Diocesan Synod 7th March - PtO priests on PCCs, Eco Report, Same sex preferment and candidacy for ordination,

We opened with prayer and notices.

Bishop Tom's address
He outlined day with humility honesty and humour. He responded the role of the diocesan synod and a bishops duty to consult, and the nature of doctrinal statements. So the scripture bit of the preferment of gay clergy motion will be dropped.

General Synod report by Cannon Simon Butler
He seemed encouraged to watch traditions come together on matters of faiths.
Stories of recession suffering and hardship and global trafficking of people brought a prophetic voice to the synod. The women bishops issue was outwardly civilised, but it will come down to political muscle; that is a messy process, and may end up half baked.
Thanks were given to all who have worked on the get racism out of church front.

Permission to Officiate priests on PCCs.
Current rules were outlined. There is some limited scope (1:10) for their election to Deaneries, and co-opting for PCCs. This standing doesn't give value to their community and church and as such it is a little inside. Though it does stop a grey landslide of looking to the past, like the anti- women bishop vote in some other dioceses.
Look to the Ascension - the church learning to let go... but is that the elderly priests letting go of their church, or the church letting go of a measure of control?
The motion was lost.

Environmental Policy report by Rev Barry Goodwin
3 p' s - parochial, political and personal
So far:
The book creed and creation has been army out to parishes. Responses to eco audit has occur only been 15%, but parishes are aware, and Lois want help on how to.
The eco message has been taken far and wide through initiatives professional audits, lectures sand inner faith work. Diocesan offices are now being audited too.

Same sex preferment and candidacy for ordination
Motion was changed to remove scripture bit, leaving it as an issue of preferment.
A little was said on exegesis, but it was on the 'process of thought' that I was struck. First were should look at relationship then at sex, as we do when considering marriage.
Then one speaker likened the arguments of justifying gay relationships to some that could be later used for incest! There's always one isn't there. Personal stories were shared and a call for justice.
Celibate amendment was proposed and discussed. My thought from it is that the celibate consider is probably not needed as its in context of wider discussions; this is relationships, not just sex.
The amendment was lost.
Civil Partnership amendment was debated to narrow the focus of the motion. The House of Bishops has some pastoral guidelines which are a bit of a fudge, but places it in a conversation with the candidate and their bishop. It does muddy the waters.
It too was lost.
More thoughts were shared on the motion in little 2 minute chunks; but time ran out and so we moved on without the vote. The pragmatic side of me sees why, the time is not quite right to ruffle the church up further; but where's the justice for those that have to potter in limbo in the meantime?

So we worshiped, and went home / to the pub.

Erm... sorry

There was a diocesan meeting; but family called and I couldn't make it.

I wonder what my penance could be?

Must all be quiet...

...too quiet.

No synod this time around, perhaps they were prepared for a big debate; that never quite happened.

So I'm off to lie in the sun.

Saturday 10th November - Far Right Groups, Zimbabwe & Parsonages

Bish Christopher opened in prayer. Echoing the call of St. Francis, "Build my Church".

Bish Tom's address
He is to be speaking at the 150 years of UCMA/USPG. Following Livingstone story; he spoke on the slave trade. Preaching wasn't enough for Livingstone, it need economic change. Travelling up the Zambezi he started a mission station, with malaria and warring tribes. He was followed by Mackenzie and his group, most who died. It was vision vs. reality. Yet slavery was eventually abolished, and mission to the African continent continued. Reality is messy. The Lambeth Conference and the Covenant is on its way, if it can be agreed on. A declaration of assent would be, for him, preferable to a who's in/out statement. Consultation continues.
The gap between vision and reality this diocese is the business of today. Racist political parties, Zimbabwe, clergy housing & budgets.

Questions
Fair-trade diocese? 50% of churches have signed up so far.
Imbalance in traditionalist clergy in senior posts? Bish. of Fulham is member of senior staff.
B2CS? Returns are coming in.
Anglo-Indians guidance in surveys? Follow the census to avoid self classification.

General Synod
Perhaps it was a little light, to clear the decks for debates on Women Bishops.

