Day 3 at Synod: Middle Aged Freshers' Week?

Sundays are always a bit different at synod. Many members head to York Minster for the Sunday Eucharist, while others scatter themselves among the evangelical churches of north Yorkshire, seeking fellowship far from home. This year those attending the cathedral experienced a sermon delivered by the Most Revd Andrew Chan, Archbishop of Hong Kong - last week it was the Very Revd Dr Malcolm Young, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco of The Episcopal Church.

After lunch, it was a return to synodical business beginning with "light entertainment" from Matthew Salisbury who explained to Synod the complex process of creating new liturgy for the Church of England, which requires numerous drafts, debates and revision stages. Of course, because the Prayers of Love and Faith are not formal 'liturgy' but only 'commended' prayers they have not undergone any such scrutiny.

Liturgical Business

The reason for the lesson in Standing Orders was that Synod is beginning the process of introducing two new liturgical resources - one for the Festival of God the Creator and another for the Commemoration of the twenty-one martyrs of Libya.

In his introduction the Rt Revd Michael Ipgrave commented:

"Together, these two proposals express truths at the very heart of Christian worship and discipleship. The glory of the triune God who made all things and the witness of the church in confessing that glory in life and in death. Different in character but united in purpose."

Despite his warning that the Festival of God the Creator, "must not be reduced either to nature mysticism or to moral exhortation," many of the later speeches from diocesan environmental officers lurched towards the latter.

The Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, compared the 31 martyrs of Libya to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who were willing to die for their faith, but while the former were rescued from the flames, those on the beach in Libya were not (in this life):

"Instead," he said,"they died with the name of the Lord Jesus on their lips because they would not renounce their faith, their belief, and their trust in him. I have no idea how I would react in a similar situation, but I do know that I need to ask myself that question and go on asking it. And this commemoration would force us all to ask it."

Unsurprisingly, Synod voted to perservere with the liturgical process.

Ecumenical Guest

After what had been a very 'ecumenical' discussion about liturgy, synod was addressed by the Rt Revd Jan Otto Myrseth, Bishop of Tunsberg in the Church of Norway.

Liturgical Business - Armed Forces (Chaplains) Measure

In order to speed through the tidying up the legal niceties of licensing chaplains effectively, Synod had to vote on thie legislation again. There was little debate.

Church Growth and Revitalisation

This was a presentation, introduced by Revd Kate Wharton, with the aim of helping Synod,"to look prayerfully on the bright side." Following a panel who told their good news stories, 'questions' gave members of synod the opportunity to talk about the great things God is doing on their patch, whether or not growth or revitalisation is actually taking place. Some of the research ended up being interpreted rather mechanistically, the Religious Media Centre reported, "Synod was told that in churches where they prayed for half an hour a week for growth, there was a 6 per cent annual rise in attendance."

Perhaps one young man's testimony can be used as an example of one of the complexities of working within a very mixed denomination, " I found really I grew up a Christian but I found my faith my relationship with God in a charismatic evangelical church with my brother who was the youth worker there. I have since moved to a more traditional Anglo-Catholic inclusive environment that continues to nourish it."

Archbishops' Council Audit and Risk Committee Annual Report

Chris Gill tried hard to inject some humour into his presentation and dealt with questions in a similar manner.

Debbie Buggs, a member of the House of Laity, raised the question of whether Committee had properly considered the impact of LLF, where, "protracted deadlock is unambiguously a risk to the council's objectives either through deferral of decision making or of vocations."

Thy Kingdom Come - Renewing the Call to Prayer and Evangelism

Another presentation - this time introduced by Bishop Philip North, who told Synod:

"Synod thus far, could feel a bit like a sort of 'pick your crisis' - missional crisis or financial crisis or pensions crisis, in the world, any crisis you want. I'm always struck by the way in the book of Acts the church responds when confronted with crisis."

In short, he talked of prayer, partnership and evangelism. He then invited Synod to sit back and watch a movie - which can be watched here - which was followed by two reports from members of the Thy Kingdom Come team.

It was all very upbeat.

Some, however, may have been concerned by the decision to have the Most Revd Michael Curry, former Archbishop of The Episcopal Church, 'sign off' the video and a comment from one of the team, that, "The importance of diverse representation. Now this is a big, big one for us. We are militant about ensuring diversity in our content. Beyond inspiring prayer for evangelism and witness at the heart of thy kingdom come is our commitment to diversity in all its forms. We are fiercely intentional about ensuring this."

Synod broke for their evening meal, though a few hardy souls returned for a take note debate on the Archbishops' Council Report.

Archbishops' Council Annual Report

Stephen Hofmeyer was chairing this debate and opened, rather appropriately, with some words from Isabel Hardman writing in The Spectator:

"Frequent late night sittings encourage a sort of dismal middle-aged Freshers' Week atmosphere amongst MPs."

It was a shame that more members of Synod were not in the chamber to hear Alison Coulter, a member of the Council, admit their failings over their handling of the allegations about John Smyth's abuse.

"It will come as no surprise to you if I tell you that 2024 was a very challenging year for the Archbishops' Council during which we the Council, and as individuals, have come to a greater realisation that we have not done all we could and should have done in responding to victims and survivors of abuse. This came into sharp focus in November,

with the publication of Keith Makin's report into our church's historic handling of allegations of serious abuse by the late John Smyth, for which we are truly sorry. The council laments and repents of this failure and is committed to continue to learn from it. We continue to work to implement the recommendations and learnings from the making report and to monitor progress with this work and that was a particular focus towards the end of 2024 to ensure that we had that action plan in place."

The issue of LLF was picked up again in the debate and many readers will be interested that there has been confirmation that it is very unlikely that Delegated Episcopal Ministry will be offered in February, with all the implications set out in this blog.

"At a fringe meeting yesterday evening we heard from Nick Shepard that delegated episcopal ministry is not looking a likely proposal given indications to date that it would not be considered an acceptable solution for various parties. We also heard that the LLF team are looking at the risks of not being able to find an agreement. It was then noted that we face some significant challenges if we can't bring an agreement to February

Synod.... Could I please respectfully urge the House of Bishops to be frank with full Synod about progress, to redouble their efforts to pursue closure. Putting it charitably, the lack of clarity is hampering our ability to be the church I believe we're called to be."

Synod voted to 'take note' of the report before voting to move to next business (again) in order to avoid a further discussion of the functionality of the audit committee, after which the 221 synod members who had stayed to the end went out to join their colleagues who were enjoying their middle-aged Freshers Week elsewhere.