In 2006 the Anglican Church of Canada predicted that it was losing members so fast that it would cease to exist in 2061. By 2019 the loss had accelerated enough to move the extinction event to 2040.
Now total collapse might be as soon as 2029.
The Council of General Synod met on November 8th 2024 to discuss its first love: money or the lack thereof. The synod treasurer lamented that money is running out so fast that they would “not be here in 2029”.
To counter this, CoGS will “make long-term financial plans”. Rather like a business, albeit an incompetent one.
What it won’t do, I suspect, is abandon heresy, repent and turn back to the gospel.
From here:
Attia’s spoke to CoGS on the first day of its fall meeting, which runs Nov. 8-Nov. 10. Much of the day’s conversation was about money, as well as the shape the church’s future governance structures will take as it finds itself, as Archbishop Anne Germond, acting primate of the Anglican Church of Canada said in her opening remarks, “at a crossroads.”
It is difficult to make projections about what future years will look like based on existing trends, Attia told CoGS, as those decisions will depend on uncertain factors like investment income and parish donations from which dioceses draw their contributions to General Synod as well as uncertain outcomes of decisions already made, such as the plan to share office space with the United and Presbyterian churches. But the general trend in revenue is negative, she said. The church’s average annual revenue from diocesan proportional giving shrank by about $2 million dollars between 2018 and 2024 according to numbers she presented, while inflation has raised costs across the board.
Revenue, she said, is declining $200,000 to $250,000 per year, and if she were to provide forecasts based on this and estimated expenses for 2026 through 2029, she would be “painting a gloomy, gloomy picture.
“I [would be] basically telling you guys we would not be here in 2029,” she said.
Thia does not surprise me as it has rejected the authority of Scripture and adopted the “god of political expediency”. Many of the so-called bishops now worship that god and reject the authority of Scripture.
I am also not at all surprised at this revelation. Instead of making ‘long-term financial plans’, they should be making short term spiritual plans.
Remember, EVERYTHING rises and falls on leadership! Lord have mercy!
I do not believe that anyone in Christ is incapable of repentance, amendment of life and personal growth. If everyone who reads here gave a copy of each of these books to his/her Diocesan, as I have to mine, with a polite message, and prayed, there could still be renewal:
SC 6×9: ISBN 9781775106203 (2017)
SC 5.5×8.5: ISBN 9781482347869
SC 5.5×8.5: ISBN 9781775106234
You could, as I did, add to your accompanying message this: “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.” [Hudson Taylor]
This sermon, which has gone all over the world, could also be printed out and slipped inside your envelope/wrapping: Mt. 5:27-32: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mt-527-32-dr-priscilla-turner/
Ever-loving,
Prisca
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/books-print-shorter-writing-speaking-dr-priscilla-turner/
The only thing the matter with the practical implementation of my suggestion above, apart from its dependence on a sufficiency of people with hope & vision, is that some bishops might get duplicate or triplicate gifts and others none. Could there be coordination here?
Miss us rejects you showed the door to yet AoC?……
The people have voted with their feet. The leaders need to start listening, first to the Lord, then to the thousands of people whom they have outraged by their public & official promotion of vice.
The Gospel is one thing, the prayer book is another. The decline begins after removal of the imprecatory psalms, and the continual alterations to the BCP have not served the Church. Synod should return to the 1662 BCP, or at least the Canadian revision with the imprecatory psalsm, etc.
The other issue is that discipline has totally broken down. Your diocese probably has a canon that says the rubrics of the prayer book must be followed. If you ask the Priest about this, they will tell you ‘the bishop has licensed the changes.’ If you ask the Bishop where his authority to license changes to the BCP (Canadian Edition) comes from, he just sort of looks at you, while thinking “this is not our target market, we don’t like people who think for themselves.”
People are getting smarter. It’s hard to hoodwink them with fairy tales. At least the RC Church does a lot of social, educational and healthcare services while getting involved with immigrant communities. ACoC is an old boys club that is dying out without old boys.
In 1980 at St John’s (Shaughnessy) Rev Harry Robinson said once, “The Anglican Church has almost died” and this was the 80s but Church attendance went down in the 60s is nothing new. Neither is low attendance either when people could buy a pew not attend and others would stand at the back with no place to sit. Now 2029 is just 5 years away. How is our society doing & where’s it going? How many follow liberal views well actions speak louder than words with 3% attendance in Vancouver. I see people aren’t doing well either with things when I see the glass crack pipes in use seeing people who look older than me but are younger.
But in the 80s was this Regent College Student living in our house in Kerrisdale attended 1st Baptist told me about St John’s (Shaughnessy) and how both it and Regent College grew. At St James on Cordova & Gore a person who was an Anglican Monk mentioned, “There’s people on fire for the Lord who go to Vancouver School Of Theology come out looking like a dead light bulb”. Regent College started at a Brethren College used space at the Catholic College at UBC then VST attracted Anglicans and went on from there. Regent has grown but VST rebuilt their building but attendance went down and they moved to a smaller place. We,, time will tell it’s about meeting needs! What do people need/want?
I am reading “Pacific Pilgrims,” a history of the Diocese of New Westminster, etc. It has a passing anecdote about someone, I can’t remember if it is David Somerville or someone else, attending theology school, possibly at VST and being told the ascension is just a parable. There is literally UK statute law that says the Ascension happened, the Sacrament Act, 1547.
If you read the old General Synod records, they are very instructive. The other issue that has to be talked about is how many of the Clergy have clear developmental disabilities, like FAS/FASD. Or overt mental illness, like schizophrenia–personal spirituality is, in a sense, a form of schizoid disorder. The Reformation and the subordination of the schizoid clergy to uniformity was, in a sense, a way to contain their positive symptoms. Like, presume religiosity is basically schizophrenia. We need some method to standardize these people and control them, otherwise they just do wild things with the bishopricks and temporal property of the Church, which exists to…well…maybe it is simply a project to contain schizoids. It is clearly falling down at that.
Peaceful schizoids who want to feed the poor are fine and dandy. Violent schizoids who want to turn the church into a progressive political machine for brainwashing the soft brained FAS/elderly women in the church into social justice warriors is quite another.
If the church is just an institution or organization, it can be reorganized or it can cease to exist. Empires come and go. Nothing is permanent. But, if the church is the family of God, it will exist forever.