Consecration of New Style Bishops – Q & A
(Handed out at Jesmond Parish Church yesterday)
What can we achieve through new style bishops?
The growth of the Church because one of their key roles is to ordain (that is, authorise and appoint) new ministers who will provide the next generation of ministry in both existing churches and new church plants.
Why are they needed?
Because in the confused Church of today such bishops need to be faithful to 1) the biblical miracles of the virginal conception of Jesus and his Resurrection and empty tomb; 2) the biblical ethic that sex should be reserved for lifelong heterosexual monogamous marriage; and 3) the biblical principle that means bishops should be male – all issues in the North East in recent years. So bishops Martin Morrison and John Ellison have helped churches like Jesmond Parish Church, St Oswald’s Walkergate, Christ Church Durham, Holy Trinity Gateshead, St Joseph’s Benwell, and other churches when needed. But they cannot go on for ever!
How will the Church of England grow?
By new English bishops working to a new style of being bishops – that is working primarily to establish new churches. Martin Morrison provides such a model: he continues in his local church, while exercising a wider role to establish new churches and provide external accountability.
How will the Church of England benefit?
The aim is not to create a new denomination. No! This is one small but necessary step on behalf of faithful Church of England ministers and congregations nationwide in our mission to the nation. This is not a step of ‘leaving the Church of England’. It is the theologically liberal bishops and clergy that have ‘left the Church of England’ doctrinally. This is a step to preserve the Church of England’s heritage and mission which we have received.
Could we not have carried on just as we are?
No! We need new style English bishops here ‘on the ground’ to plan for and enable the urgent spread of the gospel nationwide – especially through church planting. And ‘carrying on as we are’ would almost certainly mean biblically faithful ministers finding it increasingly difficult to be ordained and deployed by the current system, as people are ‘filtered out’ according to their views on homosexual practice and the ordination of women.
Will it produce more clergy and growing churches?
Yes, with prayer! For it requires, fundamentally, the ordination and deployment of new ministers who are biblically faithful – which the current system, sadly, can hinder. And we hope that some of those ministers will move into existing Church of England posts as well as new church plants, to contribute to the recovery of the gospel and to further the ministry of men and women for church growth.
(Reproduced with permission)
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