booklogging
It'd be a useful discipline for me to log and write about the books I read. A blog might help in that discipline and -who knows?- may be useful to ... you?21.8.06
Parochial Vision -The Fiture of the English Parish
By Nick Spencer.
Nick Spencer is clearly interested in the history of the English parish system and has researched it well. I certainly learned a lot, and like Nick, thought it very helpful as a way of thinking about our present church situation in terms of stewarding resources and also in terms of seeing common themes emerging time and time again in church history: the way that funding has sculpted ecclesiastical arrangements; the constant to and fro between the local and the regional or national; the way that a minster-like structure constantly reappears in different guises. An one stage even non Anglican churches seemed to have been encompassed within the structure. I was also taken by the way that different religious orders seemed to play a role now taken largely by different denominations or churchmanships; the ever changing back-and-forth between diversity and uniformity, innovation and tradition.
however, though the book is strong on a historical perspective, it is also impressive that contemporary debates about church growth are referenced and form part of the thinking. This is very much a book rooted in the possible and the desirable.
The whole book is directed to the main aim of commending a minster-like system to explicit and conscious development as part of local and national strategies for resourcing the churches into this new milennium. Some of it will not be heard easily; the call to reconsider our architectural heritage and role in relation to it is hard to deal with for many. However I think he argues the case well, and the bottom line really is that if the nation want the buildings, it's going to have to do something more about it; expecting churches [that is bodies of people dedicated to Christ's mission] to be museum curators is not on.
Personally, I am pretty much convinced by the minster thesis and this book only helped me to feel that the evidence was better than I'd thought to proove the worth of the model. In various forms the idea has been finding proponents for the last 30 years, longer if some reports in the early twentieth century are anything to go by.
The large amount of history seems to belie the book's contemporary message, and perhaps that has put some off. It does deserve to be widely read by those who are concerned with fitting the churches for mission in
Nick Spencer is clearly interested in the history of the English parish system and has researched it well. I certainly learned a lot, and like Nick, thought it very helpful as a way of thinking about our present church situation in terms of stewarding resources and also in terms of seeing common themes emerging time and time again in church history: the way that funding has sculpted ecclesiastical arrangements; the constant to and fro between the local and the regional or national; the way that a minster-like structure constantly reappears in different guises. An one stage even non Anglican churches seemed to have been encompassed within the structure. I was also taken by the way that different religious orders seemed to play a role now taken largely by different denominations or churchmanships; the ever changing back-and-forth between diversity and uniformity, innovation and tradition.
however, though the book is strong on a historical perspective, it is also impressive that contemporary debates about church growth are referenced and form part of the thinking. This is very much a book rooted in the possible and the desirable.
The whole book is directed to the main aim of commending a minster-like system to explicit and conscious development as part of local and national strategies for resourcing the churches into this new milennium. Some of it will not be heard easily; the call to reconsider our architectural heritage and role in relation to it is hard to deal with for many. However I think he argues the case well, and the bottom line really is that if the nation want the buildings, it's going to have to do something more about it; expecting churches [that is bodies of people dedicated to Christ's mission] to be museum curators is not on.
Personally, I am pretty much convinced by the minster thesis and this book only helped me to feel that the evidence was better than I'd thought to proove the worth of the model. In various forms the idea has been finding proponents for the last 30 years, longer if some reports in the early twentieth century are anything to go by.
The large amount of history seems to belie the book's contemporary message, and perhaps that has put some off. It does deserve to be widely read by those who are concerned with fitting the churches for mission in
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