Despite demanding work that often starts before sunrise and does not finish until late in the evening, clergy report higher levels of well-being than people in other occupations, because they are “filled with purpose”, a seven-year study suggests.

Started in 2011, the Experiences of Ministry Project has explored the views of 6000 Church of England clergy through regular national surveys, in addition to more than 100 in-depth interviews, and a series of week-long daily diaries. It was led by Dr Mike Clinton, a reader in work psychology at King’s College, London, and supported by the Ministry Division.

A summary, Effective Ministerial Presence and What It Looks Like in Practice, was presented at King’s last week. Its conclusions bear out the findings of the Living Ministry study published last week (News, 15 September).

“The well-being of clergy in our research compared favourably with other occupational groups,” the report says. “Despite having highly demanding roles, most priests cope, and even flourish, because they are filled with purpose, and derive meaning and fulfilment from their work. Even though they make substantial and frequent sacrifices as part of their role, they mainly do so willingly and see them as worthwhile.”

Read it all.

A farewell service is being held to mark the retirement of the Bishop of Bristol, the Right Reverend Mike Hill.
The bishop formally retires on the 30 September, but the service will be his final address to the congregation.
Dean of Bristol Cathedral David Hoyle said: “He’s brought enormous personality and character into the role, he’s brought warmth and humour.”
The farewell service, which is a ticketed event, is taking place at Bristol Cathedral.

Read it all.

Bishop of Bristol Right Reverend Mike Hill retires https://t.co/53PHYbHEtB pic.twitter.com/AjKEqvVip4

— Percy ƒịɭʈɧ™️ (@PercyFilth_) September 23, 2017

Wonderful #photos–New Bishop of Sheffield Pete Wilcox https://t.co/Ar2mD8GXOf via @JAPhotoPics #anglican #ministry #bishops

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) September 24, 2017

The Right Reverend Pete Wilcox was installed as the city’s eighth bishop during a ceremony at Sheffield Cathedral this afternoon.

In a time-honoured tradition, he knocked three times on the cathedral’s main door before being welcomed inside by the Dean of Sheffield, the Very Reverend Peter Bradley.

He prepared for his installation by completing a 50 mile pilgrimage across South Yorkshire, meeting people and holding prayers en route.

Read it all.

@PeteWilcox1564 in the day of his installation as the 8th #BishopOfSheffield pic.twitter.com/0bskA08UDX

— DioceseofSheffield (@DioceseofSheff) September 23, 2017

Sheffield Cathedral is ringing the changes as it prepares to install the church’s first new bell in more than 45 years. The £20,500 instrument, paid for following a three-year fundraising appeal, will add to the cathedral’s existing set of 13 bells and will help ringers to train more beginners. It will be lifted into place next month, after being blessed on October 1 in a special service by the Bishop of Sheffield, the Rt Rev Pete Wilcox. The bell will be hoisted up into its chamber from the floor of the cathedral through specially-designed trap doors. The Rev Keith Farrow, canon missioner, said that although the cathedral has a ‘fine set of bells’, they were quite heavy and ringers needed ‘considerable training’. The church’s largest bell, the tenor, weighs almost two tons – the new addition is just six hundredweight, a little over 300kg.

Read it all.

The Archbishop and the Nuncio discussed matters of mutual concern, including the peace process in South Sudan, the current refugee crisis and the future of Europe.

The Holy See maintains diplomatic relations with most countries around the world. This is managed via the ‘second section’ of the Secretariat of State, which is headed by Archbishop Paul Gallagher. The history of the nunciature in the UK goes back to the 1930s.

Read it all.

A quarter of all state secondary schools are struggling to meet their legal obligation to teach religious studies, data obtained by the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE) has shown.

Its analysis of the previously unpublished School Workforce Census, obtained from the Government by a Freedom of Information request, found that, out of the 2793 schools that took part in the census, 28 per cent (787 schools) said that they gave no time to religious education (RE) in Year 11, the GCSE year.

