There is often the accusation leveled at the General Synod that we just don’t deal with the things that really matter, that we are too inward looking, too concerned with how the church runs and functions, the minutiae of church life and church disagreements rather than looking up and out. Well yesterday was anything but that. In fact it was a day that took us both into the life of the church and into some of the big issues that we all face.
There is always some internal business that needs to be done, such as accepting the budget and voting on the apportionments to different areas of our life and ministry, how we spend the pounds. One area that received particular attention yesterday was the cost of training those for ministry – lay and ordained. The church needs to invest in those who it discerns have a calling to ministry, this is an area we cannot underfund. To be honest, when I went off to Mirfield I wasn’t giving up much. I hadn’t had a career, I wasn’t married with children, I didn’t own a property or even a car and ‘had’ very little. So in fact the cost to me and the church was relatively meagre. But that is certainly not the case for most of those training – giving up often well paid jobs, taking their family around the country, exposing them to the risks and uncertainties of ministry. And the newly ordained have higher expectations than we did forty years ago, especially in terms of the housing that they will be provided following ordination. We have to live with this reality and the increase in funding will help.
We talked about who can be on Electoral Rolls and members of PCCs. You have to be an ‘habitual worshipper’ for the former, a ‘communicant’ for the latter. How does that work with different patterns of churchgoing and Fresh Expressions of church which might be non-Eucharistic? It was an interesting question and Synod, whilst tightening up the original motion seeking a review, agreed we need to do some thinking. But as one speaker said, would a cricket club we wise in inviting membership from people who didn’t like cricket but enjoyed sandwiches or short grass or white clothing; wouldn’t such a club be storing up problems for the future?
There was a Miscellaneous Provisions Measure before us which included the radical notion that lay people might be appointed Residentiary Canons of Cathedrals. This did come to the Revision Committee for the Cathedrals Measure of which I was chair. We were advised that it was too big an issue to deal with at that stage. Hence it has come back in this way. The reality is that St Paul’s does have Dr Paula Gooder on the team, but she can’t be a full Residentiary Canon because only those ordained can be according to the Canons of the Church of England. As I said in the debate, whilst Paula is wondrous there are other Paulas out there, wonderful lay minsters and teachers who could bring a wealth of skills to a Cathedral – we would be wasting God’s generosity if we ignored that. We also need to be working to raise the profile of lay ministry and this is a wonderful and imaginative way of doing it. Along with all the other miscellaneous provisions in the Measure it went through to the revision stage.
But we also talked about other things. The debate on the War in the Ukraine was resumed and concluded. A strong message of condemnation of the war and the aggressive acts performed by Russia went out from the Synod. And then there was porn.
There has only been one evening session in this Group of Sessions. We always used to gather in the evenings – thankfully we don’t nowadays. But from 9pm until 10pm we talked about the dangers of online pornography, especially the effects it can have on our young people who can be exposed to it from an early age. The motion from the Diocese of Guildford – who must be commended for bringing to Synod what is a really tough subject – focused on age verification, which the government seems to be drawing back from in the Online Security Bill. Some said that in fact such a policy is really unworkable given that most websites and most porn come from overseas and the web has no borders or boundaries. But the intention was good and received almost unanimous support from a Synod that dealt with the issue in a mature and serious and non-hysterical way.
When I was in the VIth form I had a Saturday and holiday job at WH Smith in Leicester – the Gallowtree Gate branch for those who know Leicester. For a few years, until I was promoted to pens, I looked after newspapers and magazines. That meant that I had the responsibility of looking after and guarding the ‘top shelf’. That was where the soft porn was always located. The ‘Beano’ was at the bottom, ‘Homes & Gardens’ above that, ‘Amateur Photographer’ on the next shelf up, etc, and there at the top ‘Playboy’ and the other titles that you would at that stage expect to see on the top shelf of any newsagent. They were too high up for children to access – apart from some of the taller boys from the local grammar school. They knew that on tiptoe they could get to those magazines and slip one inside their blazer. But I was too good for them and made a couple of citizens arrests of very embarrassed boys. But in a sense it was a form of regulation that basically worked. Now there is no ‘top shelf’ and no ‘Saturday boy’ on the look out. Hopefully the strong message from Synod will be heard by Government as our bishops go back to the House of Lords strengthened by such a decisive vote.
There was more during the day, it was full, the whole of life was there. The psalmist writes
The earth is the Lord’s and all that fills it. (Psalm 24.1)
It is that profound truth that means that nothing is beyond our concern, or God’s.
God, whose love encompasses all, strengthen us to do good, and strengthen us to resist and defeat evil. Amen.
Andrew Nunn's reflections from General Synod 
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