Save The Parish - Cornwall

In today's Church Times ...an article by freelance journalist Adam Spiers is well worth a read. He opens:   "THE Sunday before last, church felt pointless. I woke up and checked for news from the Synod: first, a motion concerning justice for Palestinians wasn’t even selected for debate. Then the General Synod voted against redistributing one per cent of the Church Commissioners’ wealth to diocesan stipend funds, instead amending the motion to debate funding later ( News, 18 July ). It is hard not to see this as the sensible adults, who also happen to control all the money, telling poorer churches to die quietly." Click here to read the full piece.   

 What does £88,000 pay for? more than one Save The Parish Cornwall supporter has asked recently.  The answer (if you put this question to the Diocese of Truro) is  - 'a clergy post'.  Cornish parishes are constantly being asked to contribute - via Mission and Ministry Fund (MMF) payments to 'clergy salaries'.  But to make an obvious point, if there are no clergy - as is increasingly the case in Cornwall as the acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, rolls out plans for 'oversight ministers' in huge benefices - where exactly is the money going? And why should people in the pews continue to pay it? Click here to read an article in the latest edition of the Church Times written by a curious - and weary -churchwarden. As unease spreads about Church House plans - known as On The Way - which will result in radical restructuring of the C of E in Cornwall, Save The Parish Cornwall supporter Sue McClaughry has started a petition calling for a moratorium. Pleas...

Wake up, Bishop Hugh! An evaluation of ‘ Transforming Wigan ’   - a controversial programme for change - has been published: click here to read an Executive Summary . And guess what, it is not a success.  "The evaluation of a project to transform Wigan into a “missional powerhouse” — which entailed the grouping of 33 churches in a single benefice has reported mixed success after seven years and the spending of £1.2 million," says the Church Times. Tis is serious news for Cornwall. Changes proposed for Diocese of Truro through controversial plans known as ‘On The Way’ are inspired by the Wigan ‘experiment’.  They build on Cornwall's own 'Transforming' initiative - aka 'Transforming Mission' -  i.e. moving ministry away from priests in parishes to large benefices with teams of 'workers' (Youth, Education, Pilgrimage etc) managed by an 'Oversight Minister'. Despite vociferous local opposition, they have been championed by the acting Bishop of...

  "Revolutions begin with an assault on language. Diocesan straplines, cute mission initiatives, the bullying insistence that there is no alternative — what is being rolled out in Truro, Leicester, and elsewhere starts with an assault on theology," writes Rev Angela Tilby in today's Church Times .  "In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four , the point of “newspeak” was to reduce the range of thought, and so to make certain realities impossible. So, not much hope for parish, priest, tradition, pastoral care, contemplation, or liturgy. The new language has taken over." Click here to read the full article.   Angela Tilby, a writer, broadcaster and theological educator,  is a member of the national Save The Parish steering committee. After working for the BBC for over twenty years she was ordained in 1996 and taught at Westcott House in Cambridge. She was vicar of St Benet’s Cambridge for five years and then Diocesan Canon at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxf...

 See page three of today's Church Times letters page for a strong critique of claims by Cornwall's Bishops that their plans for change in the county are 'bottom up', not 'top down'.  The Bishops' stock response to anxiety about these controversial plans - described as 'revolutionary' by last week's Church Times - is that 'the deaneries voted these through'. But anyone involved  - even peripherally - with 'On The Way' will have realised that the process was micromanaged by the Episcopal College.  Click here to read the letter from Neil Wallis.

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