I said some time ago that I intended to link on this site to any member of a Chelmsford South church with a blog. To my knowledge, this only means one person: Peter Kirk, who blogs at Gentle Wisdom. Here is an example of his writing to get your attention:
"It seems that the only way to satisfy the aspirations of opponents [of whom Peter is not one] of women priests and bishops, is for them to separate from the current provinces of Canterbury and York and set up their own province, perhaps still nominally in the Church of England, without women clergy. Indeed this is what many of them want. This new province would necessarily be non-geographical, with its own structure of dioceses and parishes, or at least non-parochial congregations, which would necessarily cut across the current geographical hierarchy. And they could hardly expect the continuing Church of England to avoid working at all in the former parishes of churches which have joined the new province. So this “third province” idea more or less implies the end of the geographical hierarchical system of the church."Perhaps this is why there is strong opposition within the church hierarchy to the “third province” proposal, as well as to the recent moves in North America for parishes and even dioceses to put themselves under the authority of foreign provinces. But this opposition is misplaced. The geographical system of provinces, dioceses and parishes is an anachronism, a relic of the “Christendom” of mediaeval Europe in which everyone could be assumed to be a Christian and in which church and secular authority were closely linked. The perpetuation of this system in the early days of the Church of England may have limited the bloodshed of those early days. But now it is time to dismantle this system and replace it with something more suited to the 21st century."
If you want to give an opinion on whether the parish system is an anachronism, or know of other Chelmsford South bloggers, please leave a comment to let us know!
Someone has given us a chocolate advent calendar.
There are 4 problems with this:
It will rot my kids' teeth, or make me fatter, or both.
Daily fights over which of the kids will open it.
They’ll now expect a chocolate advent calendar every year
Possibly the most serious … chocolate advent calendars destroy society, the soul and the planet.
... chocolate calendars “take the waiting out of wanting’”, in the words of the old Access debit card campaign. Instead of building expectation through the month with calendars and candles and so on, you get to indulge yourself from day one.
Forget all that anticipation for 24 days, lets start stuffing ourselves now.
...We don’t wait for the nice bits…
Why wait till you can afford something when with a bit more debt you can have it now?
Why wait for more sex or less arguments when you could quit the relationship now and go and shack up with someone else?
Why wait for a patient resolution to an debate when you can win it with brute force?
Why wait for political funds to come in when you could get them quicker by cutting a few corners?
Why wait for the weapons inspectors to finish their job in Iraq when you’re itching for a fight?
Even the church is getting in on it:
Why wait for a consensus when you could just go and set up your own?
Such a cracking philosophy, you can see how well it works economically, relationally, internationally and in every other way.
… but we put off the hard bits?
As for the planet - well, we’ll sort out our carbon emissions in about 20 years, but in the meantime we’ve got to have plasma HDTV, even if it does hoover up 4 times the energy of our old set.
And make the powerless wait in line
The people that have to wait are the poor and the powerless. Here we are all up in arms about one teacher undeservedly in jail in Sudan, and rightly so. I hope the camera crews in Sudan stick around after the story ends to show us some other people for us to get up in arms about.
I’m not looking to put a downer on anyone’s Advent. If you’re down, you’ll just eat more chocolate, so I hope you have a great month.
Wrapping-Up
I just want to wonder aloud: what kind of world, society, neighbourhood, family, would we have if we could wait a little more, and the poor had to wait a little less? Would it be a better one?
from Dave Keen
Our Vision, as adopted on November 28 2007:
We look to God for power to EQUIP every member to
SERVE South Chelmsford and to
TELL of God’s love.
Our primary values:
-affirmation of God's delight and love for all creation
- worship that connects people with God through Christ
- working together across parochial boundaries and with our ecumenical partners
- a longing for more disciples for Jesus and the extension of God's Kingdom
- in all we are and all we do, to bring honourand glory to God
In adopting this statement of vision and values we intend that it will be central to deanery policies, actions and visitations. Also that it should be integral to the parishes, as each contributes to the vision for Chelmsford South. We will look for this vision to be owned by all those who make decisions on the allocation of resources in the deanery. We recognise that we are all part of a unified diocesan vision, and are committed to this.
How will this vision statement be used?
The great advantage of having a vision statement is that it can regulate every aspect of what we do - from the agenda at synods and chapter meetings to the questions asked at visitations and the method used for calculating Parish Share.
In addition, the archdeacon has assured us that, if adopted by synod, this statement will be kept central to appointment of new clergy, appraisal, and pastoral organisation for the deanery.
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