"How should the Church change?"

The United Reformed Church (URC) magazine, Reform, has asked 95 opinion formers and opinion holders of today: How should the Church change?

This is part of the series marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The URC are a member of the Free Churches Group. 

You can read what those thinkers and teachers have to say on this question HERE

What would you say? Should the Church change? How should the Church change? 

Here are some of the views:

Loretta Minghella, CEO of Christian Aid
"Working across community and national boundaries, the Church must extend – and be seen to extend – the unceasing welcome at the heart of the Gospel to every person, each one made in the image of God, each known and loved and called by name."

And another, from the Rev Dr Graham Adams, tutor at Northern College, Manchester and minister in the Congregational Federation (a denomination who are represented by the FCG) - "A church shaken open – by the stories and questions it tends to close down; by childlike curiosity and playfulness it prefers to tame; by the gifts of strangers and surprises it holds at bay; by creation groaning and the suffering of the silenced; in solidarity with all who are being shaken open by God to the reality of the domination system and the alternative reality that beckons."

 

Photo taken by Revd Sara Iles at Holy Island Sept 2017