I have been thinking about Clare's comment:

"yup, I anticipate a big flouncy 'shake the dust from your shoes' moment in the not too distant future. I do try not to think of this as a good thing - honest."

Well today some of the Anglo-Catholic parishes are having a 'day of prayer' with a number of Catholics as part of their discernment about how to respond to the Pope's offer of an Ordinariate.   Not a final decision, mind you, but as part of a process:

http://www.forwardinfaith.com/artman/publish/article_502.shtml

http://www.forwardinfaith.com/news/docs/dayofprayer2010.pdf

Strange it is, that at the same time as Methodists and Anglicans are talking about healing the breaks of the penultimate century, that the Anglo-Catholics are thinking of leaving as we change the goalposts and make no provision in our 'broad church' for them.

We see the same intolerance in general society and government for Christians in this country as we see within our church for the A-C's.

Breaks are not something I wish for at all, but they look increasingly likely, and I doubt if the A-C's will be the end of the divisions.   Of course for the A-C's the Ordinariate of the Catholic Church be different from the A-C's of the CofE, and their distinctive character will have been lost, both to themselves and to us.

So, I do hope that when you say that, Clare and others, you really mean it.

Perhaps 10 years down the line as we increasingly resemble TEC in theology, in-fighting and decline, we will reflect that the old tolerance and flying bishops etc, were not such a bad thing after all.   But maybe by then there is an outside chance that we will be absorbing 200,000+ Methodists and their theology and be flogging off some of their 5,000 chapels to fix the hole in our finances [and I suppose just possibly have adopted Methodist views and dispensed with bishops]?

All very sad and not good for the Kingdom - not at all.

This has all gone somewhere above my head. I am not sure the questions i origionally asked has been answered. I started out lay preaching in small churches and the methodist homes, where i also worked for a while as a carer, so if the methodist get taken over by the C/E are the residents of care homes going to be safe from cuts, that is the first question. The second question is are the staff going to be safe from cuts, that is the employment side.

The next issue is the voluntary and charity side how is that affected by the merger. Finally what happens to the worshipers does anybody care what happens to them, as i well know relationships in churches take a long time to build break them and you break the person, i speak as a broken person. What happens to the elderly, what about the fact you may confuse them with this change, or is it another example of the church mimicking the council with the closure of old peoples homes and they dont care about that. One day they will find it hard to remember and adjust they will then.

What about the opportunity for lay preaching for up and coming clergy.

Then the issue of communion and the way it is taken as well as the way the service goes, does anybody care about the preservation of anything anymore. Wesley was a reformer, but would he have abandoned the people he cared about so readily, that was the question i was asking.  As well as the missionaries that may get stranded in the merger.

I wish i could trust the Church not to let people die without being able to say goodbye to the people they had worshipped with for years but i dont. Some of the memebers may be Christians but some at the top dont think about why these places existed in the first place. Simple things like coffee mornings get lost in mergers etc.

L Roberts...lies and deception are "satanic"   e.g. "don't ask, don't tell"   .........  ("no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light." 2Cor11:14)

And Nersen Paul one may add quite a few more +s (diocesans and suffragans) to your short list!

Wishful thinking, Adrian....the ABC talks of "the mind of the Communion", the Covenant is coming and respects that mind.....his "track 2" is not for those who for remaining in line with 2000 years of teaching  -no need for evangelicals to leave.   We would leave if the CofE condoned any behaviour incompatible with scripture  -  but as long as it does not, there is no need  to leave......and not while we have bishops like ++York, +Durham, +Liverpol and others leading the CofE......and the ABC defending "the mind of the Communion" .  

Clare -  you may see "flouncing" but it will be from TEC(usa) in May....when it will take yet another step away from the AC  (but, of course, trying still to stay in because so few Americans bother with it and it needs a global platform......a May "flounce" but not with much impact on the theology of most of the AC)

Of course they stay put, Adrian.....  who else is going to house and pay them?  Not enough people come along to hear how really unsure they are about various things to make it financially possible to leave.... easier to hide within the CofE and be housed and paid (subsidised by evangelicals!)  while presiding over decline year on year on year.....