Categories: uncategorized
Date: 23 January 2005 20:07:55
Well, tomorrow night we have The Meeting. Our PCC, the PCC of the church we currently share a priest-in-charge with, and our Archdeacon (top geezer). It's to discuss The Way Forward For Our Two Parishes. What this means, gentle reader, as some of the Anglicans will no doubt have worked out, is that our two parishes are going to be asked to merge in some way. So, take one large-ish, lively Anglo-Catholic church, and one lower-end-of-middle-of-the-road church with a small, faithful congregation who have been fighting off closure for years and feel like a well-kicked ecclesiastical football. Tell both parishes they can't have their own priest any more and may not be able to both keep their own building and PCC. They will blend seamlessly with no difficult issues, right?
The said p-i-c preached a blinding sermon this morning, taking our New Testament reading, which was the bit where Paul tells the Corinthians (in one of his great grumpy rhetorical hyperbole moments) to stop dividing along party lines and remember that they all belong to Christ. Fr Thingummy's point, therefore, was that we need to - well, stop dividing along party lines and remember that we all belong to Christ.
I feel perhaps a bit more hopeful after the service this morning. If at least half the congegation take Fr Thingummy's challenge to be willing to put up with some things changing, that will be a start. And he's enjoined us all to pray. And I ask those of you reading this who do such things, to join us in our prayers. It's going to be an interesting night tomorrow.