More on the Diocese of BC’s plan to close 13 churches:
The diocese of British Columbia has announced a plan to close 13 churches in a dramatic restructuring. While the plan is a response to declining church attendance, Bishop James Cowan says it goes beyond cost-cutting, asking how the church can best focus its resources to carry out its mission as well as rebuild for the future.
Another aspect of the plan is to make the church, including the laity, more outward-looking and able to engage in evangelism. When asked whether traditional Anglican reserve might be an obstacle to this, Bishop Cowan acknowledged that “Anglicans are reserved. And they have this image of evangelism that is the televangelist.” In fact, he said, the kind of evangelism he was referring to has a “10-second training session, which is ‘Would you be interested in coming to church with me?’”
The obvious answer to that last question for most people is “no”. If Cowan were planning a blitz of Alpha courses with thorough leadership training – and he believed what the Alpha course teaches to be true – his plan could have some chance of success. As it is, his evangelism will probably be reminiscent of the infamous Decade of Evangelism; in the Diocese of Niagara it was run by the nebulochaotic Canon Michael Patterson. The first nine and a half years were spent in trying to decide what the word “evangelism” means and the last 6 months in wrapping things up.
Anglican Samizdat 
At my previous Parish of St. James the Apostle – Brampton Ontario I was a member of the Stewardship Committee. We were charged with the task of “recruiting” new members for the Church. This committee was headed by a Professional Consultant. We started off by reading books about stewardship. Than came the Time, Talent and Treasure stage which consisted of what I thought of as a Parish Talent Show. Next we invited representatives from the various groups we financially supported to come and make a presentation to the Congregation (so that we could here about the good work that they were doing with our money).
I suggested that we print flyers that could be distributed to households within our Parish boundaries. Some of the Parishioners heard of this idea and volunteered to help distribute these flyers. But this idea would have meant spending some money, and then there was the question of just what to say in the flyer. The flyer did not happen.
In the end the Stewardship Committee fell apart, no new people came to our Church, and the average Sunday attendance continued to decline.
For some strange reason I think that the Diocese of British Columbia will experience similar results.
Comment by AMPisAnglican — January 29, 2010 @ 11:33 am