Posted Thursday 12 June 2008
Synod Eucharist was con-celebrated by all seven bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church
General Synod 2008 started with a 'Freshers Meeting' at 9am to welcome Synod members attending for the first time and to give then an overview of Synod format.
Synod Eucharist was con-celebrated by all seven bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Seven candles, representing each of the dioceses, were carried in to the Synod Chamber and will remain lit during the course of General Synod. During the Eucharist Service the Primus delivered his Charge to Synod and General Synod 2008 was formally constituted.
Charge to Synod 2008
The text of the Charge to Synod, by the Most Rev Dr Idris Jones, Primus:
"Kenneth Woollcombe, who died earlier this year, made a great contribution to the life of the Scottish Episcopal Church through his Principalship at Coates Hall. Many of us remain indebted to that leadership and time of formation at his hand.
"When Kenneth was consecrated as Bishop of Oxford he selected as his preacher the man who was to succeed him at Coates Hall and later to become bishop himself, and ultimately Primus – Alastair Haggart. This was the first occasion on which Alastair burst upon the wider Anglican scene and in turn it led to his activity throughout the Communion and not least as Chaplain to a Lambeth Conference.
"As his text for the consecration sermon, Alastair chose some words that did not come from scripture but from British history. The advice to King George III from his mother - 'George, be a king.' Alastair then admonished the new bishop with the same direction - 'Kenneth, be a Bishop !'
"I wonder if Alastair would do the same again were he with us today? I wonder whether, in the light of his own experience as Bishop and Primus, he would stick to the same script ? I think the answer is yes!
"Among the business to claim our attention at this General Synod we have to make decisions about what is described as congregational status, that it really about shaping our church for mission; and also talk about membership; and about finding the right direction in which to set a course for the development of ministry and the growth of discipleship. It might perhaps have occurred to others beyond the College of Bishops that these are concerns in which Bishops have an immediate and pertinent interest.
"Shortly after my own election as bishop, a senior priest who had served on numerous Provincial Synods sent me a number of books. One was called ‘The Authority of a Bishop’ and another ‘Bishops, but what sort ?’ These had been used by the members of the then in preparation for material issued to help in ecumenical discussion. I suggest that the authority of a bishop and what sort of bishop is still a matter to be reflected upon in the context of our current debates this year. In ecumenical discussions at all levels, and notably in connection with the proposed Church of England/Methodist Covenant the question of how episcopacy is understood and made part of the life of the Church today is a relevant and lively debate.
"It has been my experience to notice how different 'models' of episcopacy are deployed in various parts of our Anglican Communion. In America, where The Episcopal Church consciously intended to mirror the country’s Constitution, bishops work in a quite distinctive way that is unique and this has recently led to misunderstanding in the Communion from Provinces who have a different way of working.
"Each Diocesan Bishop in America when elected, and rather like a new President, creates his or her own 'cabinet' and may draw people from anywhere in order to get the best people for a particular area of oversight which they share with the bishop in their diocese.
"In Africa, generally speaking, the Bishop is the Chief in every sense of that word.
"Here in the United Kingdom, it may be the case that the Church of England adopted a parallel structure to that of the constitutional monarch as the way to exercise ministry. The symbol of Queen in Parliament plays a strong part in forming the concept of Bishop in Synod, I suggest.
"And therein lies a problem, for is this actually what we need or want for today’s Church and Church of the future? Even within the short compass of the still United Kingdom variety can be seen, for bishops in Wales or in Ireland carry out their ministry of shepherding each in a distinctive way. Perhaps the most striking example of the different understanding of the nature of Episcopal ministry is in the varying methods of election. None are perfect.
"I could be open to the accusation of simply mitre-gazing – it is at least a little higher than the navel - but when we are to spend time exploring questions of ministry and mission then exploring the basic ministry of a Bishop as The Minister in the Diocese is an appropriate thing to do.
