Q. What are some of the biggest challenges for the church and how would you address those?
A. One overall is the increasing secularization of our society. They have all these surveys that say church has been in a decline after the 1960s because that was such a different time. Across the board, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Roman Catholic, Episcopal or Lutheran, there’s been a 23 percent drop off in church membership since 9/11. It’s an even a bigger shift in New England.
The culture’s changing so that’s both a problem and an opportunity. This means there are a lot of people to reach through the Gospel. But it’s going to take different ways of proclaiming that.
Another change would be that we have churches that are doing fine and others that are struggling.
Nice try, Reverend Fisher: The decline in numbers and income of the Episcopal Church dwarfs that of other churches.
How is Western Massachusetts doing as a diocese?