Diocesan Synod

So, having finished 4 hours of lecturing for the Diocesan Reader & Pastoral Assistant training course on Saturday morning, I headed off to my first Rochester Diocesan Synod (the 'parliament' of the Church of England in N & W Kent & S E London).

There are 193 benefices (i.e. a church or a group of churches with a clergyman) in the Diocese, and, as I arrived at Synod, the Diocese was proposing a budget of £4.9m (an average of over £25k per benefice!). I detected a note of unrest at this - it seemed as though parishes had finally had enough of ever-increasing centralisation and its spiralling costs which are paid for by the parishes (and therefore by church members). I caught the end of the last two or three brief speeches and then the vote. It was a close vote. But I was delighted that my first vote in synod contributed to a narrow victory for common sense and the priority of the local church - the budget was defeated by 4 votes, and 2010 begins with the same budget as 2009.

Then business moved on to the green agenda. A motion was put to the Synod that every church & school in the diocese should use a green energy supplier, install micro-generation equipment and save energy. The lady from Church in Society (which has a budget of £255k) had a nice PowerPoint presentation which showed all the usual statistics, and then had some pretty pictures of windmills, solar panels, energy saving light bulbs & electric cars. The Archdeacon wanted to set up a committee to look at this further (another talking shop, another carbon footprint...). Experts said it was a waste of time, and that some of her ideas probably caused more polution than they saved.

Eventually common sense prevailed, and an heavily abbreviated and amended motion was passed. It's typical of the diocese - jumping on the popularist bandwagon, doing something countless other organisations are already doing, and expecting parishes to pay more. Why, oh why does the Diocese not get off our backs, stop foisting on us the cost of committees & courses we don't want, and support us in proclaiming Christ and him crucified?