Comments | poliphilo: A Mini Sermon

poliphilo

A Mini Sermon

Jan 12, 2025 08:11

The English Churches are wilting away- and have been through the course of my lifetime. One of the charities Ailz and I support is The Churches Conservation Trust- which owns and maintains over 350 historic church buildings for which the Church of England has no further use. It is continually adding to its collection- as building after building ( Read more... )

Comments 7

Givot Olam - Gordon MacMillan, Twitter. ron_broxted January 12 2025, 09:47:42 UTC

I recall a trip to (redacted) Gospel Hall. I was the only one under 70. A brief "pin up" moment.

Re: Givot Olam - Gordon MacMillan, Twitter. poliphilo January 12 2025, 14:15:57 UTC

I surveyed the faces at the Area Meeting (on Zoom) yesterday. I don't think there was anyone there under 60.

RE: Re: Givot Olam - Gordon MacMillan, Twitter. ron_broxted January 12 2025, 16:31:02 UTC

My erstwhile pal, a CofE vicar, is reversing that by going happy clappy. Half a dozen rural parishes.

Re: Givot Olam - Gordon MacMillan, Twitter. poliphilo January 13 2025, 06:57:47 UTC

My experience of happy-clappy is that it doesn't last. I tried it and after a while decided it was just too silly.

Thread 5

wantedonvoyage January 12 2025, 14:23:17 UTC

I related hard to all of this. My congregation is attracting new people at about the same rate that others are dying or drifting away. We're not to the point of growing, and I don't know that we ever will be. But we are a bright bulb on a flickering and dying string... I assisted a young woman trying to choose a parish for her family and realized there are only a handful of viable choices in the whole county that could be reasonably expected to exist by the time those children are grown.

Our leadership seems to have that pragmatic view that the church will be what it will be, in some form, and so we must soldier on. American are--by and large--not joining things as they once did. Not just churches but all kinds of social and volunteer groups are fading on the vine. And yet we (particularly men) report chronic loneliness and lack of friendship. I wonder what Kind of apocalypse it would take to make us realize that we are social animals who need each other to survive.

poliphilo January 12 2025, 14:37:09 UTC

We call ourselves the Society of Friends. I think it's important that we should be friends in practice and not just in name.

It's a good point you raise. The epidemic of loneliness presents the churches with an opportunity and a challenge.