Deanery Synod Elections
Currently there is an under representative of team ministries. Change of distribution table lets PCCs of team ministries to make their own choices to get fairer representation.
Should this apply to large churches? Perhaps an issue for the next review; should there be representation, rather than voting blocks; if its for a voice, should there be equal representation regardless of size. Is there an opt out to remain the same? Yes. Does there need to be a maximum term of service?
- Motion carried

Far Right Political Parties and Elections
Terry D. opened the discussion. Particularly pertinent for the 2008 transferable vote system. Last local elections showed the activity of such parties across our diocese. Have produced a very good briefing for our clergy and churches on the incompatibility of Christian teachings and parties advocating racist policies.
In (my) summary the motion was to

• Ensure respect in local dialogue as the churches contribution
• Emphasis equality and justice for all peoples
• Exclude, or simply not invite, parties advocating racist policies from hustings in church buildings
• Prevent posting of such parties material on church noticeboards
• Cooperate with all other groups working towards these same goals.

++ Amendments...

• To remind churches of the value of voting. (carried)
• To talk about people rather than citizens. (carried)
• To remove all from (5) all other groups. (carried)
• To remove points 3 & 4 to allow democracy to be heard. (failed on 3 &4)

++ Questions & statements
Is excluding people for church buildings legal?
We need to support other faith groups by passing this motion.
The churches need to talk about the positive of parties as well as the negative of others.
Where do we go after the elections? It may need to be updated as time go by.
We need to reach out to these parties, as something is broken in their lives. Is it right to exclude them from hustings?
Votes matter more now that there is no longer a first past the post system.
We must be aware of far-right members of our own congregation and preach against racist groups using the term Christian in their name.
- Motion carried

Zimbabwe
Bishop Nick presented a position paper. Because of the fluid nature of the Zimbabwe situation, it was stressed that any paper was provisional.
The economy is broken and politics are shaky. Inflation is at c.8000%, shops are empty, fuel is in short supply and power cuts are the norm and people are starving.
The church has been accused of being silent but it is in some turmoil in Zimbabwe. It has been disabled by the pro-Mugabe Bishop Kunonga (Harare) and the presence of a state run media. The Bishops of Harare and Manicaland have withdrawn from the Province of Central Africa; & have therefore ceased to be Bishops. Governmental bodies have been reluctant to work through the Anglican church there because of this weakness. This is now changing thanks to Christian Aid and Tearfund, though they themselves acknowledge compromise by spys.
Advice needs to be taken from those on the ground. The church should pronounce, but we need to encourage and protect our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe.
We must pressurise the Government to resource agencies working in Zimbabwe. We must not confuse a lack of grandstanding with inactivity.
A motion to ask General Synod to be brought up to date, to clarify the role of the Anglican churches in Zimbabwe & to identify practical measures was passed unanimously.

Lent Appeal Presentations
3C project in Jamaica (Christian Aid)
Heaven's Nest Cape Town
St David's Hospital Zimbabwe (USPG)
Redthread Christian Youth Work

Budget
Presented by Ven. Christine
Needs an increase of 4% in giving. SORP 2005 changes to give a fuller presentation of charity funds were explained. Budget was approved.

Parsonage Replacement (PRP)
Working party report - The PRP needs speeding up because of the drain on finances of the repair of large parsonages.
Large houses have been taking up a large share of the budget. Maintenance costs are high, related to scale of houses; intricacy of building details; condition of services below ground; boundary walls in conservation areas; listed buildings; changes in building regs; cost of works in London; need to improve standards and security; and finally taxation.
PRP since 1985 has been slow, averaging at 2.4 a year. New parsonages are now built to a high quality in this diocese, considering future heritage and reduce future maintenance costs. There are ecological benefits which bring financial support to the clergy in reducing energy costs.
Families also benefit from manageable furnishing costs; parishes get an attraction for future clergy, and demonstrates an ecological commitment. The Diocese benefit by lowering the repair budget.
Opportunities arise at the end of buildings life spans or where the lands are contiguous. Costs are born by the Diocesan Parsonage Replacement Fund. It will only happen if the incumbent and parish are willing, options will be discussed and concerns met. Conversions are looked at, though it is a tricky process.
As a tension between vision and reality, the report was noted.

Synod ended in prayer.

Godly Play & Urban Regeneration - Wednesday 4th July

My brother likes his toys, always has, always will. And this makes me very lucky as he passes the not quite new on to me; it means I now have a little keyboard so I can write these entries 'live' at St John's. Though it's not quite live blogging as I couldn't find a wifi point until I got home... and then there was a day's wait while I found the tiny keypad phone thing again... but it's one step closer. Again my usual caveat, if you want impartial accuracy go to the minutes, this is simply me being there.