This equates with 800,000 pupils, NATRE estimates in its report, The State of the Nation: A report on Religious Education provision within secondary schools in England, published on Monday. And, of the schools claiming to offer non-examined RE to Year 11 pupils, 83 per cent admitted that their students received zero minutes of teaching per week, meaning that, in practice, it was not on the curriculum — what the report calls a “tick-box exercise”.

Read it all.

Management speak has even found its way into the Church of England. In 2014, the Church commissioned a “talent management” programme for “future leaders“. A report about the programme mentioned the word “leadership” 171 times. “God” was mentioned 21 times.

Lamenting how this meaningless chatter had taken over our great national institutions, I turned to daily life for some respite. Instead of solid common sense I found the same guff. One friend remembered asking his girlfriend to meet him after work, to which she responded: “what’s the value add?“. I came across a prospective father who talked about naming his child as “personal brand design“. Another dad talked about how he used “six sigma” techniques to raise his four daughters. I even read a Harvard Business School professor describing marriage as a merger which involve “due diligence“, “synergies“, “costs of integration“, and “strategic execution“.

Why are we attracted to this impenetrable tosh. Are people just stupid? Not really – smart, well-educated people are particularly enthusiastic devotees of management speak. Do they lack experience in the real-world? No again. Management jargon is used by even the most seasoned operators.

So why do we use it? Managers told me there were some big gains to be made from business balderdash. Some said it made them look good. By walking into a meeting and firing off bullet points filled with management jargon, they hoped they would be seen as “up to date“, “intelligent“, and even “inspirational“. In this sense, management talk can also be a useful self-confidence trick. By describing themselves as a “Quality Catalyst” or a “Innovation Sherpa“, a middle manager can feel a little better about their boring job.

Read it all.

Sir Philip found that there was no real attempt during the Vacancy in See process or during the consultation process to address the possibility of appointing a non-ordaining bishop to the Sheffield vacancy.

Neither was there any detailed attempt by the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) to consider what the implications of appointing a non-ordaining bishop to the diocese might be.

The row arose because Bishop North does not ordain women because of his Anglo-Catholic churchmanship.

“He believed that his candidacy to be their diocesan bishop, including his views on what was meant by mutual flourishing, had been tested by the Crown Nominations Commission and found to be acceptable,” Sir Philip wrote. The reviewer explains that whenthe Archbishop of York asked each of the members of the Commission in turn whether they felt that the needs of the diocese and the wider Church had been met by the outcome, ‘all replied in the affirmative’.

Sir Philip said that when the possibility of Bishop North being nominated was under discussion in the Commission, the diocesan members were asked to comment on this and clear views were expressed by a majority that his nomination would be welcomed in the diocese, although others expressed caution about the likely reaction.

“The view of many (but not all) of the members of the Commission was that his reputation for mission would outweigh any personal reservations about his stance on receiving the ministry of women.”

Read it all (may require subscription).

I have a new book out today on Freedom. Here is a blog piece introducing it – https://t.co/hrTtLJL9sm
Buy it here – https://t.co/iklwBxdkVK pic.twitter.com/YDqPB1q6sc

— Graham Tomlin (@gtomlin) September 21, 2017

Read it all.

Forward in Faith welcomes the report on the nomination to the See of Sheffield and related concerns by the Independent Reviewer, Sir Philip Mawer, and his recommendations. As the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have said, the report is ‘detailed, thoughtful and authoritative’. Like them, we shall read it carefully. We look forward to the more detailed response that the Archbishops promise.

We welcome Sir Philip’s statement that ‘there is no doubt that Bishop North’s nomination was consistent with the House of Bishops’ Declaration and the Five Guiding Principles’ (para. 130).

Sir Philip finds that ‘not nearly enough’ has been done to inform and educate clergy and laity about the 2014 Settlement (190). We welcome his recommendation that the House of Bishops provide resources to help dioceses, deaneries, parishes and training institutions to engage in further consideration of the issues and to ensure that ‘mutual flourishing’ is achieved (191).

