2023 Review (i): January to June

January

Lee Gatiss began the year with a stirring charge to us to Persist! Through a difficult year for the Church of England and many of us personally, it was an important charge to remember. Keeping going, despite discouragements, opposition, hardships and uncertainty, is what we are called to.

Later in January, the House of Bishops published the first draft of the Prayers of Love and Faith, to which Lee initially responded with seven clear points outlining the problems, and later with a more detailed look at the hypocrisy of the bishops.

The annual residential meeting of the CEEC took place in January, attended by Lee Gatiss, Ros Clarke, George Crowder and various members of the Church Society Council. It was a crucial meeting setting the tone for much of the ongoing work of CEEC and its member organisations in response to the Prayers of Love and Faith over the course of the year.

Our podcast series of Heresy Half-Hours continued equipping listeners to recognise some of the most common kinds of false teaching in the church, both in history and in their contemporary forms. We also welcomed Church Society members to a series of informal Zoom coffee hours to talk about their concerns and help people understand what was happening. Our faithful prayer warriors joined us on the first Thursday of each month to pray for the church, the world, Church Society, and each other.

February

February saw the first of three meetings of General Synod, and the first debate about the Prayers of Love and Faith. Many Church Society members made strong contributions to the group discussions as well as speeches in the chamber. There was a tangible sense of unity amongst all the evangelicals on Synod, and attempts were made through legal challenges, petitions and other technical matters to prevent the Prayers of Love and Faith being adopted without a full debate under the appropriate canon laws. The votes throughout were close, and the final vote was lost by a small margin of 11 in the House of Laity. One of our podcast episodes covers the events of this week: "What happened at General Synod?"

During Synod, the Fellowship of Word and Spirit Conference took place, ironically on the theme of Leadership Reset. Their prayers, along with those of other Church Society  members and beyond were a huge support and encouragement to those contending in Church House that week.

Lent began in February and with it, our series of reflections on some of the Anglican collects. Contributions from an international group of authors informed our prayers for the church for sixty days, ending with the GAFCON meeting in April. The contributions were later collected together into a new book, Gathering Our Prayers Together.

March

Kirsten Birkett wrote an insightful and challenging series of blog posts on the issue of class in the evangelical church. Amongst a range of podcasts, the episode introducing Rob Munro as the newly installed Bishop of Ebbsfleet stood out.

We continued to speak out against the Prayers of Love and Faith with blogposts such as:

Paying attention to the power of the bishops; When is a wedding not a wedding?; Marriage and Holy Matrimony; Hold on!

April

The fourth GAFCON conference took place in Kigali, Rwanda. Lee Gatiss attended, representing Church Society, and was able to make many useful contacts. The issue of The Global Anglican which had been commissioned with the conference in mind was particularly well-received. In April we were delighted to expand Kirsten Birkett's work with Church Society to become our Publications Manager. Kirsty edits The Global Anglican, as well as Crossway, and is involved in our book publications as well.

We began the summer season of the podcast with an introduction to the Anglican Communion and an episode from GAFCON. Lee Gatiss introduced and commented on the Kigali Commitment.

May and June

In May and June, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet held a series of Regional Conferences which all had Church Society involvement and input. The Church Society staff valued these opportunities to meet many of our members in person around the country. It was good to hear the questions and concerns people had about the situation in the Church of England and be involved in those discussions about appropriate actions to take.

The series on Class and the Evangelical Church concluded, and we also published resources to help understand what was happening at the King's coronation, as well as a collect for the king.

Numbers of Church Society Partner Churches continued to grow throughout the year and we were glad to launch a new Partner Church resources section of the website. The audio archive from Reform is located here, along with all sorts of useful downloads for parish life, and the digital back catalogue of Crossway. We know that there are still some issues with accessing this part of the website which we hope to have sorted out very soon.

In May, we also made a substantial submission to the various working groups tasked with implementing the Prayers of Love and Faith.