Australia's Uniting Church has 'one foot in the grave'

(Ed: And six years ago, 31% of Anglican churchgoers in the Diocese of Chelmsford were over 70.)

AUSTRALIA'S third-largest Christian denomination wants senior church leaders to make way for a more youthful flock to arrest a numbers crisis and reverse the effect of a congregation ageing so rapidly that half the membership could be dead within 15 years.

Thirty years after the church deliberately pushed women to the fore of its leadership councils, the Uniting Church in NSW has approved a proposal to discriminate in favour of leaders aged 50 and younger in order to encourage youth into the greying church.

The church wants to bring to its next synod in 2008 plans to allocate half of its key representative positions to those aged under 50 - or at least 60 years - during the next seven years. Read more
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