Preparing for change in 2008

http://www.vancouver.anglican.ca/News/tabid/27/ctl/ViewArticle/ArticleId/598/mid/486/Default.aspx

[Diocese of New Westminister] 19 Dec 2007--The year 2008 will be a year of change in our church. Of course the Church, at least that part of it in the world and not in heaven, changes all the time. But change most likely will be especially visible to members of the Diocese of New Westminster in the coming months.

Change will come from the Ministry Assessment Process (the "MAP"), currently taking place in several parishes of the diocese, and will be happening in more of them. The process can lead to the merger, amalgamation, or partnering of parishes, and even closure. Our list of parishes, unchanged for several years, will not be the same at the end of 2008 that it is now.

As the task force that created the MAP put it last year, church structures "participate in the reality of change in order to have and give life. They have a life cycle. They are planted. They grow. Sometimes they transform. Sometimes they die and in so doing bring new life."