Thinking Anglicans have kindly published the agenda for Novembers General Synod:
GENERAL SYNOD: NOVEMBER 2012
Timetable
Monday 19 November
2.15pm – 7 pm
Worship and formal business
Report by the Business Committee
Anglican Consultative Council meeting: presentation and questions
Anglican Communion Covenant: Report on the Reference to Dioceses
Questions
[brief evening worship]
Tuesday 20 November
9.15 am – 1 pm
9.15 am Holy Communion
10.30 am Legislative Business:
Draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure and Draft Amending Canon No.30
2.30 pm – 7 pm
Legislative Business:
Draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of women) Measure and Draft Amending Canon No.30 – continued
[brief evening worship]
Wednesday 21 November
9.30 am – 1 pm
Worship
Diocesan Synod Motion: Southwell and Nottingham: Amendment to Canon B 12 and Regulations
Private Member’s Motion: John Freeman: Living Wage
Dates of groups of sessions in 2013
2.30 – 5.30pm
Farewells
Youth unemployment
Farewell to the Archbishop of Canterbury
Contingency business:
Report of the Standing Orders Committee
A question: would you guess, from looking at the above, that it's the agenda of the main decision making body of a church which is consistently declining in numbers, is facing a game-changing drop in its levels of staffing, and has committed during the current Synod to prioritising church growth and mission?
No, me neither. If there's any synod members out there who are looking at this and scratching their heads too, perhaps you could use the question time to remind Synod of our membership stats, or to ask at what point we are going to take the same steps as the Church in Wales and start to refit the CofE for the 21st century. Otherwise the final task of the first female Archbishop of Canterbury will be to turn out the lights.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
20 Tips to Keep Your Church Safe from Visitors
we all know this (don't we?) but still..... Love number 12
for a different approach, which gets everyone in the church involved in realising this stuff and dealing with it, the Everybody Welcome course by Bob Jackson is excellent.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
The Parable of the Sower (Lego remix)
A bit rough round the edges, but I really like this, hoping to use it on Sunday if I can work out how to download the thing. Love the Star Wars stormtrooper appearing in the crowd of Jesus hearers.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Church Growth Research Programme Website
Good to see the brand new Church Growth Research Programme website up and running. This is a new initiative with in the CofE (yes, honestly), running for 18 months, and alongside new research in church growth in the Anglican setting there's quite a bit of material on the site already. There will be early findings published by the end of this year, and the full programme of reporting will be done in just over 12 months. There are various specialist strands - cathedrals, fresh expressions, church planting, team ministries - alongside more general data and parish profiling.
I'm glad to see this taking shape, and that it's going to get going so quickly. I hope that space is made on General, Diocesan and Deanery Synods to discuss the findings over the next 18 months.
New Exams Announced
In a new policy annoucement, English school exams are to be deregulated and offered out to sponsorship. A number of early candidates have already been submitted:
Backtrackalaureat: a new exam proposed by the Libdems. It doesn't matter how many answers you get wrong, as long as you apologise for them 2 years later.
Back a Laureate: sponsored by Paddy Power, this qualification combines poetry, maths and online gambling. Would suit anyone planning a career in the stock market.
English Back A Lorry Out: HGV qualification, sponsored by Eddie Stobart, designed for EU immigrant workers who are only used to driving on the right.
Bacolaureat: Sponsored by aluminium manufacturers Alcan, coursework consists entirely of covering objects of varying shapes and sizes with aluminium foil. Narrowly edged out the Tupperlaureat for the final shortlist.
EBacc Gum: course on food science and regional stereotyping with Jamie Oliver and Geoff Boycott.
The Alan Sugar School of Initiative and Business Integrity: stuff it, skip the exam, make up a qualification and we'll hire you anyway. Show me the money!
Xam Factor: exams done in front of a crowd of screaming teenagers, a weeping diva in a miniskirt, and an Irish guy who gives you 500% in everything. Only one person can pass each year, but 11 others get to tell their story to background music, qualifying them for an NVQ level 2 in Manipulative Media Narrative.
Backtrackalaureat: a new exam proposed by the Libdems. It doesn't matter how many answers you get wrong, as long as you apologise for them 2 years later.
Back a Laureate: sponsored by Paddy Power, this qualification combines poetry, maths and online gambling. Would suit anyone planning a career in the stock market.
English Back A Lorry Out: HGV qualification, sponsored by Eddie Stobart, designed for EU immigrant workers who are only used to driving on the right.
Bacolaureat: Sponsored by aluminium manufacturers Alcan, coursework consists entirely of covering objects of varying shapes and sizes with aluminium foil. Narrowly edged out the Tupperlaureat for the final shortlist.
EBacc Gum: course on food science and regional stereotyping with Jamie Oliver and Geoff Boycott.
