‘Grieving process’ expected with Anglican church closures
Jan 29th, 2010 by David
From the Times Colonist:
10 Anglican churches in Victoria area might be shut
For Anglican clergy and parishioners, losing their churches will be like suffering a death in the family and require an appropriate mourning process, clergy and parishioners said yesterday.
“You have people in denial — they’ll fight and some people have just come to accept,” said Rev. Chris Parsons, who splits his ministry between two parishes, St. Martin’s in the Fields and St. Columba’s, both recently recommended for closure. “The analogy of a grieving process is right on.”
Parsons was reacting to a new report commissioned by the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, which governs only the churches on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. The report recommends closing 14 of its 52 churches, including 10 in Greater Victoria, to address declining attendance and an aging congregation.
Another five churches would be turned into hubs, expected to attract parishioners from the closed parishes. An ideal parish number is 150 worshippers on an average Sunday. Some of those earmarked for closure attract fewer than 50.
The report’s recommendations will be up for a vote in March at a meeting of the Diocese Synod and could be implemented within about 18 months.
Churches in the Victoria area recommended for closure include St. Stephen’s, Brentwood Chapel, St. David by the Sea, St. Peter’s, St. Columba’s, All Saints, St. Martin in the Fields, St. Philip’s, St. Saviour’s and St. Mary the Incarnation. Also on the list are Anglican churches in Crofton, Cowichan Station, South Pender and Saltspring.
Most of the properties would likely be sold or leased.
I came across this in a back copy of the Anglican Journal (Nov. 1998)
‘Religious right’ owns church’s future
DAVID HARRIS
Nov 1, 1998
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is “powerfully alive” in the Anglican Communion, but “liberalism … is dead.”
That’s the blunt assessment of Bishop Michael Ingham on the Lambeth Conference. The once-a-decade meeting of Anglican bishops from around the world voted overwhelmingly this summer in favour of the church’s traditional stand on homosexuality: baptized homosexuals are part of the church but their partnerships shouldn’t be blessed and non-celibate homosexuals shouldn’t be ordained.
“The religious right triumphed completely and the next generation belongs to them. Liberalism in the Anglican Communion is dead.”
Bishop Ingham’s comments on the end of liberal influence in the church came from an interview to be published in a book on the Lambeth Conference by James Solheim. Mr. Solheim, a veteran journalist who is director of Episcopal News Service for the U.S. Episcopal Church, covered the Lambeth Conference this summer. His book is expected to be published later this year by Church Publishing Corp. in the U.S. and will be available at the Anglican Book Centre in Toronto.
“Those of us who are liberal will either have to leave or become a remnant witnessing back to the church a dimension of the Gospel that it is not now willing to hear,” Bishop Ingham told Mr. Solheim, adding they are “powerless and voiceless.”
In the September issue of Topic, the diocesan newspaper of New Westminster, the bishop wrote: “The principal message of the Lambeth Conference, whatever you may have read about it, is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is powerfully alive in the Anglican Communion.”
Although he was “saddened, not surprised” by the vote on homosexuality, he wrote in the paper that more worrying was “a clear tendency toward biblical fundamentalism.”
The result, Mr. Solheim wrote, is that Bishop Ingham “said that some of the Canadian bishops even wondered if they could continue in the church - and there would be conservatives happy to see them go.”
To which Bishop Ingham comments, “Something central and vital to Anglicanism would be lost.”
Will some-one please point this out to Bishop Ingham so that He might kindly clarify the rediculous inconsistancies of this Blog! Please correct me if I am wrong but if he said “the Gospel of Jesus Christ is powerfully alive in the Anglican Communion, but liberalism … is dead.” Why would he be “saddened”? If “The religious right triumphed completely and the next generation belongs to them. Liberalism in the Anglican Communion is dead.” are truly his words and knowing of his actions and those of his diocese during the past 11 years, can one assume that Christian unity, communal fellowship and brotherhood as well as Gospel teaching and commandments take second place to partisan political thinking? No wonder the word consensus seems to have been dropped from the Anglican dictionary.
I understand the grieving process because we went through the process after a church split caused by our Bishop not responding to three letters sent by our congregation to him outlining our concerns over the theological stance of Bishop Ingham. We lost half our congregation with one of the brightest young priests [Orthodox] not because of any faith split, but because one side decided that there was no use in staying in a church that was heading into apostasy while the other side decided to keep trying to take a stand inside; hoping for a reformed ACOC. My personal story, we lost half of our house group to whom we had grown very fond of. The whole church had to go through the grieving pocess not only me. The Church could have disappeared if the previous Rector hadn’t come back out of retirement to be an assistant to the Rector. He had retired two Provinces away, but he felt the call of
God to return and when the crisis arose he took over and the Church prospered under God’s grace. Jesus is Lord!
Obviously John inside your house are many mansions to par-a-phrase. Indeed Jesus is Lord. I, and many of us in ANiC are praying for your success. Some, like me, have anger issues which of course serve no purpose but vanity. Our prayers help to chrystalize likemindedness and like your sharing input, show us that the Anglican Communion is still worthy of giving God the power and Glory. I for one would like to know the name of your parish that I may focus my prayers. However I understand it is a confusing time and perhaps we must be as wise as serpants. Two things I wish to leave with you regardless of the future. The first I quoted earlier and reflects my displeasure over “the grieving process”. “While God waits for His Church to be built of Love, men bring stones”. The second should be considered about your task and its future “Perfect Love casts out fear”
May God continue to bless you and your house.
PS Warren - I have meant to get back to you regarding the quote and apologize for not doing so. It is something I read a long time ago that has “stuck” with me. Unfortunately the author did not.
To Rev (#1),
Isn’t it amazing how times have changed. I wonder if the sense of defeat coming out of Lambeth gave Ingham a sense of desperation which helped motivated his actions in the subsequent years. All I can really think is that it took less then 10 years for the North American tides to do an about face. I suppose this can give us hope, if the devil can do all this in 10 years, imagine what an all powerful, sovereign God can do?
your fellow unworthy servant in Christ,
Brian DeVisser