We hope you had a very Happy Easter.
Your parish at Easter
Please do send us your parish stories, showing any ways in which your
parish demonstrated its value to local people this weekend. On Easter
Day, my Rector took a service in each of his churches and was busy all
day, driving the lit Easter candle around in his car between villages.
I amateurishly conducted my parish church choir in a joyous rendition
of Cecil Cope's anthem "He is Risen". Four young adults who were home
for the Easter weekend, including one of my sons, rejoined the choir. I
feel and hope that this illustrated the value to them of rootedness in a
place and still feeling a sense of "belonging".
Press
You may like to see this PDF of my Easter Day piece for the online
Spectator. If you are a Spectator subscriber, please feel free to add
an online comment here:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/save-our-parish-priests/#comments-container.
You can read my article here
https://www.savetheparish.com/2024/04/01/spectator-article-emma-thompson-says-save-our-parish-priests/
As well as a recent New Statesman article "The death of a church" on
20th March about the Methodist church (from which the CofE could learn
lessons), there was a lot of Church coverage over the Easter weekend,
including in the Daily Mail and The Critic. Peter Stanford in The Daily
Telegraph referenced Save The Parish and Marcus Walker's reference to a
"doom spiral", as did Sarah Ingham in Conservative Home. The relevant
exacts are below.
Our upcoming Conference (20th April)
We hope that as many of you as possible can come to our conference in
Bristol on 20th April. A revised schedule is below - Chris Loder MP is
now speaking as well as the Bishop of Ramsbury and others.
There are still some spaces to book here:
https://www.savetheparish.com/upcoming-events/. Please spread the word to your friends in the West Country in particular.
If you are coming to STP's Bristol conference: PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO
LET US KNOW ASAP IF YOU HAVE SPECIAL DIETARY REQUIREMENTS (other than
vegetarian) or food allergies.
You may find it helpful to know that the following car parks are nearby:
Temple Quarter car park—Bristol BS1 6HY
Temple Meads Station car park—Bristol BS1 6QF
There is some on-street parking around the roads near the church and it
is the business rather than the shopping district, so you might be lucky
if you come relatively early, but spaces are limited. There is
considerable building work going on in this quarter currently.
Thank you for supporting STP. Please spread the word about joining STP
to as many people and PCCs as you can, including anyone who just cares
about preserving church buildings. You can email us on
help@savetheparish.com.
Kind regards,
Emma
Emma Thompson
emma.thompson@savetheparish.com
STP Conference (Bristol), 20th April 2024: "Campaigning for the Future of Our Parishes"
Programme
12.00
Lunch - ** PLEASE TELL US YOUR DIETARY REQUIREMENTS **
12.45
Marcus Walker: Welcome and Introduction
12.50
Andrew Rumsey, Bishop of Ramsbury, co-lead bishop on church buildings, 'Common Ground?
The past & future of the English parish'.
1.40
Andrew Orange: PCC Amalgamations: Why they are wrong, and how to resist them.
2.00
Chris Loder MP, 'How to make Best Use of Your MP'.
2.30
Prudence Dailey chairs
Panel on diverse experiences of campaigning against pastoral reorganization
: Simon Hoar and
Rory Macdiarmid from Six Pilgrims, Bath and Wells
, Neil Wallis from STP Cornwall,
Revd Stephen Anderson Horton
, Lichfield Diocese,
Revd Ray Hutchinson from Wigan. We hope to give audience a chance to give their own experiences.
3.30
Break
3.50
Sir James Burnell-Nugent 'Top Tips for Campaigning'.
4.10
Alison Milbank The Future parish? What good looks like
4.45
Marcus Walker: Review of the year
5.00
Tea
5.30
Choral Evensong.
6.10
Drinks reception
Peter Stanford in the Daily Telegraph wrote:
"The Reverend Marcus Walker, national chairman of the Save the
Parish group and a member of General Synod, the Church of England's
decision-making body, regards it potentially as "a doom spiral". "As
sure as night follows day," he has warned, "if you close parishes and
reduce clergy, the number of people who are able to turn up to Church
will fall." He is urging fresh investment specifically to shore up the
parish network if disaster is to be avoided...".
Similarly, Sarah Ingham in Conservative Home mentioned STP, with a link to our website, and Marcus, as follows:
"Last month, startling headlines stated that the Church was a "doom spiral",
thanks to church closures, parish mergers and falling attendances. This
claim was made by the Revd. Marcus Walker, Rector of St Bartholomew the
Great, London's oldest parish church and Chair of Save the Parish.It
argues that the parish system – "chief among the treasures of the
Church of England" – needs revitalising. Help could come not least from
the £10 billion and more held by the Church Commissioners, along with
efforts to streamline "the bloated costs and duplicated activities of
the dioceses.""
(In fact, what is key about the expression
"doom loop" is that it originated not from Marcus but the diocese of Leicester's
own implementation team at Launde Abbey, when
enforcing the "oversight ministry" model. This is the relevant quote
from the Implementation Team's October 2022 report, recognising
the problem that cutting clergy leads to more cutting of clergy:
"Parishioners
will ask what the Parish Contribution is going towards when there is a
low level of spiritual support provided. This may well create a 'doom
loop' where giving further reduces and thus less funding further shrinks
the number of clergy available.")
Social media
We are thinking about whether to put Save The Parish on Instagram. We
would love to hear from any young people about what they would be
interested to know about STP - we are grateful for all your ideas and/or
material - please do ask some young people for their views if you are
not one yourself!
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