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Richard England Profile picture
Richard England
@richardengland
Vicar, Crofton Parish, and Team Rector, N Gosport, Hants. Married to @kathrynengland0. Likes films, faith, Lego, family, er... and other stuff.
Sep 24, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Covid19: It's not a sprint, it's a marathon.
Wait, no, it's a triathlon.

If so, we are entering the second leg, which looks to be even trickier than the first.

A few thoughts:
1/ My best guess is 3 periods of about 6mths each.
1 (Mar to Sep) Lockdown into unlockdown
2 (now till Easter) rolling restrictions
3 (Easter till summer 2021) into postCovid normality

2/
Aug 28, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It was great to go back to the cinema last night!
Tenet, though, was... okay? I don't quite know what to think. Conceptually, really interesting.
Stylistically, amazing.
But confusing! Though like Inception it will probably reward multiple watches.
Aug 20, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If you would like a movie metaphor for churches during lockdown, here goes:
Marvel/Disney had a plan that Covid19 disrupted. Instead of adapting, they hit pause. Waiting for things to go back to normal. DC/Warner, remarkably, seem to have used the crisis to reflect on what they had been doing, reboot and relaunch.
All the pop culture energy is flowing towards DC.
Aug 20, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
One of the things that keeps a local church 'stuck' - unable to innovate effectively, move forward and engage with younger generations - is an unspoken tendency to prioritise the voices of older, well-established insiders.
1/ People who do this never think that's what they're doing. They just disregard out of hand the voices and opinions of those who CAN'T know as well as they do because those people are, well, younger, newer or outsiders.
2/
Jul 16, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is such an interesting article. There is clearly still an appetite for 'high church', especially among the more intellectual class in cities like London, Cambridge etc.
But enough to keep the lights on? As @DouglasKMurray observes, atheists and agnostics can find churches like this far more palatable (right word? not sure) than informal contemporary churches like the one I am Vicar of.
Jul 8, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I thought this was relatively uncontroversial. Sharing public information from around the world in the context of a novel, global pandemic seems sensible to me.
Just to be clear though... Charts like these are not telling you what to do. They are telling us about how the virus has spread so far. Like it or not, churches of all sizes have certain risks 'baked in' due to the way we ran our gatherings pre-Covid19. Anyone who denies that is wrong.
Jul 1, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Even before Covid19, the extent of cultural change in the UK was equivalent to the conditions that created the Reformation.
We already needed a new church for a new age and the CofE was facing a cliff-edge of declining numbers and finances. Covid has accelerated the timetable, increasing the scale of the challenge but not fundamentally changing it.
How we meet this challenge is in our hands.
Jun 15, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
We are exploring how to re-organise for long-term social distancing and other restrictions.

It's SO difficult. I think it may break some clergy and other leaders. Even some churches. We may see individuals and households opt out for months, if not permanently.

Yet... 1/ Times of enforced 'scattering' grow deep-rooted followers of Jesus. You learn things in scattering that you can't learn in gathered seasons.
In such seasons, there is also the chance to connect with many more unchurched people.
2/
Jun 7, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The news that churches can reopen for private prayer will cause mixed reactions among both clergy and members.
It's important that local conditions be handled sensitively. Some will be keen to reopen, others not.
Some clergy will not be able to open their churches, if it depends on them to clean and they are isolating or shielding, or have multiple buildings.
Feb 10, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Katie absolutely nails why children's ministry is so important. I think I may have got a shout-out in the first paragraph (?). Anyway, pleased that last week's (very entertaining) Twitter conversation on all-age songs has sparked so much interest. FWIW, my own view is that the needs of children and families have to be central to Sunday morning worship in some way in every parish. At @holyroodchurch one of our key values is 'helping families become HOGs (Households of God', learning to practice faith at home.
Feb 5, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Years ago, I read the story of a black US pastor who had the opportunity to visit the part of Africa from which his ancestors had been taken as slaves. When he arrived, he was greeted with joy and the words, 'Welcome home!' On the airport tarmac, he broke down and wept.
Feb 1, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Well it's been an interesting few hours on the TL discussing youth work and whether you have to be an evangelical church to do it well. Thanks to everyone for chipping in. Clearly peeps want to talk about this stuff, which is great.
Just a few takeaways from my experience: @PeteWarddurham is absolutely correct: youth and children's work takes deliberate planning and action. It won't happen by itself.
Jan 25, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
1 Cor 1 tomorrow as we follow the Lectionary at St Edmunds. We'll be looking at the problem of the 'cult of personality', which has plagued the church since the first generation. The 'cult of personality' robs us of a vision for ordinary, everyday following Jesus. When we elevate extraordinary individuals, the risk is that the rest of us feel like we are second class Christians.
Jan 18, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Clearing out the speciality tea that is 3+ years out of date.

Wow. That is a lot of redbush. Undrunk speciality teas of the past 5 years (fyi):
Redbush 🙄
Green 🤢
Lemon trio 🥴
Salted Caramel Green 🤮
'Afternoon Blend' x2 (with Green tea) 😬
Earl Grey 🤔
Jan 15, 2020 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Lots of public displays of contrition from senior CofE figures so far after the documentary on the predatory abuser Bishop, Peter Ball. That's an important first step. The next step is to understand better how institutions and churches can be 'soft targets', ie particularly vulnerable to predatory individuals.
Jan 8, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
We are really enjoying #MessiahNetflix. Just a quick thought about it.
Al-Masih is presented as a somewhat distant, mystical figure. In other words, how we imagine a Messiah to be. But the Jesus of the Gospels wasn't like that. He lived hand in glove with his community for three years. He walked everywhere and lived most of his life in public.
Dec 12, 2019 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
To take our minds off the election, I wanted to reflect on this photo a little more. This thread may not cheer you up, however.
It's of a worship & pastors gathering at the White House, with DJT in the middle. Many are household names. Image I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for 24 hours, mainly for negative reasons.
Firstly, I know of and appreciate many of the people here. Their music and teaching has been an inspiration to me.

I know they think they're doing good, but they're not.
Nov 28, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
What I find so weird about all this is the idea that the local church operates as a 'polis' - political unit - within the wider polis of society. So, if you suffer domestic abuse the first thing you do is go to the church, not the authorities.
In the article above, couples may separate at the discretion of the elders of the church.
What weird parallel universe is this?
Sep 20, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Creating a 'Them and Us' narrative around #ClimateChange simply won't work. We need a shared invitation to a better world. Certain industries (and political stakeholders) have conspired against the #ClimateEmergency in the same way Big Tobacco tried to resist smoking's connection to cancer. But what's our view of Big Tobacco now?
Aug 15, 2019 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
There are 3 'Achilles heels' in many modern representations of Christianity. Most 'de-conversion' stories you read (including recently) will, consciously or not, reference one or more of them.
They are
1/11 1) The Old Testament and the continuity/discontinuity between Old and New Covenants.
In our desire to hold Scripture highly, we too often 'flatten' it, losing any distinction between genre and between Jewish and Christian Scripture.
2/11
Aug 12, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is really sad. But I hope it can be a wake-up call. Much of what we call following Jesus is just Christian sub- culture. And it doesn't work. Marty's story is one of disenchantment. It's happening all across the world because we fail to give our young adults a faith that engages with the world as is it.