Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’
General Synod meets
The General Synod will meet in the Armagh City Hotel next Friday and Saturday.
The Synod is a curious mixture of a church parliament, and annual general meeting and a social gathering.
Thus year the proposed legislation seems to be uncontroversial. Among the bills to be debated will be those to make more understandable the bills process at General Synod, to licence pioneer ministers, to align the retirement age of archdeacons with that of clergy, to regulate clergy pensions and ill health benefits, and to improve the workings of episcopal electoral colleges. Ther will also be a bill to amend the Table of Readings in the Book of Common Prayer to observe the second Sunday in November as Remembrance Sunday.
Among the twenty–three motions for debate are those dealing with baptism of children of unmarried parents, euthanasia and assisted suicide, fair trade and Gaza and other humanitarian crises.
As usual the work of the Church over the past year will be discussed through the media of the reports of the Representative Church Body and the Standing Committee and their various committees, and councils including the Marriage Council, Board of Education, Commission on Ministry, the Youth Department and he Lliturgical Advisory Committee.
Thus will be the first in person General Synod in Armagh since Covid. During the pandemic the Church learnt a great deal about communicating and doing its business on–line. But this also brought into sharper focus the benefits o0f personal contact. In Armagh people form every diocese in the Church of Ireland will come together to debate, to discuss and to socialise and both they and the Church will be all the better for that.
The Intercontinental Church Society will celebrate its 200th anniversary with a Thanksgiving Service in Hillsborough parish church on Wednesday at 11.00am. The speakers will be the Revd Clive Atkinson (former ICS Chaplain in Vevey and Château d’Oex and now Rector at Willowfield Church, Belfast), the Rt Revd Richard Jackson (Chair of ICS Council), Ms Mimy Gardiner (ICS Council) and he Revd Canon Richard Bromley (ICS Mission Director).
The origins of the ICS lie with Samuel Codner who started a mission to educate English–speaking settlers in Newfoundland. Through broad vision and lively faith, a great missionary enterprise that spread through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was born. Today, ICS has mission partners working in 65 congregations in Europe, North Africa, South America, the South Atlantic and Asia.
Summer Music at Sandford 2024 begins in Sandford parish church, Ranelagh ,on Friday at 1.10 pm with a classical guitar recital by Chien Buggle.
The St. Cecilia Singers are celebrating 40 years this year and will have a Concert “Music Through Time” Friday in aid of Gaza at All Saints’ Church, Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin at 8pm. Tickets €20 at the door. Those who cannot attend but would like to contribute, please Revolut Michael at 086 6017313.
At its recent Annual Meeting the Irish Council of Churches launched a handbook to equip church members with a better understanding of diversity and inclusion, and to support actions at the local church level to improve inclusion and work towards racial justice through faith. The ICC hopes that it will offer a means to help congregation members to reflect on diversity, discrimination and the role of Christians in building a unifying world through member churches. From Every Nation? A Handbook for a Congregation’s Journey from welcome to Belonging may be obtained from Megan Ross at the ICC Office – megan@irishchurches.org
Published in the Friday edition of The Irish Times