We note that Sir Philip does not believe that Professor Percy’s ‘view of what constitutes “mutual flourishing” is consistent with what the House and the Synod had in mind in espousing the Declaration and the Five Guiding Principles’ (167). He comments, ‘The challenge posed by Professor Percy and some others… is in effect a fundamental challenge to the 2014 Settlement’ (132). We welcome Sir Philip’s recommendation that the House of Bishops give further attention to this theological challenge to the Settlement (198). It is the House of Bishops’ Declaration, so the House of Bishops needs to defend it.

As Sir Philip says, the Settlement was a package. We note that the Measure and Canon which permit the ordination of women to the episcopate form part of that package. As Sir Philip comments: ‘Try to unpick the package and the basis for the settlement is immediately called into question’ (16b)….

Read it all.

A report of the review of nomination to the See of Sheffield by the independent reviewer Sir Philip Mawer has been…[recently] published….

The report and appendices set out the findings of a review requested by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in March this year following the announcement that the Bishop of Burnley, Philip North, was to withdraw from nomination to the Diocese of Sheffield….

Summary of findings and conclusions:

Sir Philip finds that Bishop Philip North’s nomination to the See of Sheffield was entirely consistent with the terms of the 2014 Settlement which enabled the consecration of women as bishops in the Church of England.  However:

• The nomination of Bishop North – a bishop who would not ordain women as priests – came as a surprise to many, indicating a failure to inform and educate people that such a nomination was possible under the terms of the Settlement.
• There is scope for improvement in the processes leading to the nomination of candidates to the Crown for appointment as diocesan bishops.
• Events surrounding the nomination also raise some fundamental theological and pastoral issues relating to the 2014 Settlement and its operation.
• They also point to a failure to anticipate the likely reaction to Bishop North’s nomination and to plan for handling it.

Read it all.

According to [Bishop Festus Davies]… the Church today had abandoned its first love, as it now emphasises prosperity preaching over and above the salvation message. “The challenge the Church is facing today is that the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries stood for the undiluted word of God, but the present generation is diluting the word of God to the extent that everybody is now preaching what he/she likes. “Everybody preaches what suits him/her and not what Christ stood for. Healing and prosperity in the Bible are good but that cannot be our major emphasis. Once they get the gospel right, there is healing, deliverance, and breakthrough…but Christ first and all other material things will be added to you and not the other way round.” Continuing, he asked: “How can you talk about healing when Christ has not been preached; where do you get the healing from? Until we go back to the old time religion we will not get ourselves right,” he maintained. The bishop noted that the Church has lost its respect in the society, because preachers now preach to please politicians for what they would gain from them.

Read it all.

The survey of 8150 British adults was conducted by ComRes in March and published this week. Just over half (51 per cent) of those responding to the survey defined themselves as Christian. This compares with the latest British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, published last week, which found that 41 per cent of 2129 respondents identified themselves as Christian (News, 8 September).

Of the Christian respondents in the ComRes survey, 32 per cent were over 65 and just six per cent were under 24. Fifty-six per cent classified themselves as Anglican, once again, a higher percentage than the BSA finding. Almost two-thirds of the Christians said that they had become a Christian aged 0-4. Just 14 per cent agreed when asked whether they were an “active Christian”; 28 per cent agreed with the definition: “follower of Jesus”.

Asked about how often they read or listened to the Bible, 55 per cent of Christians answered “never”; 14 per cent said at least once a month. Twenty-nine per cent said that they never prayed; 40 per cent at least once a month; 18 per cent daily.

Read it all.

From there:

The annual meeting of the College of Bishops of the Church of England was held in Oxford from 11-14 September with the theme of “Telling the Gospel of Salvation in Every place”, exploring how the Church ministers to every community in the country.

