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Wednesday, June 08, 2005

A report to the General Synod next month says the Church has allowed itself to "drift apart from society", undermining its mission to the whole nation. Some parts of the Church are little more than a club for existing members, the authors say.

One diocese is already considering a plan to persuade congregations to forsake traditional church buildings and worship God in the living rooms of fellow churchgoers instead.

It says the main problem facing Church is not financial, but relates to its values and priorities. Arguing that this is not a time to "tinker at the edges", it says the Church must be mobilised for mission as never before. "The structures and systems of the Church still bear the imprint of a pastoral era which assumed a predominantly conforming population, The Church of England needs to be turned around by God and move in a different direction"