My dear friends, it can be very easy, when controversies are raging and relationships are strained, when headlines are negative and finances are light, when clergy numbers and congregational numbers are not what, within living memory, they once were, it can be easy to lose sight of the point of it all. And the Apostle Paul calls us back to that point — which is this: The living God who created all things has had a plan, a mystery hidden for ages — to make known the wisdom of God in its rich variety, through the church, as we bring to the communities we serve the news of the boundless riches of Christ. It is the good will and pleasure of God our Father to reveal this plan through the Church.
Now, it’s true that Paul does not say, ‘through the Church of England’. But my dear friends, you would not be here if you did not believe there was at least some overlap, some correspondence between the church of God and the Church of England. And I do believe Paul to be right. The Epistle to the Ephesians has a very high view of the Church, and so do I. I really do believe that every local congregation in the Diocese of Sheffield, as part of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, has the extraordinary privilege of being part of the plan of the living God, who created all things, to make know his wisdom its rich variety, as we bring to the communities we serve the news of the boundless riches of Christ.
LATEST. The inequalities in historic endowment of the Church of England’s dioceses — ranging from £1.76 per capita to £89 — cannot be right, the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, has said this weekhttps://t.co/dQLWcuuPw2
— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) May 27, 2021