Magic Statistics

Robert Nordling of Calvin College has prepared a series of jazz beat psalm readings, including Psalm 53. Several more psalm readings are posted at this page at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.

via Sobering Thoughts.

A CaNN blog update has been posted–the first one since 18 November when Binky became too ill to continue. It's signed, "Dinky the poor substitute for a Web-Elf". I think it looks great. No further word on Binky's health, however, so keep praying.

According to a "grim" new report, The Anglican Church of Canada is losing 13,000 members every year. At that rate, the church will lose its last member in about 50 years.

Membership in the Anglican Church has fallen by 53 per cent over the last 40 years and continues to drop by two per cent a year, the steepest recorded decline of any mainstream Canadian church.

Although waning membership isn't news to church leaders, the Anglican report, presented in October to a closed-door meeting of the church's House of Bishops, was a "wake-up call" to Anglican leaders, few of whom understood the depth or seriousness of the problem, says Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, the Anglican Primate of Canada.

The report was prepared by retired marketing expert Keith McKerracher, who said, "The church should do some marketing research to find out why people are fleeing. But I don't think the Anglicans will do anything. They talk things to death." Is Mr McKerracher right? Consider Abp Hutchison's response to the report:

[The church's] future lies less in its ancient rituals of institutionalized Sunday worship, than in working with other church groups to deliver pastoral care such as looking after the needs of the poor, or the sick.

"We need to explore new ways of being a church," he says. "One way is much more ecumenical collaboration, not simply in areas of worship, but in community outreach and social justice. I think pastoral care comes first."

I don't think that will help. The Anglican Church of Canada has been "exploring new ways of being church" since the 1960s and look where that has brought us. Abp Hutchinson is proposing continuation of a strategy with a track record of proven failure.

Pastoral care is of great importance, but it comes second. The Anglican Church needs to focus on proclamation of the Gospel as of first importance. What a concept! You can read about it here, for starters.

via American Anglican Council BlogSite.