The Alan Sugar School of Initiative and Business Integrity: stuff it, skip the exam, make up a qualification and we'll hire you anyway. Show me the money!
Xam Factor: exams done in front of a crowd of screaming teenagers, a weeping diva in a miniskirt, and an Irish guy who gives you 500% in everything. Only one person can pass each year, but 11 others get to tell their story to background music, qualifying them for an NVQ level 2 in Manipulative Media Narrative.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Autotuning Confession
Why do we confess to wrongdoing? Some options.
1. Because we're genuinely sorry for them.
2. Because we want to restore a relationship broken by the wrongdoing
3. Because we think we might become more popular by doing so.
4. To try to change people's perceptions of us.
5. Because we know God wants us to.
Who should we confess to?
1. Everyone
2. God
3. The people we've wronged
4. The people we've wronged, and everyone else who's got upset because someone got wronged, even if it wasn't them.
How should we confess?
1. In private, one to one.
2. On TV
3. By saying sorry, but not necessarily for the thing people think we should be sorry for. (e.g. 'I'm sorry if you took offence' rather than 'I'm sorry I offended you'. Though I suspect some people are just an offence waiting to be taken)
4. By saying we'll never break another promise again (which begs the question...)
I mentioned Nick Clegg in the introduction to our Confession this morning - there's a first time for everything. All of us have got stuff to say sorry for, but politicians mistakes are made to more people, and about more people, than my petty sins-in-a-corner.
One of the sequals to Gary Chapmans brilliant '5 love languages' is the 5 languages of apology. Chapman suggests that we have a range of ways of giving and receiving apologies. It's probably a bit too neat, fitting the profile of Chapmans 5 love languages, but the blurb suggests the five basic languages of apology (are): expressing regret, accepting responsibility, making restitution, genuinely repenting, and requesting forgiveness.
There's something behind the Catholic notion of penance, that even though forgiveness is freely granted by God, restitution is part of repentance. That idea is carried through in restorative justice, that part of justice is the offender doing something for the victim, rather than simply being punished.
Politicians are aware that actions speak louder than words, but there comes a point where the actions are no longer heard, because the words in the narrative are so fixed and given that everything else is heard through the story they tell. No amount of restoration is enough. Part of the political game is to bid publicly for the controlling narrative - win that contest, and you're sorted. The Libdems can apologise until they are blue in the face and work their socks off for the poor and disadvantaged for the next 30 months, but many have already bought the story that they sold out for power, and nothing will move them.
But it would be a shame if Clegg's apology were simply a political manoevre. Politicians being what they are, that's what it's seen as. At its most basic, this could simply be a bit of political calculation - nothing to lose, now lets see what the other leaders have got to apologise for. Next up, but not much better, is being sorry for being found out. "I'm sorry we didn't get away with it" is the rough translation. Next up from that is what the message seems to say, is that he's sorry for making the original pledge. Some of this might be a genuine confession of weakness, making the pledge to keep people in the party happy when he didn't actually believe in it. It's a failure of integrity. But it did win him a lot of votes....
I just hope that the language and practice of apology, repentance and confession doesn't become debased by all of this. There is a modern fad for confessing and apologising for things we had nothing to do with: the slave trade, the crusades etc. On one level that's ok: there is such a thing as corporate guilt and responsibility, which is borne even by those who aren't responsible themselves (look at Daniels prayers of confession). But should genuine confession for these things then go hand in hand with some form of reparation? There is a certain amount of emotional tourism in our society - we seem to like getting upset, or angry, or apologetic, on behalf of people who until yesterday we had nothing to do with, and whose lives never intersect with our own. We naturally do this with film and drama anyway, it's more troubling to see that spilling over into real life.
If saying sorry becomes detached from actually being sorry, repentant, then we are in trouble. Because at its heart apology and confession is not about me, the wrongdoer, assuaging my conscience. It is about you, the wronged, being recognised, and recieving what is due to you. If we manipulate the language of confession, we devalue all those we are apologising to.
It's a vain hope, perhaps, but it would be great if we all found it came a bit more naturally to say sorry, and to be sorry, and we all agreed that it didn't demonstrate weakness to do so. It takes much more strength of character to make apology and restitution than it does to make excuses.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Wow
Some simply staggering beauty on show at the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012, and a lovely slideshow on the BBC site to go with it.
Wacky BaccE?
With the resumption of the political football season, education is getting the usual kicking around. Michael Gove's announcement of the scrapping of GCSE's for an exam-based EBacc (if it's English, why not use an English word for it?); Nick Clegg's apology over tuition fees, and strong words from the Bishop of Oxford about the marking fiasco this summer.
