[The] Rev [Rod] Garner was a guest of honour at historic St Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery ”“ where the priest-in-charge is a female of Indian descent.
He told Church News how Episcopalian worship ”“ effectively protestant ministry ”“ in New York had long finished the debate on whether women or homosexuals should be allowed to serve God ”“ and encouraged the Anglican church to take note.
Rev Garner said: “Instead of closing down the door of the church to people based on their sexuality or gender, places like St Mark’s have harnessed it and set the church forward as a model for the human community.”
[blockquote] places like St Mark’s have harnessed [sexuality or gender] and set the church forward as a model for the human community. [/blockquote] I would suggest a small emendation, changing the word “forward” to “backward.” On the other hand, perhaps St Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery is a growing, vibrant church which bucks against the backward trend in the remainder of TEC.
http://12.0.101.92/reports/PR_ChartsDemo/exports/ParishRPT_1162009100243AM.pdf
Follow the numbers ……
I guess we can expect to see a lot of growth in TEC. All is well.
Good grief. Delusional.
Follow the numbers? A 20% drop in plate & pledge in the same year as an 80% jump in ASA? Has this lady driven away the faithful remnant to draw in a non-commital social club?
You’d think that following secular trends, which the mainline churches have resorted to since losing their social and political clout for some reason 35 years ago, would be a windfall for them like they claim but the numbers say otherwise. The human community just isn’t interested.
PCness/SWPLness = Christianity without Christ. The young aren’t in a culture that demands churchgoing any more (unlike the unbelievers who founded the independent US) so they cut out the middleman and don’t bother with church on Sundays.
The mainline: now-old boomers (who grew up when church was required so they still go) congratulating themselves on how cool they are. Of course the kids are sick of hearing it.
I have never encountered a parish which closes its doors to anyone.
[blockquote] Episcopalian worship – effectively protestant ministry [/blockquote]
Thanks for clearing up the definition of Protestant. Here’s a similar one you can use to help out your readers:
Joe calls himself a shoe, therefore all shoes are Joe!
After all, if it’s in print it must be true.
Fallible church = Protestant. Episcopal passes that test.
I read somewhere that, unsurprisingly and matching my experience, most lay Episcopalians identify as Protestants (face it, when you think of an Episcopalian you don’t think of multiethnic young professionals like in church lit and websites, but kindly old WASPs like George H.W. Bush)… but most Episcopal priests don’t, which doesn’t make them Anglo-Catholics (obviously) but my guess is they don’t call their open-mindedness to Catholicism (but on their terms, not Catholicism’s) Protestant, reserving that name for the narrower, more dogmatic Protestants like the evangelicals and fundamentalists.
The dean of our cathedral addressed our local deanery last week and told us that Good Times are ahead for the Episcopal Church since “we’re not fighting amongst ourselves anymore.” And there are no American troops in Baghdad.
We have 66 new folks in our new member class this fall and pledges for 2010 are up 14% over 2009. I know All Saints, Pasadena doesn’t “count” for some of ya’ll but the truth is there ARE churches that are growing on both ends of the theological spectrum. Could it be that what people are attracted to are messages that are clear, focused and resontate with the deep yearning we all have to be in community and to make a difference the world? Could it be that if we could let those who find that path to wholeness in different ways travel that path without throwing stones at each other we could reach more of those folks in the middle who are frankly turned off by ALL of us for all the fighting and arguing? “See those Christians how they fight amongst themselves” isn’t exactly the message that brings people to Jesus, is it?
You’re right, Susan, it doesn’t count; it’s an anecdote, the equivalent of Pauline Kael moaning that Nixon couldn’t have won because she didn’t know anybody who voted for him.
Your organization produces statistics for the whole body that do count, though I can understand why you choose to ignore them.
10: The dean is sort of telling the truth which led a friend of mine, a convert to Rome, to say ‘Bully for General Convention’. Think about it logically: they’re rid of their troublesome conservatives and can get on with what they want to do. The unlikely event of those conservatives replacing them in the Anglican Communion wouldn’t put them out of business. Their bishops would just save a few bucks by not paying for a trip to England every 10 years.
11: Fine with me. Religious liberty for all, so all those paths have equal opportunity, and although we’re not all in communion, sometimes being honest about that can stop the stone-throwing.
Br_er Rabbit (#5),
I was struck by that same anomaly in the church stats, i.e., the simultaneous surge in ASA while the giving plummets?? Very curious amd peculiar indeed.
