Saturday evening had a debate based on a report about the current state of Readers within the CofE.
Image courtesy of J&M
Readers is a funny medieval term; I am sure that most of our Readers can, and do - but so do now most of the rest of our congregations. The term comes partly from a specific role at a university; but in church terms mostly these days means 'preacher and teacher' and leading worship, though many Readers nowadays have many other vital roles in local church life.
The report that the debate was based around, was well over 100 pages long (beware if you try to download it!), and though much of it was good and worthy, parts were unintelligible - and not just because of coloured boxes behind the text photocopying badly.
There are a huge number of recommendations, many supported by Readers and those involved in their training and support in my diocese; and according to speeches in the debate, from other individuals and dioceses too.
Several of the members of Synod from our diocese are indeed Readers. On was in full flow of a speech, just getting to an illustrative story for his punchlne when the red light for the end of the speech came on, to a great saddened 'awwww' from the synod. (Many Synod speeches are limited to 3 minutes or less in length.) But the red light is the red light.
A blog, however, has the advantage of being able to additionally embroider around what Synod itself is not able to do and hear - and when I have his permission, I hope to add the end of mike's speech here...
Alastair, GS101
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