An O-level style, final exam system bases success on a number of skills:
- accumulating knowledge
- short term memory
- ability to think clearly under stress
- exam technique (e.g. spotting questions)
one friend at theological college went into his exams armed with 6 7-letter words, an acronym for each question which was likely to turn up. It worked, he got a first.
I've been mulling over whether continuous assesment or a final test is more Biblical. Probably neither/both: the bible does talk about a final judgement, some kind of test where everything is evaluated. At the same time there is continuous assesment - Jesus continuously reviews his ministry and priorities in prayer, the Psalmist asks God to search his heart.
More Christian thinkers and leaders are writing about discipleship, and best practice in discipleship - for the development of skills, character and holiness - is about 'a long obedience in the same direction'. The church has centuries of experience of 'continuous assesment', though whether the confessional, or the daily examen of Ignatius, produced the fruit of holiness is questionable. Methodists had their class meetings to help one another grow in Christian virtues.
It all depends what we want to happen in education. If it's merely about knowledge and fact retention, exams are fine (up to a point). But what about growth in skills and character? Instruments are learned through regular practice, tutorials, and a series of grade exams, it's the same with sporting skills like swimming and gymnastics. Together with those go the character qualities of patience, perseverance, coping with success and failure. On the one hand it will be good to remove from students the pressure of continuous assesment, some learning is best done in a more leisurely way, rather than cramming facts in order to pass a test/assignment. But continuous assesment also gives the opportunity to develop skills and character in a way that exams don't.
I've recently become a 'Training Minister' on STETS, a local training course for church leaders in the CofE, Methodists and elsewhere. I've been impressed by their course structure - the academic is integrated with personal spiritual disciplines and growth in character. All three are addressed together. This is a million miles from the segmentation of my own training in the 1990s, where character and holiness issues were hardly ever addressed. And guess what? Most of the ministers dropping out of parish life, year in year out, are doing so not because they can't do the job, but because of character and personal issues.
One other thought: as a political football education is now much bigger than it was, as successive governments have tried to wrestle children from their parents at an earlier and earlier age. This is partly to get parents back into the job market, and partly to offer a better environment for growing up than some of the more troubled homes. Parenting is being progressively nationalised. But children still go home at the end of the day, and parents are still the prime educators. There shouldn't be a rigid division of labour between home and school (facts at school, character at home), but it's hard to build a partnership approach without a shared public ethos of what a good life and a whole person actually looks like.
An O-level style, final exam system bases success on a number of skills:
- accumulating knowledge
- short term memory
- ability to think clearly under stress
- exam technique (e.g. spotting questions)
one friend at theological college went into his exams armed with 6 7-letter words, an acronym for each question which was likely to turn up. It worked, he got a first.
I've been mulling over whether continuous assesment or a final test is more Biblical. Probably neither/both: the bible does talk about a final judgement, some kind of test where everything is evaluated. At the same time there is continuous assesment - Jesus continuously reviews his ministry and priorities in prayer, the Psalmist asks God to search his heart.
More Christian thinkers and leaders are writing about discipleship, and best practice in discipleship - for the development of skills, character and holiness - is about 'a long obedience in the same direction'. The church has centuries of experience of 'continuous assesment', though whether the confessional, or the daily examen of Ignatius, produced the fruit of holiness is questionable. Methodists had their class meetings to help one another grow in Christian virtues.
It all depends what we want to happen in education. If it's merely about knowledge and fact retention, exams are fine (up to a point). But what about growth in skills and character? Instruments are learned through regular practice, tutorials, and a series of grade exams, it's the same with sporting skills like swimming and gymnastics. Together with those go the character qualities of patience, perseverance, coping with success and failure. On the one hand it will be good to remove from students the pressure of continuous assesment, some learning is best done in a more leisurely way, rather than cramming facts in order to pass a test/assignment. But continuous assesment also gives the opportunity to develop skills and character in a way that exams don't.
I've recently become a 'Training Minister' on STETS, a local training course for church leaders in the CofE, Methodists and elsewhere. I've been impressed by their course structure - the academic is integrated with personal spiritual disciplines and growth in character. All three are addressed together. This is a million miles from the segmentation of my own training in the 1990s, where character and holiness issues were hardly ever addressed. And guess what? Most of the ministers dropping out of parish life, year in year out, are doing so not because they can't do the job, but because of character and personal issues.
One other thought: as a political football education is now much bigger than it was, as successive governments have tried to wrestle children from their parents at an earlier and earlier age. This is partly to get parents back into the job market, and partly to offer a better environment for growing up than some of the more troubled homes. Parenting is being progressively nationalised. But children still go home at the end of the day, and parents are still the prime educators. There shouldn't be a rigid division of labour between home and school (facts at school, character at home), but it's hard to build a partnership approach without a shared public ethos of what a good life and a whole person actually looks like.
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