Bishop Tom's Address

A week of change, Gordon Brown, weather, Wimbledon, floods. Terror too - with the bombing doctors we can't avoid the fact that it's roots are in an ideology, not solely in poverty or marginalisation.

And there's a constitutional green paper - it proposes a one name system for appointing diocesan bishops to the PM to take to the Queen. Is this a rubber stamping? Could it squeeze out bishops in the Lords? And does taking a political choice out of the appointments impair the role of talking to faith groups.

Synod & the Covenant. Enough to say he's hoping for an amendment.

Tonights focus on Regeneration, of people as well as places. New priests and SPARs as a sign of the church regenerating to speak to every new generation. Let us embrace this change and vow to play a part in this regeneration.

Questions

The draft covenant?

Bishop Tom: Outlined the process. In substance its hastily prepared and overfull. It might work if its really an instrument of unity not a club to enforce a club. But there's no implication that synodical processes are being side lined. Lambeth conference isn't yet a decision making body, though it seems to be being given more importance.

Energy efficiency and the DAC?

DAC is working with the Diocesan Environmental Officer. National advice for carbon footprints is being sought.

Godly Play

Colin Slee

Gave a resonating account of his experience of Godly play at Dean's convention. Abraham's journey using "I wonder why?" to get right inside a story. Opened up some reluctant Deans, it's not just for children.

Diane Craven

Play is serious. Playing because you're young or learning to play again.

Godly Play takes liturgy seriously, swims in symbols and mystery; so teaches all about worship. It takes scripture seriously, asking questions unasked. It takes relationships seriously, grounded in trust. It children seriously, not avoiding hard questions. It takes learning seriously, kinestic and physical. It takes experience seriously.

Questions, in summary:

What is distinctive? It's a 'school' of thought.

How do we get it into church schools? It's starting to get there, but more work needs to be done with the Education Board.

From what age? Possibly 3 (though from experience I'd say most 2 year olds are capable if you remove the sitting still bit)

Annual Report & Accounts

Moved to received annual reports.

Parsonage replacement timescale was queried. It'll be out in Autumn.

Report makes little reference to "Faith in the Cities" (in particular regret over the OLM merger to NSMs was given). In response the fostering of urban vocations through the roadshows. Numbers of non-stipendary priests is going up.

Synod received unanimously.

Moved to receive accounts.

All money in & a good return on Diocesan assets. Also came in under budget due to a few vacant posts, and some timing on housing expenditure.

Didn't need to draw on pension fund; but could invest in a new Growing Churches fund. 2007 may be a difficult year for some churches owing to rise in pensions, it is hoped the new fund will aid these churches. 2008 is dependant on the decisions taken at General Synod regarding pensions.

(Andrew Britton said his thanks and goodbyes, he generously outlined the diocesan strengths as he's off to the Arch-Bishop's Council, it is their gain.)

Motion was passed with one abstention.

Regeneration

Context of a changing London with younger and ethnically diverse population. Traditional trades have declined and financial and business employment has risen and should continue to rise.

Bishop Tom gave a quick journey through regeneration projects:

Southbank regeneration, reimagined iconic buildings. Tate Modern, the Globe, City Hall, Millennium Wheel & Southwark Cathedral. New development could dwarf the Cathedral How do we respond?

Elephant & Castle due for a big renewal, if its built. Local clergy involved with decisions regarding community.

Aylesbury estate to be coming down, Peckham town centre has a number of initiatives. How do we consider Ministry to such changing populations? Battersea Power Station has new plans. The Dome is forecasted to have 10000 new homes by 2020. Parish has been negotiating with planners and other faiths. The Ferrier Estate not a good story in regard to the community. Thamesmead is not in a good state, there is little provision for community facilities in the new West Thamesmead. Clapham Park is a good story of community and church partnership.

Non-urban regeneration too, affordable housing through Diocesan schemes, but much expensive development too.

Transport extensions are many coming across the river.

The river itself may well become a commuter means.

Church has a continuing investment in new good schools bringing regeneration.

Themes:

Iconic buildings. Affordability. Who are being displaced? Stratified community.

Issues:

• Develop existing considerable church involvement.

• Partnership

• Pastoral reorganisation

• Deployment & training of ministry

• Buildings?

• Education, should it become a church 'industry'?

• Plan finances.

For parishes:

• With walled communities focused on security, how does the church get in?

• With divided communities along lines of wealth?