Over the four day meeting, a wide ranging agenda was discussed, including, Renewal and Reform, Simplification, Mission and Theology, Church Planting and Minority Ethnic Inclusion. Reflections and discussions took place in group and plenary sessions.

Members of the College were joined this year in the first two days of the meeting by a number of BAME clergy to help bring additional perspectives on how the Church of England can reach more effectively into every community.

As with all meetings of the College of Bishops, the considerations of the College took place in private and its conclusions will be subsequently referred to the House of Bishops.

The survey conducted by the National Centre for Social Research showed that 53 per cent of adults have no religious belief. It also revealed there was a decline in the number of people who identified as Anglican. Out of the 2,942 adults asked, 15 per cent said they were Anglican.

Responding to the figure that 71 per cent of 18-25 year olds have no religious affiliation, Bishop Cottrell said young people are more comfortable describing themselves as spiritual rather than religious, but this often means an openness to the possibility of God ‘and often a deep attraction to the person of Christ’.

He admitted it is impossible for any Christian or any Christian leader to look at the figures ‘without a certain amount of despondency’.

But it was not something to panic about and Britain had not suddenly become ‘a nation of atheists’.

He said: ‘It awakens us yet again to the great missionary challenge we face.’

Read it all.

Twenty-three years ago, when I was in my first pastoral appointment, there was an 11-year-old boy who started coming to my church at the suggestion of a teacher at his middle school. He was an isolated, disconsolate figure who didn’t mix easily and took a greedy share of the cookies after worship. After he had been coming a few months, funds were found for him to participate in a parish weekend retreat.

By Saturday morning, the complaints were raining down. He was rude. He was grabbing food. He was bullying the younger children. The adults finally had to talk to each other about it; it was one of those parish conversations where the pastor doesn’t get a casting vote. The teacher through whose influence the boy had first come to church pointed out that, being brought up solely by his young and temperamental father, he was a troubled boy looking for security. Allowances were made, patience was maintained, and gradually the lad began to find his feet.

Nine months later at a special evening service he was baptized. His father was not there. His mother and brother, living across town, weren’t there either. But about 40 people were, and each member of the congregation was invited to describe what they most valued about being members of that church. One said friendship, another said acceptance, a third said trust. When the boy was asked the same question his narrow, fixed frown broke, for once, into a smile, and he replied, “You didn’t throw me out after that weekend.”

Read it all.

Priests-in-training are to be given glossaries to help them understand the Book of Common Prayer for the first time because they struggle to decipher the language.

The Prayer Book Society, which gives out free copies of the 17th century book to first-year students in theological colleges, will this year also include a key to some of its more old-fashioned words and phrases.

The list includes definitions for words such as “eschew” meaning abstain from, “concord”, for an agreement between people, and “froward”, meaning perverse or contrary.

Read it all.

I always used to think that no political party would be prepared to give disestablishment the time and effort that it would require. But Prime Minister Corbyn might just be the man to do it. And far from being a fusty move for constitutional committees, disestablishment could be framed as an attempt to rationally redesign a Britain fit for a global role beyond the EU. After all, who needs Christian morality in the age of human rights?

Don’t get me wrong. I do not warm to the state of affairs that I have just described. Indeed, I feel profoundly alienated from such a country. It is just that I think something like this is unavoidable and that the established church has to get ahead of the situation by transforming itself, rather than play a continuous rearguard action against the inevitable.

But there is opportunity here for the church, as well as loss. What we give up is our traditional role as courtiers. Good, I say. The banners of the New Model Army would proudly proclaim that there is no king but Jesus. And to say that Jesus is the supreme authority is to say that no one else can be – not the Romans, not the pope, not the House of Stuart or the House of Windsor. The Church of England was specifically designed to soften that thought, to make it less dangerous. Christians were to be housetrained. We were to give up all our revolutionary talk of bringing God’s kingdom to earth and settle instead for a warm vicarage and being nice to our parishioners. That settlement is about to be ripped up.

