As many know, the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in 2012 launched a task force, the Task force for Reimagining the Episcopal Church (or TREC, for short) to begin the process of thinking about how the church should organize itself for mission in the post-Christendom context of 21st century America. See our recent coverage here and here.
Now, it looks as though the Church of
England’s General Synod will be examining a series of proposals
backed by the Archbishops of York and Canterbury which have been described as the most radical shake-up in generations to
prevent the church from going into “terrifying” decline
From Ruth Gledhill’s report at Christianity.com
In a raft of proposals backed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and published today, a series of reforms are put forward that are designed to halt the long-term decline that has decimated congregations around the nation in the last 60 years. In addition, the aim is to increase numbers of those training for the priesthood by 50 per cent from 2020.
The papers will hit the new General Synod members due to be elected in the autumn for the next quinquennium with an unprecedented workload that could surpass even the stress of the last 10 years, when discussions were dominated by repeated conflicts over women bishops.The workload will be especially stringent given that one of the proposed reforms is to reduce the maximum number of synod meetings from nine to six days a year in a bid to cut costs.
The reports and first round of proposed legislation can be found here from Thinking Anglicans