Chris Hansen’s blog

When I was at Columbia, one of the things that happened to some people is that they were chosen by the members of two campus secret societies to join their august clubs. I think they were mostly drinking societies, but as I was never chosen, I never found out. The process of being invited to join was called “being tapped”, as the traditional method of informing the lucky candidate was a tap on the shoulder.

Today at Diocesan Synod, I was sitting minding my own business when Simon, the Diocesan Secretary, came up to me and said, “We don’t have any candidate for Bishop’s Council from the Archdeaconry of Southwark. Would you care to stand?” I had just been tapped.

So I am standing unopposed, and once my term begins, will be on the Church of England equivalent of the Diocesan Standing Committee in each Episcopal Church diocese.

Attending meetings consistently sometimes brings rewards. I now have an opportunity to influence the course of the diocese for at least the next three years.

Of course, on the walk home, I got an earful from another member of Bishop’s Council about the goings-on and derring-do involved in the group. Oh dear. In my opinion, as the Bishop must retire within about 3 years (he’ll turn 67 early next year, I think, and C of E retirement age is 70), preparing the way for a new Bishop to take over in 2009 or 2010 will be the most important task facing Bishop’s Council in its three-year term.

This of course is in addition to being Lay Chair of Southwark and Newington Deanery, a member of Diocesan Synod, a member of the Board of Finance, and a member of the Audit Committee of the Board of Finance. Lots o’ meetings, but worth it. I now not only have the opportunity to discover where the skeletons are buried, but I can either dig ’em up, or bury some more.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 11th, 2006 at 04:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.