Show Me The Money

Thanks to Pete Leveson for a link to a Times article on the Cash shortage in the UK Anglican Church (Kyle Potter also links to a discussion at titusonline).

Of course, this financial crisis is nothing new; it has been brewing for a long time. The following quote from the Times article really did sum up my feeling on this situation.

“…the main problem facing Church is not financial, but relates to its values and priorities.”

Too often the Anglican church has prioritised buildings over people. It’s spending on buildings is out of touch with reality. When I was in Fulham, large sums of money were being spent on refurbishing churches that had virtually no active congregation and everyone of the clergy I met lived in propreties worth in excess of ¬£1M! However, there was almost no money to fund new ministries and local parishes were subject to agonising and paralysing round after round of naval gazing about their futures. Moreover, the localised Christendom model of parishes locked churches in ways that made it hard to grow effective congregations. My glipse of the inner workings showed that the issue of parish boundaries was a constant problem and thorn in the side of ministers taking a global view of the area they served in. Certainly in Fulham, the parish boundaries made no sense in terms of how people lived in the area. They were missiologically counterproductive.

Christendom is failed idea and a failed social experiment. The best thing the Anglican church can do is admit that mistake, apologise for the inconvenice and move on. Get rid of all Bishops that are not localised into large churches, cathedrals or central chaplaincy roles, make church refurbishment conditional on congregational growth and funding and only admit to training potential ministers with a proven track record in evangelism and effective ministry leadership. I could go on, but that will do for now.