Reading

Malcolm Troy "Regeneration & Renewal"

Tim Scott "Keeping the Momentum"

Stories from the parishes

Andrew Dodd - Newingham and the E&C.

Much money going its way as one 10 stories to 42 story buildings.

St. Mary's is involved in planning. Its green space proposals brought in Yr6 students to redesign a soulless design. If engaged the church becomes an honest broker to the process.

Sharmane Odesena - St Mark's Academy

Fear of faith aspects in school, but its now oversubscribed, when it becomes visible it elicits a sense of pride in a school.

Bishop Christopher

The church has to hold it together as the corporate memory.

As to the Ferrier Estate; a disempowered community, compulsory displacement and no new build yet, shops encouraged to closed. Broken promises of a rolling regeneration fuelled by high land prices.

A dilemma for the church, committed to hold faith with the beleaguered community but having to plan for the new community having been seen as a block to change. Conciliation is also needed to ensure a continuing presence.

Discussion groups

• In my pairing with Jackie, we talked about supporting clergy involved in such areas, Southwark does support well, possibly there is a need to engage in analysis of what we do well to beef up it up for focused clergy.

• Ecological concerns.

• Stand with the people.

• Faithful Cities report - building faithful capital. Church as a critical partner.

• Problems of conflict of interests in the church between community and developers.

London is growing at 2.3 citizens an hour. It is still a verdant city, but now there are gated communities and more and more flats. There is displacement and growth and change. Holding the corporate memory, and reflecting in prayer the Lord's interest in the marginalised.

Diary dates

Diocesan synod is a hub for useful information, mark your diaries now. Full details of the 'Bicentenary of the Act to Abolish the Slave Trade' and 'Back to Church Sunday' should have already arrived at your church to be added to the noticeboards. Here I've posted a few highlights and resources

Saturday 24th March - 1pm
Holy Trinity, Clapham. Walk of witness. Act of worship at 1pm followed by the walk to Kenningtion Park starting at 1.20

Sunday 25th March
Bicentenary Sunday. SetAllFree.net has service sheets pieces that you can stitch together for a service; along side worship ideas on the theme for the rest of the year.

Sunday 30th September
Sort out a parish contact for the Back to Church Sunday (B2CS). You can now order poster or T-shirt packs from Caroline at Trinity House.

The new environmental policy

There was a thread running through much of what was said on the environment that went along the lines of 'it's not a bandwagon'. To stop it becoming such an issue there was much rightly said about needing to awaken the church's distinctive prophetic voice. Now I'll apologies only once for anything that sounds a little eco-bore, it wasn't the tone of synod, but I've been greening vicarages for years now and like a policy that has 5 year targets for church's eco-audits along with formal reviews every 3. But perhaps it could have been tougher, as that only puts Southwark a few steps in front of the current administration.

An amendments to the policy by Rev. Paul (by now I had started to jot down first, if not surnames) was voted in and I think I could find myself getting enthused by; that the church's business is to be "publicly and consistently challenging society and government to confront the obstacles to sustainability that are presented by the consumer lifestyle and by the growth economy."

How cool is that. And many, many others in synod agreed; 'we need the courage to make a difference... even when things aren't simple or obvious'; 'the church needs to be a witness in self-sacrifice'.

To be fair there were a couple of voices against - really a couple, that is two I think - who took issue with it being just a gesture or perhaps a not-from-grass-roots-making-bureaucracy initiative. But Bishop Tom did point out that this was a request not an instruction to parishes, so I'll just have to make sure its requested very loudly round here; I did apologise for bias earlier didn't I?

Well, it passed with a huge majority. As did the whole policy which followed. Though there was one jaw droppingly awkward moment when possibly the sole "global warming is natural" view got aired, so everyone was very polite and ignored it.

The Shrinking the Footprint scheme was touted; and I've just been to visit its resource site and - for a crusty old green - been very heartened at what I saw. Simple pragmatic church based advice set up in a way that requires little extra work that churchwardens and vicars should already be doing.

Lastly there was a suggestion that the environment should be put up as a standing order on the agenda, so you'll be reading a lot more about it here.

As part of the debate we also got given the Mother's Union booklet providing some good reflection on the spirituality of justice and ecology. I know that's very easy for activists to burn out without a good support of theology and prayer.

It was mentioned that the synods had started thinking about the environment back in the '70s so its thoughts on such matters should be sound; after all, that's the time its taken for me to grow up.