The world is a Hull curate’s parish, he says, as AMiE agenda is set out
by Madeleine Davies, Church Times:
THE Church of England should not have a monopoly on Anglicanism in England, the priest set to plant a new church in Scarborough, outside diocesan structures (News, 9 September; Letters, 16 September), says.
“In the business world, monopolies are not encouraged; so I do not see why there should be one Anglican service provider in England,” the Revd Lee McMunn said on Wednesday. “Surely we can allow people the option to choose, whether that is future ministers or future members of congregations.”
His Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) church in Scarborough will be the first of hundreds, if the organisation’s church-planting plans are fulfilled. This month, AMiE announced plans to plant 25 churches by 2025, and 250 by 2050. It is seeking to draw up a map of “promising and needy places to plant new gospel churches”, and to recruit people to start AMiE churches and serve as “assistant ministers”. It is also hoping that Anglican churches will form partnerships with AMiE churches, providing money and “mutual training”.
Mr McMunn, who has served as Assistant Curate to the Vicar of St John’s, Newland, in Hull, the Revd Melvin Tinker, since being ordained in 2005, said that he had had a “really happy ministry in a great Church of England parish”. The two main reasons for planting outside the Church were timescale (he fears that “Christians have lost a sense of urgency of spreading the gospel”); and his desire to “minister across multiple parishes”, which was “really difficult in the Church of England . . . If someone said ‘Where do you want to minister?’ I would say ‘the whole place’.”
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