"Kenneth Woollcombe gave some of us a psychometric test. My 'read out' was interpreted as 'an idealist with a very shaky future'. I hope that I am still an idealist though what my eternal destiny may be I leave to higher authority.
"My ideal remains that a Bishop is to be a focus of unity: how that can be the case in the midst of differing understandings in so many areas of the life of our church I cannot begin to think unless it is through the nature of the Church as Community in which the relationship that the Bishop has with all those within his diocese is the bond of affection that we so much prize in Anglican life. And if, as it seems to me, the present understanding of the significance of the Holy Trinity is that God is revealed as Being in Relationship; that the Church as the Body of Christ is called to make that Being incarnated in a way that sustains a deep and wholesome relationship expressed through Communion with God and in Fellowship among the Baptised, the that “bond of affection” are nothing less than the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit which must be sufficient for our need. We are created in the image of God: we are called to reflect God in our relationship to each other and to the world.
"Organisationally I would wish to see the College of Bishops structurally rooted into the life of this General Synod; so that the tag we love to pull apart – Episcopally led and Synodically governed is a reality and not simply a romantic aspiration that we can jokingly set aside at our convenience. It is the case that as we learnt in our Sunday School lessons - and confirmed by any visit to the Holy Land today - shepherds in that part of the world do not drive their flocks they lead them. 'Kenneth, be a Bishop' - the Church has got to allow its Bishops to exercise leadership and to enable them to do so. Part of that enabling is to create the climate in which there is trust and in which collaboration - small c - is part of the practice of leadership.
"In the midst of trying to clarify our perception of what God is calling the Church to be we are confronted with the need to engage with the world and its issues. It is hard to think of a deeper meaning of the word 'incarnation' than this engagement.
"We are fortunate to have in our church – and to share with other churches in Scotland as well – people who can speak to these issues of concern in the world from the basis of experience and wide knowledge. Nothing can undermine the credibility of Christian opinion in these matters more effectively than when people speak from ignorance or shallow understanding. We need to be able to identify those from whom we can learn real knowledge and to release that energy into the life of the church. It is not necessarily a bishop who may be best equipped to represent a position on matters of concern.
"It is important that Christian leaders give a message of God’s Love when they speak and this is the case when the Church seeks to engage with inter-faith dialogue. Meeting with leaders of other faiths in fellowship and support is surely right – but inter-faith communication cannot just be about leaders sitting smilingly around a table once or twice a year. The really significant developments are when neighbours encounter each other as neighbours and in that process find the occasion to begin to talk about faith. The comment has been made, and is near the mark, that there is often too much religion in inter-faith dialogue.
"Finally, it is not my place to enunciate a position on the Anglican Communion or the Lambeth Conference; not least because the Faith and Order Board is proposing as a matter of practical expedience that every Diocesan Synod will have the opportunity to consider at length and in detail the draft wording of the the proposed Covenant between now and March 2009.
"Your Bishops are going to Lambeth with the determination to make the life of the conference as positive and as fruitful an experience as we can. We have been offered the space in which to better equip ourselves for service as Bishops in the Church of God – we gratefully accept the invitation to do so.
"Many of the tensions being lived through in the life of the Communion have been ours to grow through in the past and we do have common cause with other Provinces, some of them less in number than our own, whose origins lie in a free and considered choice to be Anglican and they now need to find a voice and not to be drowned out. It will be our task to find our voice too as 'Rebel Romantics”.' Under God, there is a calling to be fulfilled and it is that we remain faithful to the vocation to follow the way of Jesus, all be that it goes by the way of Calvary.
"As far as our gathering in Synod is concerned - here where we express the nature of our church as a community of faith we shall not go far wrong in our deliberations if we constantly hold in front of us the reality of the vocation to follow Christ.
"All our words, all our decisions can have only one aim – to enable the Church to be the body of Christ to our nation and to recall the reasons for which we praise Almighty God which are: 'a heritage so great; a life so rich, a salvation so dearly bought'."
The Most Rev Dr Idris Jones, Primus
Category: General Synod 2008
