir-Ali said the Church would need to discover forms of ministry that “respect both equality and distinctiveness” regardless of the outcome of the current debate on the ordination of women.
Affirming his support for Establishment, he cautioned that this could not mean that “the Church is expected to own every passing fad or every trendy fashion in contemporary society”.
“The Church of England excels at being ‘salt’, working away invisibly to preserve, enhance and nourish but has the time come to be more like ‘light’ in the darkness, drawing people to Christ by being distinctive?”
He concluded: “It must rather model being a distinctive moral and spiritual community which is committed, nevertheless, to serving the nation as a whole, whether it is established or not.”
Praise for church winter shelter volunteers
An army of volunteers has won praise for making it possible to open church winter shelters for the homeless in Ipswich.
The night shelters provided a warm and safe place to sleep for 40 people during the cold winter months.
They were supported by over 400 volunteers who served the night shelters in shifts, making up beds, serving food and befriending guests. In addition to a hot dinner and breakfast, guests were also able to clean and freshen up.
The Red Cross even provided a Land Rover to help some of the volunteers make it to the shelters when temperatures plummeted to minus 15 in parts of the county.
The shelters were open over three months, with seven churches taking turns to accommodate guests each night. They have just closed for the spring as the temperature warms up.
It is the second year in a row that churches in Ipswich have opened their doors to provide shelter to the homeless during the winter.
They built on the success of last year’s efforts, which were recognised with the £10,000 Improve and Prove award on behalf of the Suffolk Foundation and Suffolk County Council.
The Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, the Right Reverend Nigel Stock said the volunteers were an “inspiration for the whole town”.
He said the night shelters were “sorely needed” during the winter cold spells.
“I hope and pray that this excellent work continues to thrive and I would like to express my admiration for all involved,” he said.
The diocese’s minister for church and community engagement, the Reverend Canon Paul Daltry said plans were already afoot to run the night shelters again next winter.
“The shelter has highlighted once again that homelessness is a real issue and that much still needs to be done to ensure that no one needs to spend a second night out on the streets, and that there needs to be ways to break the vicious cycles that lock people in homelessness and poverty.”
Church: perfect in all its imperfections
The Bishop of Bath & Wells has reflected on divisions affecting the Church of England in his final presidential address to Diocesan Synod.
Bishop Peter Price said conflicts over issues like sexuality and women bishops had too often caused Anglicans to view fellow believers as enemies.
Instead, he said they should explore ways of staying committed to their principles while reaching out and finding common cause with those who have different beliefs from them.
“What is for sure is that the methods that we are employing are not finding common cause, and we are alienating many people,” he said.
“Sexuality, ordination and other ecclesial subjects are not ‘fundamentals’. Love, compassion and humility are.”
Reflecting on his first-hand experience of reconciliation and peacemaking work in Northern Ireland, Bishop Price said it was the absence of love, compassion and humility that had characterised the Troubles.
“What made the peace process possible was not debate, but listening,” he said.
Bishop Price retires on 22 June after more than a decade in the role. He said that over the years he had found the perfect church to be “perfect in all its imperfections”.
“I will shortly move from the front benches to the time honoured back pews of my local Church of England. I am not looking for it to be perfect. I know, however, that it is good,” he said.
“I don’t plan, immediately at least, to offer my services for theirs, or anyone else’s services. I am looking forward to a time of just ‘being in church’.”
New director of the Central Secretariat and Clerk to the Synod
The Church of England has announced the appointment of Dr Jacqui Philips as Clerk to the Synod in succession to Colin Podmore, who steps down on 31st March.
Dr Philips will take up the role on 8th April and will be acting Clerk to the Synod pending the approval of her appointment in July at General Synod.
The role of Clerk to the Synod is one of the responsibilities of the Director of the Central Secretariat who, as well as managing the team that supports the General Synod, Archbishops’ Council and House of Bishops, also oversees the Church’s safeguarding, research and statistics work and ecumenical affairs.
Announcing the appointment, the Secretary General of the Church of England, Mr William Fittall, said: “Jacqui brings to the role a wealth of experience and a wholehearted commitment to the work of the Church of England. There was a strong field of applicants for this senior post and we are delighted that as the outstanding candidate Jacqui has accepted this role.”
Responding to the news of her appointment, Dr Philips said: “I am excited at the prospect of taking up this post and contributing to the work of the Church of England. I am looking forward to enabling and celebrating the work of the Church at a national and local level during these times of both opportunity and challenge for the Church of England.”
Jacqui Philips (41) studied English at Cambridge, did an MA in seventeenth century studies at Durham and then obtained an Oxford DPhil on the literature of John Bunyan. After a year as a parliamentary researcher, she became Public Affairs manager for the Bio Industry Association. Following spells on public policy issues for Barclays Bank and in the CBI Brussels office she became Head of Public Affairs for the Royal and Sun Alliance in 2005. She moved from there in 2008 to become Director, European Government Affairs and industry Relations at MetLife, a major US company with growing operations in Europe. In 2012, she took a short career break to explore opportunities in the not-for-profit-sector and to study for a Certificate in Theology course at St Mellitus College.
MEDIA REVIEW
IDS challenges archbishop over benefit cuts
By James Kirkup and Tim Ross, Telegraph – Iain Duncan Smith has hit back at the new Archbishop of Canterbury over welfare cuts, insisting that pushing benefits claimants to work is the “moral” choice.
The Most Rev Justin Welby has warned that cuts in the level of welfare payments are unfair, saying that it is “children and families who will pay the price.”
He and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, have backed a letter to The Sunday Telegraph from 43 bishops, who said that the benefits cuts will have a “deeply disproportionate” effect on children. The Coalition is changing the law to cap increases in welfare payments at one per cent a year until 2016. That is below the likely level of inflation, meaning cuts in real terms.
Mr Duncan Smith last night told Sky News that cutting welfare and encouraging claimants to work was the right thing to do. “There is nothing moral or fair about a system that I inherited that trapped people in welfare dependency,” he said. “One in every five households has no work. That’s not the way to end child poverty.
“Getting people back to work is the way to end child poverty. That’s the moral and fair way to do it.”
Conservative sources have questioned whether the archbishop has been open about his thoughts on welfare.
Archbishop wrong on cap – minister
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith dismisses the Archbishop of Canterbury’s claim that benefit changes will drive more children into poverty.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21739607