I do not believe that disestablishment will revive the numerical fortunes of the church. Looking at our disestablished cousins, I think it may well mean we will decline at an even faster rate – at least in the short to medium term (and that means centuries in church terms). But please, my fellow Anglicans, we need to go before we are no longer welcome. And go in the knowledge that, as people of the resurrection, we do not fear death – either personally or institutionally.

Read it all.

Our prayer books set out the purpose of marriage: the procreation of children; a remedy against sin and fornication; and mutual support, help and comfort.

Read it all.

Two ladybirds crawl across the white cloth on the altar table of an ancient Dorset church as a tiny handful of parishioners takes communion. Outside, it is a perfect English summer Sunday, the air drowsy with the scent of growing flowers, grass and trees. Inside St Mary’s, Tarrant Gunville, all is quiet and slightly musty. The few tablets on the walls speak of young men lost in the first world war and long-dead parishioners who loved and gave to the church — there has been one on the site since the 12th century. Apart from the visiting weekenders, of whom I am one, there are seven in the congregation, none of them exactly in the flush of youth. The vicar celebrating communion according to the Book of Common Prayer is 87; he apologises beforehand that “I have tried to draw stumps several times” and yet he keeps being asked to conduct services and cannot refuse. He preaches a drily witty sermon that happens to be about the “shipwreck” of the Church of England, which he admits he has recycled from earlier years. He forgets to lead the congregation in the Lord’s Prayer.

Everything about this scene tells a felt truth about the C of E — its abiding presence deep in the shires, the breathtaking beauty of its churches, the sonorous cadences of its almost forgotten ­liturgy, its valetudinarian faithful. We have had this impression for decades. Philip Larkin’s much loved poem “Church Going” (the pun is surely intended) was written more than 60 years ago. He talks of “A shape less recognisable each week/ A purpose more obscure”, and wonders how long it will be before the Church of England is reduced to a few cathedrals “chronically on show”, while wind and rain whip through the ruins of country churches.

Irreversible decline has been the Church’s lot for several generations in an age when Sundays are for football matches and car-boot sales. A National Census survey suggests that 8.5 million British people now identify as Anglican, down from 13 million a decade ago. The Church makes few demands of the people it ministers to, seeming grateful just to be acknowledged. Its premises are swept out and decorated for the weddings of unbelievers and the funerals of those whose families can find no other way to make sense of finality.

Read it all.

A former star of the hit television show Gladiators-turned evangelist is joining a major evangelism event being led by the Archbishop of York in Merseyside.

Warren Furman, known as ‘Ace’ on the 1990s programme Gladiator, is sharing with primary and secondary school pupils his journey to faith as part of the Believe in Birkenhead initiative.

Speaking with Premier, Bishop of Birkenhead Rt Rev Keith Sinclair said his prayer for the four-day campaign was that “people who might have thought God wouldn’t give them a second thought realise God’s love for them and God’s work in their lives, and they start to begin a journey to come back and engage with that reality.”

Mr Furman’s being joined during the question and answer session on Thursday by the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu and several local Anglican bishops.

Read it all.

The Scottish Primus said that the move meant his church now affirms that a same-sex couple is not just married but is married in the sight of God.

The move is in contravention of the doctrine of marriage in the Anglican church and breaches the Lambeth resolution of 1998.

The Dean of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel moved a motion at the General Synod meeting in Queensland which had earlier reaffirmed that marriage is between a man and a woman.

“Across the Anglican communion, churches are trying to work out how best to love people of diverse sexual orientation.  This is important because all people are made in God’s image; and God hates nothing that he has made.  It is important because all people are to be valued honoured and loved not only because they are created in God’s image but because of Christ’s costly redeeming love for them. ” Dean Raffel said in his speech.

Read it all.

The next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-17) could take place in Hong Kong following a decision to move it from Sao Paulo in Brazil.

