(Church Times) New General Synod members will seek change

Demands for a redirection of the Church Commissioners’ largesse to parish ministry will be widely and strongly voiced in the next quinquennium of the General Synod, election statements from successful candidates suggest.

Save the Parish (STP) reported this week that 77 candidates who had signed up to its manifesto had been elected, and about 20 others had told the group that they supported it. In addition to those advertising STP support, election statements calling for reform of church finances in support of parishes, read by the Church Times, transcended churchmanship, age, geography, and support for other causes and campaigns.

“We do not need any more top-down vision statements and shiny new diocesan led projects,” Paul Ronson (Blackburn), the treasurer of Together For the Church of England, wrote. “What we need is more full-time, parish-based clergy and staff to serve as the core critical resources in the local communities in which they are physically present.”

“I share much of the frustration of the Save the Parish movement with the frontline cuts, the creation of mega-parishes and the abandonment of the poor,” the Revd Jago Wynne (Southwark), one of the five directors of The Alliance elected, wrote. “There needs to be a reduction in centralised costs to allow for a focus on frontline ministry in parishes up and down the country.”

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Posted in Church of England, Ethics / Moral Theology, Ministry of the Laity, Ministry of the Ordained, Parish Ministry, Stewardship

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