Synod confronts new challenges [News release 18/2/1998]

By CHRIS McGILLION, Adelaide

The Anglican Church is in decline, with four in 10 parishioners older than 60 and its services failing to attract young adults, the General Synod was told yesterday.

Anglican bishops and priests feel ill-equipped to deal with challenges facing their church, nearly half report high to very high levels of stress and more than one in 10 think constantly about leaving the ministry, according to research contained in the National Church Life Survey, which was presented to the synod in Adelaide.

The Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Reverend Harry Goodhew, told the synod that the research had “alerted us to the fact that we are an ageing church and it would also appear that as far as overall numerical growth is concerned we are either static or in decline”.

Archbishop Goodhew said that the church’s styles of worship appeared to be inappropriate for younger people and that questions had to be raised about the selection criteria and training of church leaders.

The research showed that the Anglican Church was performing at a lower rate than all other non-Catholic Christian churches in terms of retention of young adults, the ability of local parish communities to create a sense of belonging, and parish growth rates.

And while more than 40 per cent of Anglicans are over 60 years of age – twice the proportion of the general population – fewer than 20 per cent are aged between 20 and 39 years, although 40 per cent of all Australians are in this age bracket.

These figures suggested that an urgent priority of the church should be to focus on youth and to adopt a more outward-looking approach to the wider community, the National Church Life Survey spokeswoman, Mrs Bronwyn Hughes, told the synod.

But research showed that church leaders did not feel they were sufficiently prepared to make the shift, she said.

More than 80 per cent of bishops and priests felt that they were either totally untrained or very poorly trained to minister in a multicultural society, 83 per cent felt they had inadequate financial management skills, 73 per cent felt poorly equipped for rural ministry, and only 50 per cent felt confident about working outside their own parish.

Neither church leaders nor parishioners regard providing a vision as an important leadership role, and only 9 per cent of parishioners agree that bishops and priests should be involved in the care of the wider community.

Archbishop Goodhew moved a motion to set up a taskforce to further examine the research findings and called on all church agencies to “adopt priorities that will enable us to move to more effective engagement with our fellow Australians”.

The synod will consider his motion today.

[Reproduced with thanks to The Age]

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