The Brazilian city was unveiled as the host of the 2019 conference at last year’s ACC conference in Lusaka. But the ACC Standing Committee, meeting in London, heard that the event was scheduled to go ahead at what would be a challenging time for the country and for the Anglican Church there. In particular, concerns were raised about the political and economic instability and also the Church’s discussions on human sexuality and marriage which will take place at the provincial synod next year. Whatever the outcome of those discussions, it was felt this would have an impact on the Anglican Church in Brazil and hamper its ability to stage ACC-17. Specifically, it was thought that the leadership of the Church would need time to deal with pastoral issues arising from the discussions.

Hong Kong emerged as a possible replacement during committee discussions. It was felt the territory had the resources to step in and also the experience, having hosted ACC-12 in 2002.

Read it all.

New figures show a collapse in the number of Anglicans in England.

Just 3 per cent of those aged 18-24 described themselves as Anglican, compared to 40 per cent of those aged 75 and over, according to the research.

Figures from NatCen’s British Social Attitudes survey on popular religious affiliations has revealed that just 15 per cent of people in Britain consider themselves Anglican, half the amount in 2000.

According to the figures 40 per cent of those surveyed as far back as 1983 identified themselves as either Anglican or Church of England. By 1993 the figure stood at 32 per cent and while the figure fluctuated between 32-26 per cent between 1995 and 2005.

The figure dropped to 22 per cent in 2006 and remained steady until 2013 when it decreased to 16 per cent.

Meanwhile the proportion of people identifying themselves as Roman Catholic in the same period has remained relatively stable between 9-12 per cent.

Read it all (requires subscrirption).

New Archbishop of Wales elected #AnglicanNewshttps://t.co/8HnzmFVXUB

— Anglican Communion (@ACOffice) September 6, 2017

John Davies, who has served as the Bishop of Swansea and Brecon for the past nine years, has been chosen as the 13th Archbishop of Wales.

He succeeds Dr Barry Morgan who retired in January after 14 years as the leader of the Church in Wales. His election is also historic as this is the first time a Bishop of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon has been elected as Archbishop of Wales.

Archbishop John was elected having secured a two-thirds majority vote from members of the Electoral College on the second day of its meeting at Holy Trinity Church, Llandrindod Wells. The election was immediately confirmed by the five other diocesan bishops and announced at the door of the church by the Provincial Secretary of the Church in Wales, Simon Lloyd. Archbishop John will be enthroned at Brecon cathedral in due course.

Read it all.

The number of Anglicans in Britain has collapsed by 50 per cent in under two decades, according to figures released today.

The latest British Social Attitudes survey’s data on religion show that the number of people in Britain who describe themselves as having no religion at all is also at its highest ever level.

More than half, 53 per cent, of the British public now describe themselves as having ‘no religion’.

This is up from 48 per cent in 2015.

Figures released earlier from the same survey showed that that religious people are becoming more socially liberal on issues like same sex relationships and abortion.

Read it all.

Cormac was a good friend to Anglicans at home and internationally. As the Catholic co-chair of the second phase of the Anglican – Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II) he lent both his customary good humour and his theological acumen to the production of some of the most influential of ecumenical agreed texts of the twentieth century. At a time when others bemoaned the lack of instant progress in ecumenical relations, Cormac saw the work of ARCIC as an investment and a building block for future closer relations. At home he was notable for his support for interchurch families and, whilst he was Rector of the Venerable English College in Rome, for the support and encouragement of a scheme that is still going giving Church of England ordinands the opportunity to study in Rome. He cared for Anglican leaders he knew, encouraged and supported them, drawing them into the fellowship of Christ.

Read it all.

“People end up homeless for many reasons, but all too often it’s because a single problem has spiralled out of control…”

Read it all.

The Church is turning to crime prevention in a bid to fight the increasing theft of lead from its roofs.

In Norfolk, a £250,000 campaign’s been launched to install alarms on those churches most susceptible to attack.

Read it all and watch the video.