{"id":146847,"date":"2026-07-27T17:33:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T21:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146847"},"modified":"2026-07-27T18:17:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:17:31","slug":"church-times-essence-of-church-of-england-is-in-danger-says-save-the-parish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146847","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Essence of Church of England is in danger, says Save the Parish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The campaigning group\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/save-the-parish\">Save the Parish<\/a>\u00a0(STP) has launched its manifesto for the elections to the next\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/general-synod\">General Synod<\/a>. It is calling for financial resources to be decentralised and redirected towards parish ministry to save \u201cthe essence of the Church of England itself\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Six commitments are outlined in the manifesto, which was launched at St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, in London, on Saturday, by the Rector, the Revd Marcus Walker. He warned of an \u201cexistential crisis\u201d facing the Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The commitments, based on the group\u2019s \u201cfounding priorities of \u2018parish\u2019, \u2018priest\u2019 and \u2018people\u2019\u201d, are to: restore&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/church-commissioners\">Church Commissioners<\/a>\u2019 funds to stipendiary parish ministry; direct the parish share to mission and \u201cthe cure of souls\u201d; adopt a \u201ccharter of care that values our clergy and guards them from mental and physical exhaustion\u201d; renew theological resourcing for theological education \u201cwhich is ordinand-centred not budget-centred\u201d; adopt a \u201cchurchgoers\u2019 charter\u201d that honours the volunteers who hold the parishes together; and reform the Mission and Pastoral Measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fr Walker, who chairs the STP network, said: \u201cIf we want there to be a thriving parish system in a generation\u2019s time, we have to get up and do something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2026\/31-july\/news\/uk\/essence-of-church-of-england-is-in-danger-says-save-the-parish\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Good point from <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WalkerMarcus?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@WalkerMarcus<\/a>. It\u2019s the poorer parishes that suffer most from Church funds being diverted into highly paid woke diocesan posts to be Engagement Officers, Diversity Officers, Policy Officers, Media Officers, etc, etc\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gZHtv4UCrl\">pic.twitter.com\/gZHtv4UCrl<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Harry Phibbs (@harryph) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/harryph\/status\/2080981398928667060?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 25, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The campaigning group\u00a0Save the Parish\u00a0(STP) has launched its manifesto for the elections to the next\u00a0General Synod. It is calling for financial resources to be decentralised and redirected towards parish ministry to save \u201cthe essence of the Church of England itself\u201d.<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146847\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,389,199,133,184,108,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-history","category-church-of-england-coe","category-england-uk","category-history","category-parish-ministry","category-religion-culture","category-stewardship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146847"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146851,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146847\/revisions\/146851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}