Scotland has seven bishops — for the first time in a long time.
+Mark Strange was made bishop of Moray, Ross, and Caithness today, amidst much hope and expectation.
Official information is here.
Presumably there are juicer accounts by the Youth Network somewhere. Does the Youth Network really not have a blog? Or do they have trendier modes of communication?
An other good post over at Episcopal Cafe. This one is on GenX, Harry Potter, blogs, outreach and ecclesiology. It reminds me of a lot of good and interesting people I have known who want God in their lives, but really struggle with the church. It ties in, too, with the questions of church identity, growth and development that are tugging at Piskie blogs right now.
Here’s a snippit to tempt you.
…Gen X, are the translators [.] We are well equipped to understand social media, which is going to be the communications medium of choice for today’s young people. How is this changing the face of communications? My connections in the news media say it’s as revolutionary as Gutenberg and the moveable type printing press. Ignore this opinion at your peril, unless you think Luther’s revolution had nothing to do with Gutenberg’s (again, a hat tip to my friend for saying this; I hope he outs himself in the comments). Blogs are just a part of what that next generation is coming online with. We can speak their language. We can speak the Boomers’, too, though. Did I mention my teenage son? Yes? What about my aging parents? How’s your retirement portfolio?
So anyway, back to the matter at hand. Don’t skip Generation X. We’ve seen it more than once. We’ve heard you ask how to reach us, and seen you form committees hoping to find the magic pill that will get us back in the pews. To be honest, you might not. My fiancé has stalwartly avoided church services pretty much since he was old enough to say “no” to them. But cookouts, labyrinth walks, drum circles, soup kitchens, river clean-ups? He’s so there.
–Helen Thompson
A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to meet with three women testing a vocation to ordination in the Scottish Episcopal Church. All of the women were young, intelligent, and deeply committed to the church. One of them — the one furthest ‘down the line’ towards ordination — said to me, ‘do you believe that the church can grow, or is it inevitable that most congregations are shrinking and dying?’
Her question was passionate and urgent, and her relief palpable when I said ‘of course it can grow. It does grow. We have to believe that, and it is true.’ She and I have both seen congregations growing. It can happen. We know it is true.
But she had begun to fear because so many people claimed otherwise. So many people talk of the church’s failure, or try to bully their way into theological dominance by threatening the inevitability of the church’s demise unless we all choose to share their viewpoint.
The question of church growth is not ultimately about numbers or demographics or annual returns. It is about the shape of what we believe.
Do you believe that Christianity matters?
Do you believe it is true?
If we believe it matters and it is true, then we have to believe that the church can grow.
If we believe that it matters and it is true, then the church will grow, because the passion of our belief will communicate itself. The church will grow because it will be a place of God’s love and compassion and beauty, a place of healing where human life is redeemed.
If I did not believe this, I could not do what I do each day. I could not be a priest, and I doubt whether I could be a Christian.
What we believe matters.
If we believe that it is inevitable that congregations are shrinking and that the church must inevitably die, then it probably will. If we believe that God is irrelevant for most people and Christianity is nothing more than pastime for the curiously minded, then that too will become ‘true’– not because God is irrelevant, but because we will no longer be speaking of God in any meaningful way.
Congregations come and go. Buildings come and go. There is death and resurrection.
But if God is worth believing in, God is worth sharing. And that is all it takes for death to become life, for the church to be healthy and strong — and for young women testing their vocation to sleep well tonight, trusting in God’s future rather than the prophesies of doom.
wonderful exchange 