When the Church of England in their General Synod passed that women could be ordained bishops , Kiwi priest Brian Dawson tweeted, “Welcome to the 20th century Church of England.” It was funny. I retweeted it.
But people could watch that Church of England debate and the vote live. Meanwhile, however, our Kiwi Anglican Church has never yet even placed any of the General Synod motions, information, or bills online – let alone considered live streaming anything! A motion to have General Synod papers available on the net was not even addressed two General Synods ago. Instead, they passed that motion to General Synod Standing Committee – who passed it on to the next meeting of General Synod! From where, with much fanfare, they announced that “General Synod papers will now be made available to the whole church through electronic media.”
Welcome to the 20th century, New Zealand Anglicanism!
Overseas, the Daily Office is being live webcast
Daily Eucharist is being live video streamed from many places. Here is All Saints Church, Twickenham. [They use Ustream, and a good HD camera].
Funeral Directors and their companies often have live-streaming as a taken-for-granted possibility from their chapels.
The Thomas Burns Memorial Lectures 2014 by Professor Richard Bauckham are being live-streamed
The World of the Lake of Galilee Tuesday August 12, 5.15pm
The Fishing Industry Wednesday August 13, 5.15pm
Zebedee and Sons Thursday August 14, 5.15pm
Called to Fish for People Tuesday August 19, 5.15pm
Sons of Thunder Wednesday August 20, 5.15pm
Jerusalem Thursday August 21, 5.15pm
Afterwards (hopefully by lunchtime the next day in each case), the podcasts will be available.
So – other Anglican Churches can do it. Other denominations can do it. Secular organisations can do it… It’s time for NZ Anglicanism to start working its way into the 21st century. If you can’t use technology that most teenagers can work from what they perennially carry with them – then… ask a teenager to do it for you…
Waiapu’s bishop-elect, Andrew Hedge, live-streamed from his parish; so may that offer us some 21st-century-type hope for our future.
And those in other churches and other countries – take this post as a challenge… and an encouragement…
I think you might be a tad tough on our church, Bosco.
After all some Anglicans are quite keen to live in the 16th century.
There are also a number of armed Muslims trying to live in the seventh, eighth or ninth centuries.
As I recall, the 20th century wasn’t a bad century to live in. It gave us Pineapple Chunks, and the 1989 Prayer Book!
I couldn’t agree more. I believe though, the problem is that we (whether individuals, organizations, and women since you pointed out the Church of England ordination debate) believe we have to do everything by our personal, individualized selves. It’s not true, but is still a prevalent belief. So we don’t ask others for help, because, you know, we’re independent. Yet in not asking, we show cowardice and fear. In reality there is only the dependence on God and interdependence of people. If that were not so, God wouldn’t create so “many other” people! Let the teens or anyone good with technology do what they love, yes, even if we have to ask them for help. They have gifts, everyone does, and they are meant to be shared. And then the issue arises, can we let them do their job once it’s delegated? Or do we feel we have to control everything by breathing down their necks? But that’s another story…