Merry Christmas from all of us at Save the Parish!

 A message from Save The Parish founder Marcus Walker:

 I hope you have been able to celebrate well, wherever you have found yourself this Christmas. There is something intensely parochial about this particular feast (parochial being meant entirely positively, as you would hope!)

All the key moments are small scale: a child born to a mother; a couple needing to return to their family home; the risk of scandal. Christ is born into a family, with uncles and aunts and cousins; he is known to a community, who wonder how on earth Joseph the carpenter's son can possibly be preaching to them about the Eternal God.

And yet overshadowing the whole story are questions of national and global significance: tax inspectors from a pan-Mediterranean empire, death-squads of a local tyrant, wise men from the East.

The interplay of the intimately local and the powerfully global tells the story of Christianity - of the Word which is both in the beginning with God and becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

It is also the story of the Church, which is both spread across the world and across time, the quick and the dead, that multitude which no man can number - but also the churchwarden fixing the boiler so that the carol service doesn't have to be called off. It is the communities that gather on the twentieth Sunday after Trinity for coffee and chocolate biscuits after the service and enfold with love the member of the choir who has just lost her father. It's friendships and feuds and leaking roofs and foodbanks and local choirs and worship bands and church schools and all the other little bonds that tie us to each other as human beings.

So as we go in heart and mind even unto Bethlehem, I give thanks for the God who can never now not be local, and pray that we can continue to minister to him in our thousands of little ways each in our own corner of the vineyard.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Kind regards,
Marcus





Popular posts from this blog

"What is going on?" Church treasurer resigns in protest at Diocese of Truro’s MMF spending plans

Image
John Kennaugh, Treasurer of a church in east Cornwall,  has asked to be replaced . He has written this article and is happy for it to be widely shared . "I think what is happening is morally wrong," he says.  He profoundly disagrees with the Diocese of Truro’s MMF policy and spending plans. John took on the job of Treasurer for his local church Parochial Church Council (PCC)  in 2024.  He explains:   "My local Church community is a wonderful example of what a Christian community should be and it is a privilege to be a part of it but what I discovered regarding the Mission and Ministry Fund (MMF) and the bureaucratic monstrosity the Church of England  has become has totally disillusioned me.  I have asked to be replaced having ...
Read more

MMF - what will happen if your PCC resists payment in full

Following our  Fact Sheet  on key questions to ask regarding MMF (Mission and Ministry Fund), we have received a number of further queries from Parochial Church Councils (PCCs). Here are some answers. Neither Save The Parish Cornwall nor Save The Parish nationally are advocating at this time a total MMF or Parish Share “strike” by PCCs. But we in Cornwall in the Diocese of Truro believe the annual Call has been much too high for some years and in 2024-25 needs particularly to be strongly challenged and resisted.  The 2025 MMF, split by benefice within each deanery: click here to read What will happen if we don’t pay our MMF - and how do we do it? First of all, remember that MMF is NOT a statutory charge that you have to pay - like your gas bill, for instance. It is in fact a voluntary charity donation. It is true that, generally, a PCC is getting something in return for that charitable gift. But in times when that return is often getting noticeably less and less, while th...
Read more

TEN WAYS TO RESIST PARISH REORGANISATION

This is a summary of advice from Save The Parish. It is written to offer help and support to Incumbents, Churchwardens, PCC Members, congregations and parish residents  who are presented with plans for pastoral reorganisation - as is currently proposed in Kerrier Deanery in west Cornwall ( click here to read about the background ).     Click here to read the updated Kerrier Deanery Plan . The key message: e ven if you’re feeling tired and exhausted by efforts to save your church from parish reorganisation, PCC mergers and Joint Councils , it is possible to fight back . The more energetically a pastoral reorganisation is resisted, the more likely the fight back is likely to succ eed.   It’s very important to record any consultation that takes place – and your objections.  If the diocese does not engage in proper process, that will be good grounds for objection.   Here are key ways to resist   Agree a position with your PCC . A united PCC is a ...
Read more