As for Susan Russell’s #11, bragging on the growth of All Saints, Pasadena, I’d venture this general observation. Contrary to what many suppose, it’s vastly oversimplified to say that all conservative churches are growing and all liberal ones are declining, even though the general trend in that direction is clear enough. Rather, I think Methodist analyst Dean Kelley essentially got it right back in 1972 with his blockbuster book [b]Why Conservative Churches Are Growing[/b]. In the 2nd edition in 1985 or so, he admitted that he wished he could change the title to [b]”Why STRICT Churches are Strong.”[/b] That is, his basic thesis was that demanding churches that project high expectations (“strict” in that sense) tend to grow, while lax and lenient churches are very apt to decline, because the strict ones attract the people who are the most serious and committed.
In that regard, All Saints, Pasadena, fits Kelley’s thesis in that it projects relatively high expectations of its members and is quite clear and not fuzzy at all on what they stand for (theologically and politically). Churches in urban areas like it that are unambiguously liberal and proud of it, and that expect its members to be involved in promoting “a more just society” sometimes manage to defy the general downward trend for liberal congregations. And of course, lots of conservative parishes are stagnant or declining.
That’s why I like to joke that I’m very “high church,” but not in the traditional Anglican sense. Yes, I like incense and Gregorian chant, but what really makes me “high church” is that I’m fervently and passionately in favor of setting the bar VERY HIGH in terms of the demands for discipleship. Just as Jesus and the apostles did. It’s the polar opposite of the state church mentality, with its lowest common denominator approach (that has often been the bane of Anglicanism).
David Handy+
Proudly conservative and ULTRA DEMANDING
Thanks for the backup, David.
In regard to the milieu of Russell+, I spent too many late nights on the streets of chic, upscale, central Pasadena, where the shops stay open until 11pm and the young people come to just hang out. This is where I and my team-mates talked and ministered to drug addicts, alcoholics, runaways, and cripples splayed out on the sidewalk begging for quarters, all just down the street from the plush, upscale environs of the All Saints, Pasadena campus.
Mostly, we considered All Saints irrelevant to the ministry needs we saw on the street. We thought that it was important that Jesus offered redemption from a life of depravity, and a new life in Christ, no matter how low you might sink. But maybe that was just us.
Actually I would take Susan’s numbers with a grain of salt until the official numbers come through.
The All Saints, Pasadena website demonstrates that it is a place which uses numbers in a creative way
[blockquote] All Saints Church is part of the Diocese of Los Angeles: a community of 85,000 Episcopalians in 147 congregations, 39 schools and 18 institutions in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. Established 1895.
The Diocese of Los Angeles is part of The Episcopal Church: a community of more than 2.4 million members in 113 dioceses in the Americas and abroad. [/blockquote]
http://www.allsaints-pas.org/site/PageServer?pagename=new_whoweare_splash
Quite apart from the dear old 2.4 million number, I would be interested in how they “reinterpreted” the diocese number to come up with 85,000. The statistical report suggests 65,000 if you count everyone who is a baptised member (probably including all those who have left) and 20,000 average Sunday attendance.
It looks like it is a parish that believes in revisionist math as well as revisionist theology!
[blockquote]Could it be that if we could let those who find that path to wholeness in different ways travel that path without throwing stones at each other we could reach more of those folks in the middle who are frankly turned off by ALL of us for all the fighting and arguing? “See those Christians how they fight amongst themselves†isn’t exactly the message that brings people to Jesus, is it?[/blockquote]
Sort of like when you called people ignorant bigots only days ago when they held a view different than yours?
#2,
The chart was intriguing in that the number of baptized members of that church dropped by roughly 50% between 2001 and 2002. Why ? Did they perish in the 9/11 disaster ? All joking aside, such a drop is drastic.
It maybe housekeeping.
RE: “Sort of like when you called people ignorant bigots only days ago when they held a view different than yours?”
AlliB, what on earth are you talking about? You’ve got the wrong person — this is the Peacemaker stunning us all with the feeling and eloquence of her appeal.
I find your comments, AlliB, very divisive. Let us not dwell in the past; let us rather move forward with purpose and peace into that golden future of unity and peace to which we have been called. Indeed, can we not cease being divisive? Can we not cease recalling so-called former statements of so long ago?
I am duly chastened.
While we are talking about dubious statistics, I am amazed that none of you have commented on the UK writer’s claim that ‘22% of New Yorkers can’t read’. Source, please, I want to say, because this sounds to me like total and complete rubbish. BTW: Please do not think all Brits think of the US in the same terms as this opinionated piece.
#22, I wondered about that wild stat too, Fr. Tee. Glad you brought it up.
And thanks to Br_er Rabbit (#15) for his personal testimony about street ministry to the down and out in the shadow of All Saints, Pasadena, which prides itself so much on its avant garde ministry on behalf of the marginalized and socially outcast. Bravo to the Rabbit!
David Handy+