Future church

I've blogged myself about what may need to happen with the dear old CofE as the next few decades unfold. Probably best to look at this one or this one, if you're interested in checking it out. So I had a sense of fellow feeling with Doug's post here; especially when I read this:

 There are now so few stipendiary clergy that it might be time to ask

• whether we should plan for non-stipendiary ministry being the normal exercise of a priestly vocation and see stipendiary ministry as more strategic, focused on big churches (e.g. minsters, church-planting and mission centres and cathedrals) as area deans, as some specialist ministries and so on

• whether that means seeing stipendiary and non-stipendiary ministries alike as something people can move in and out of (often from one to the other), and change the stipend to a salary which allows either the purchase of housing, or (as appropriate) the paying of rent for church owned property.

I'm also minded that some of this is not so dissimilar to the thrust of the Tiller report back in the early 1980's ... We know what we should do, we just haven't got the courage to do it until we're forced to. At best it's a triumph of hope (wishful thinking, more like) over sense.
Five conversations for a declining church � iconotype: