03.10.2023
‘The Call is Yours’ – People of Dublin and Glendalough Invited to Explore Anglicanism
The Diocesan Synods of Dublin and Glendalough are currently meeting (Tuesday October 3) in Taney Parish Centre, Dublin. The Synod Service of Holy Communion took place in the adjacent parish church during which Archbishop Michael Jackson delivered his Presidential Address. At the beginning of the service Dublin and Glendalough’s new Diocesan Secretary, Ian Walshe, was commissioned by the Archbishop.
The Dublin region has the highest population density, according to the Census, but what are the people of Dublin and Glendalough doing about it? This is the question posed by Archbishop Michael Jackson in his Presidential address to the Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Synods meeting in Taney Parish Centre this evening (Tuesday October 3).
The Archbishop said he was not playing off larger statistics against smaller ones. Rather he was pointing to the urgency of our ecclesiastical and pastoral response as communities of faith to a seemingly unstoppable civic metropolitization of the dioceses which comprise County Dublin, most of County Wicklow and parts of County Kildare and County Carlow.
“This adds fuel and energy to our discipleship and to our witness. This changes the gear of our response to and engagement with the political processes most widely understood. I say this because the character of Anglican witness and discipleship worldwide is contribution to the common good; and we claim to be Anglicans. We need to dig deep within our resources of Scriptural identity, simplicity of response and urgency of mission. We need to recall what we have done and refocus what we are doing,” he stated.
The Archbishop noted that members of the Church of Ireland account for 2% of the population and have remained static in the context of the overall increase of population nationwide. He suggested that the fact that the figures for Church of Ireland membership have become a “stabilized norm” ought to be a cause of alarm considering the vast amount of resources we can call on for development and engagement every day of the year, not only on Sundays.
“All churches have to make a case for themselves. The Church of Ireland is a local church and a parochial church. Being parochial is something good; it means that we are present in every community and therefore can contribute to every community and learn from it, if we have the humility to do so. We need to build on this and we need to develop this way of being in whatever ways are best suited to the community among whom we live and whom we serve,” the Archbishop contended.
He added that we do this work of God not as “ecclesiastical lone wolves” but as Anglicans, members of a worldwide Communion. However, fragmented and fractured the Communion may now be, it has a coherent system of knowing what it is to be Anglican, he said. “And in this we are genuinely fortunate. This comes about through a simple range of principles, based in theology and open to all, for living our lives for God and for others. The bedrock of our Anglicanism is Scripture, Tradition and Reason as we all know and as explained in Dublin and Glendalough with exemplary clarity since the days of Archbishop Henry McAdoo,” he explained.
While out and about in Dublin and Glendalough, Archbishop Jackson said he regularly meets people who are new to the greater Dublin area and speak of the efforts they go to to find a church where they feel comfortable to worship God and which meets their longing to serve. They are Anglicans but it is not always the local Church of Ireland church that they go to. In a sophisticated urban and suburban setting where inherited parochial boundaries mean less as people are freer to move around, people look at church and diocesan websites to see what parishes have to say for themselves regarding their spiritual focus, purpose and self–understanding. People were interested but are we in the dioceses ready for this level of interest, he asked.
The Archbishop suggested that this informal interchange spoke of a sense of purpose and intention in the search for discipleship as people new to our inherited sense of being the Church of Ireland here and try to break in and contribute.
“When they come to church, they weigh things up regarding welcome and friendliness before, after and during the services. Many of them are more interested in the content of preaching than we might imagine. Most of them want to become involved, to make their contribution in tangible ways that enhance the local church and community. Many of them feel excluded and alienated. We have work to do. Their hope is that the church will become the place for them where they break into a local community without embarrassment, without a sense of inferiority and in a way that equips them to deal with whatever their week ahead holds for them, week on week. And much of this they do not find easy to articulate and many of them fade away. They may not seem to be: ‘us’, but they are: ‘us’ through a shared Anglican identity or because they want to become Anglican and we are their port of call. This is radically different from an inherited Church of Ireland status to which we have accustomed ourselves over generations,” he stated.
We in Dublin and Glendalough have become familiar with the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion long before they became popular in the wider Church of Ireland and before the Archbishop of Canterbury took them up afresh ahead of the Lambeth Conference 2022, the Archbishop recalled.
This exploration of the understanding of Anglican identity undertaken in Dublin and Glendalough is further enriched and expanded in the 10 Lambeth Calls of 2022. The calls are on: Discipleship, the Environment and Sustainable Development, Anglican Identity, Safe Church, Science and Faith, Human Dignity, Christian Unity, Mission and Evangelism, Interfaith, Reconciliation.
The Lambeth Calls are part three of the Lambeth Conference and offer Anglicans all over the world an opportunity to explore Anglicanism in their own contexts and also in others’. In Dublin and Glendalough we are calling it ‘Lambeth4All’.
“This is the spirit in which this phase of The Lambeth Conference is offered to The Anglican Communion and to all who are, and want to be, part of it. And it is the first time that it has happened. It is an opportunity for all. The material is all freely available from The Anglican Communion Office. The areas of interest are as outlined above. This phase is tailor–made for a global and a digital age. The ACO will enable us to share best practice with one another across the world. It will be possible for individuals and parishes to share not only their experiences but also their activities in the spirit of a life lived faithfully and usefully in The Five Marks of Mission. This also provides a fruitful nursery for our own explorations and expressions of Pioneering Church. If you, the people of the diocese, want it to be exciting, it can be. The call is yours. The Anglicanism will continue, enriched by your participation and involvement,” the Archbishop said.
You can read the full text of the Archbishop’s address here.
