July 2024
Anyone involved in church life in mainstream denominations will recognise the matters discussed in this issue. Churches are more and more concerned with attendance and income. More recently, churches have developed strategies—usually, top down—which are in effect recruitment campaigns. How shall we evaluate these initiatives from the perspective of Christian social ethics? These initiatives are often accompanied by increasing administrative demands and a concern about risk management. Indeed, the emphasis on fresh mission work and an aversion to risk seem to be in tension.
The contributors to this issue—Ruth Harley, Jody Stowell, Claire Turner, Eddie Green and Al Barrett—are in parish leadership roles in the Church of England. Yet the matters they discuss have a much wider resonance for church life today. Specifically, the focus here is ‘smaller church’: the promise and challenges of mission in smaller churches, broadly defined, in the context of strategies focussed on church growth. This issue’s editor, Kate Pearson, sets this out in her editorial.
The Forum—a short, informal item which rounds out each issue—continues the theme of ‘smaller church’. Sheridan Angharad James narrates her journey from a small SE London parish to St David’s Cathedral, not least reflecting on Dewi Sant’s recommendation to ‘Do the little things’/’gnewch y pethau bychain’.
Every Crucible issue concludes with book reviews—for some readers, their favourite part! In a review which connects directly with the topic of this issue, Malcom Brown reviews a recent defence of parish life. Further afield, James Woodward explores a theological investigation of pain and Will Moore discusses a recent biblical contribution on masculinity.
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If you have any suggestions about topics to be covered in future issues, please get in touch with the editor of Crucible, Edward Cardale, at this e mail address: periodicals@hymnsam.co.uk