I have caught up on some reading today and found myself getting a little frustrated with my beloved Anglican church – and I mean Anglican rather than just the C of E bit of it which always frustrates me.

I can’t believe how some people are acting around the world at the moment. I have said nothing of the Windsor or the Rochester Report’s, but I am totally exasperated as to how people are reacting and the amount of effort and energy that is being devoted to homosexual priests and women bishops.

Why am I frustrated? I’m frustrated because as peoples efforts are concentrated on these topics they have forgotten what is centrally important. They have forgotten than in our communities that people are confused. They have forgotten that people in our communities are hurting. They have forgotten that people in our communities are crying out to be saved. They have forgotten what our central calling as a church, a group of believers, happens to be in this world.

In short – they have forgotten what is primarily important!

That is deliberately provocative and blunt. I am not saying the debate on sexuality and priesthood is not important. Neither am I saying whether we have woman bishops or not is a trivial matter. They are both important … but they are not primarily important!

I think it’s a scandal that while people in our communities are lost and in desperate need to know they are totally loved and accepted by God, that we are allowing our energies to be sapped by things of much lesser importance! If we can debate and continue with our missional calling, I could stomach what is happening. But it seems to me that we are sacrificing our primary missional calling to talk about secondary things.

I love my church. I am an Anglican by choice. One of the reasons for that is that in the Anglican church we are still able to dialogue. In the last 2 decades it seems we have debated too much, we have discussed things which, quite frankly, the outside world are bemused by, while our mission to show the love of God to the world has very clearly been put on the back burner.

My church frustrates me.

When are we going to wake up to what is important.

When are we going to break out of our walls and point people to God in the community?