• what the Council is learning and doing
• supporting parishes
• mission and evangelism
• beyond the parishes

What the Council is learning and doing

Just a year ago the Archbishops’ Council came into being to bring a new style of servant leadership to the Church. Its role is to co-ordinate, promote, aid and further the work and mission of the Church of England. It specifically seeks to encourage and help resource the Church in all its many ministries, especially in the parishes and dioceses, and to help the Church work as one body in witness, worship and service in and for today’s world.

The Council consists of the two archbishops with seventeen elected and appointed members. It works with General Synod (to which it reports), the House of Bishops, the national boards and councils, dioceses and a wide variety of other bodies. Importantly, too, it is listening to the voices in the parishes. Already it has sought and received the views of people from 17 dioceses through a structured programme of listening groups.
 
 

Supporting parishes

It is a cause for real joy that parishes everywhere are witnessing energetically and faithfully to the love of Christ in their communities. Yet the Council found that there are some things it can do to assist, including:

• promoting more vocations, lay and ordained. As the EIG sponsored Petertide ordination posters put it, if you know someone who should be in one of the Church’s ministries, encourage them! There is now a wide variety of formal and informal ministries. In 1999, 452 deacons were ordained and a similar number priested. Good news, but a large number of stipendiary clergy are due to retire in the next three to five years. If you would like to know more about how to explore your vocation, click here and scroll down.

• successfully pressing the Government to extend Gift Aid. As a result, cumbersome deeds of covenant will be replaced with simple, efficient tax recovery on all giving. Detailed information will be sent out as soon as it becomes available. To help Church people understand the ways the Church’s mission is funded, the Council endorsed the new stewardship book First to the Lord. It has already sold over 20,000 copies, not to mention 30,000 copies of the shorter leaflet, both available online from: www.chbookshop.co.uk

• campaigning for lower rates and a simpler system of VAT on repairs. As it stands, VAT undermines the protection and care of our built heritage and costs the parishes more than £18,000,000 a year. This is far more than the total worth of English Heritage grants. Despite the logic of the Church’s case, it would be unrealistic to expect a quick victory; nevertheless, the Council is determined to keep up the pressure. In support of the campaign, the Church is making representations to Government whenever possible.

Mission and Evangelism

From its listening groups the Council found that people want the Church today to concentrate on mission and evangelism. So the Council is looking at ways to support parishes as they strengthen the Christian presence in their communities. These initiatives include:

• planning for a major nationwide youth initiative. At its core might be a fund to provide resources for new ventures working with the young people in our churches and reaching out to those who have yet to receive the Gospel. If you would like to know more about young people and the Church, click here and scroll down.

• publishing a new contemporary/classic liturgy to sit proudly alongside the Book of Common Prayer. Already tested in some 800 parishes and wending its way through Synod, Common Worship will be available in attractive, modestly priced, easy-to-hold books. There will also be separate booklets and all the texts will also be available in basic text-only disks, the software format Visual Liturgy and free from www.cofe.anglican.org click on Liturgy where some of the new text is already available. The main volume will be launched in November 2000.

• making available, at no cost to parishes, a presence for each church on the Church’s official website to advertise times of services etc. (Church Search) see: www.cofe. anglican.org click on Where to find us.

• supporting the work of the Statistics Review Group in introducing a more accurate and realistic attendance figure than usual Sunday attendance (uSa) as a tool for mission planning. Other statistics about the Church can be found by clicking here.

• establishing reference groups for specific issue-led initiatives, such as lead media bishops, or groups, e.g. diocesan secretaries.

• working closely with dioceses to bring best practice to bear on issues of common concern, e.g. data protection, equal opportunities and child protection.

• encouraging the provision of more places in Church schools, especially at secondary level, and asking Lord Dearing to assess the need and plan the means as part of strengthening the Church’s highly valued contribution to the nation’s education. Click here to find out more about the Church as educator.

Beyond the parish

The Church of England serves beyond the parish as well; not least as the mother church of the 161 country Anglican Communion. The growing partnership with other parts of the Anglican Communion continues to prove mutually enriching. Click here to find out more about the Anglican Communion.

And within England the Council also promotes enhanced collaboration and mission at every level with our partners in other Churches including the Baptists, the Black-led Churches, Methodists, Roman Catholic and United Reformed Churches.

Nevertheless, the Council has discovered that too few people know and value the contribution made in His name by the Church in diocesan, national and international contexts.

This is not surprising as much of this goes on behind the scenes. The demand from Government and others for the Church’s views and assistance is increasing dramatically. At other times the Government does not wish to hear our view, but we have an obligation to speak out for the sake of Church and nation. Either way, the detailed work this occasions generally happens in the Church’s boards and councils at Church House, Westminster. For example, see the Church's view on... Interestingly enough, and despite the increase in workload, Church House’s operating costs are the same today in real terms as eight years ago.

Some of the more visible activities include:

• co-ordinating a three-year programme supporting marriage:

Next in the programme is a long-term review of some aspects of marriage law.

Then late January 2000 saw the launch of a report from a working party of the House of Bishops suggesting new national guidelines for further marriage in church after divorce. Deanery and diocesan synods will be encouraged to discuss this thoroughly during the year. Click here for the full text.

And as a result of cost savings, the Council is also appointing a new Marriage and Family Policy Officer to strengthen the Church’s work on those issues at national level.

• supporting the work of the bishops in the reformed House of Lords. Backed by the Council’s specialist advisers, the bishops give a valued Christian ethical and moral dimension to Parliamentary debate. The bishops also bring the concerns of their regions, of the poor, the marginalised and the voiceless into Parliament.

• expressing, on behalf of people of all faiths, concern about the marginalisation of religious broadcasting on the BBC and ITV in terms of scheduling and production quality.

This is an all-too-brief review of the Council’s first year. Whilst stocks last, copies of this review (GSMisc 592) or the first two formal reports to Synod are available from Church House Bookshop, Great Smith Street, Westminster, London SW1P 3NZ or online from www.chbookshop.co.uk

Philip Mawer, Secretary General, Archbishops’ Council