The C of E has forgotten the power of the parish
by Giles Fraser, UnHerd:
Yesterday, for the first time in months, I opened the doors of my church to local people that want to come in here for private prayer. After what feels like an age, the green shoots of church life are beginning to re-appear. And many of my church people are excited at the thought of coming back. It has been a great sadness to me that at precisely the moment when many people have been limited to their locality, the Church of England decided to re-invent itself as some internet phenomenon, transcending the confines of place.
This could have been an opportunity to re-discover the importance of location, and of the need for, and joy of, the steadying comfort of human rootedness. Instead, it became just another one of the church’s many ‘initiatives’. In church speak, these are called “fresh expressions” — a phrase that sends the chill wind of a dementor’s presence down the spine of many a parish vicar.
It’s funny how the church is often the last to understand the treasure with which it has been entrusted.
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