A report to the General Synod next month says the Church has allowed itself to “drift apart from society”, undermining its mission to the whole nation. Some parts of the Church are little more than a club for existing members, the authors say.

Spelling out a deep-seated need for change, the report proposes solutions such as cutting the existing clergy numbers of about 9,400 by more than 3,000, training more laity to work unpaid and closing churches.

One diocese is already considering a plan to persuade congregations to forsake traditional church buildings and worship God in the living rooms of fellow churchgoers instead.

The report suggests that wealthy dioceses and cathedrals could forgo the thousands of pounds they receive from central funds for paying bishop and clergy stipends. The money could then be redistributed to poor areas. The report even posits that ultimately, the Church’s national assets, worth more than £4 billion, could be dismantled and denationalised.

However, while acknowledging the “ecclesiological merit” of such an approach, the report rules out denationalisation “for the foreseeable future” because of the prohibitive cost.

The report is produced by the Church’s resourcing mission group, chaired by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Right Rev Peter Price and will be discussed by the General Synod in York next month.

It addresses the need for a far-reaching solution to the twin problems of falling church membership and rising costs, in particular the costs of keeping the Church’s thousands of Grade 1 listed buildings in good repair and of paying clergy pensions and stipends.

Since the 1980s, when the Church lost millions of pounds in property, the funds available from the centre to support parishes have dwindled.

Parishioners have to give more each year to enable their church to pay its quota to the diocese, a “voluntary” contribution that many believe amounts to a tax on worship. The burden grew when the Church demanded that parishioners also pay towards clergy pensions.

More than half of the Church’s 16,000 parish churches have fewer than 50 members. Average weekly attendance in 2003 was 1,187,000 compared with a figure in 1968 of 1.6 million.

The Anglican Church is blessed with substantial resources compared with the Christian Church elsewhere in the world, but the report acknowledges that in many places it is having trouble affording its ministry.

It says the main problem facing Church is not financial, but relates to its values and priorities.

Arguing that this is not a time to “tinker at the edges”, it says the Church must be mobilised for mission as never before.

“The structures and systems of the Church still bear the imprint of a pastoral era which assumed a predominantly conforming population, The Church of England needs to be turned around by God and move in a different direction.”

MISSION COSTS

£104m Clergy pensions

£27m Ministry support for dioceses

£20m Bishops’ ministry

£6.5m Cathedrals’ ministry

£4.5m Parish mission funding

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