Contemporary wins hands down

ADDENDUM: Good article on Taonga here and here. Liturgy has an excellent summary and survey of the synod debates and discussions.

Just a quick update after a long day at our Synod. Well, long two days since I posted last.

(1) I didn't eat a sausage roll, but there were some very fine mince pies, a lovely meal tonight and some cream puffs I would like to pay compliments to except that they have disappeared.

(2) The Structural Review Group report or 'draft proposals' was received and we are committed to going forward with the proposals, working on them further and coming back to a future session of Synod with definite proposals to adopt.

(3) After the cathedral presentation, some questions and comments, we had a straw poll on which option we prefer as a Synod: old restored, traditional, contemporary. Only a straw poll as the Church Property Trustees make the actual decision. Possibly no one stuck their hand up for restoration. A few voted for traditional. The overwhelming majority, say 95%, signaled we favoured the contemporary option! That is a hands down win.

(4) I did make a small speech re the cathedral and the contemporary options drawbacks. A 21st century cathedral for a 21st century church was my plea. A response was made (shape of cathedral tied by actual land available to build on; design as currently conceived seeks to tell a theological story to a missional audience of many visitors). I won't carry the argument on here with my response. Rather I would like to observe that my colleagues, Bosco Peter's and Andrew Allan-Johns' "Option 3B" - yesterday's post - was well presented and received a hearing. Let's see where this goes and whether any changes are made. 

So here we are, now in the media. If Mr Belton is reading here: (a) we are not deceived; (b) no matter how many or little millions are required to restore the cathedral we do not think it would be a safe building we want to be in.