Saturday, December 19, 2015

Top 10 posts of 2015

The most-read posts of 2015 were, in no particular order:

The new year began with a blizzard of new thinking from the CofE. Yes, you read that right...
In Praise of the Green Report which was at the time just about the only positive thing online about the 'Green Report' into CofE leadership training.
'Green Shoots? Archbishops Introduce CofE to Smell of Coffee, on some fairly trenchant words from messrs Welby and Sentamu about the need for serious change in the CofE
CofE discussion papers and forums - an overview of the CofE's 'Reform and Renewal' papers and discussion forums

The Spirituality Spectrum: some helpful research which goes beyond the normal binary believer/nonbeliever pigeonholes

Fresh Expressions of Vicar: guest post from Andy Griffiths on church leadership, using Titus as a model for how we prepare and model leadership.

They Didn't Think it Through: Sunday Trading: My response to the so-called 'consultation' on Sunday trading - at the time of writing the government is still 'analysing your feedback'. Which doesn't explain why they tried to change the law before this analysis had been done. Window dressing, deception, broken election promises, in the pockets of the big retailers, one-sided presentation of the facts, rearrange these phrases into any paragraph of your choice.

Inappropriate Clergy Awards glad I managed to pen something vaguely amusing, though that's usually best left to Archdruid Eileen

London: Lessons for the Church of England: digest of a fascinating talk by Richard Chartes, Bishop of London, on lessons learned in his diocese that have led to the growth of the church in the capital.

When Should My Parish Church Be Demolished? Thought I'd get the Express in to write some of my post titles. Some pretty eye-opening stats on the number of tiny CofE congregations running huge listed buildings, It's easier to identify the problem than to know how to deal with it.

Would it be better if we didn't talk about Jesus? New research showing that when Christians share their faith it's more often off-putting than uplifting. Oddly, I'm in agreement with the Church Times on this - we need to spend more time looking at the findings before we come up with recommendations for action. The answer to the question is, of course, no, but we have to find a better way of talking about Jesus. I'd recommend this for starters.

the main reason for most of these being clicked on more than the rest was a link from Thinking Anglicans, so a big thankyou to the team over there. And fair play to them for linking to a blogger from a different perspective - I don't find it easy to be in disagreement with people, but we need to learn to disagree well, in the church, and in society at large. And for that we need practice....

thankyou for all the comments, shares tweets etc. and bless you for reading


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