Diocese of Portsmouth plants in Llandaff

Church in Wales parish church of SS Andrew and Teilo, Woodville Road, Cathays, Cardiff.                                                                              Source: Wikipedia

Not much has been coming out of the Church in Wales during the Covid-19 lock down but there is news of the diocese of Portsmouth moving in.

I have seen nothing about the event in Llandaff News flashes but there is confirmation that Portsmouth's largest church is 'looking West to plant a new church in Cardiff'.

Inspire Magazine reported on 1 June: a "team will be commissioned for its new role at a digital service on Sunday (Sun 24 May). The Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Rev Christopher Foster, has recorded a video message to be played as part of the service, expressing his joy at the move."

There is no mention of the bishop of Llandaff.

In March last year I reported that the bishop of Llandaff had sacrificed parishioners in the university church of St Teilo, Cathays, Cardiff in an initiative "to give their church away to an evangelical church called Holy Trinity Brompton. The decision was made with no consultation with the clergy or members of the congregation and wider community and she says the decision is final."

The Living Church commented at the time that plans for a church-planting partnership between the Church in Wales and London’s Holy Trinity Brompton had drawn resistance...The project will receive funding from the new Church in Wales Evangelism Fund, which has £10 million available for six dioceses and is similar to the Church of England’s Strategic Development Grants fund.

According to a statement from the diocese of Portsmouth, their Harbour Church began in September 2016 with just 20 people, and now welcomes 700 worshippers every Sunday to three different locations. It now plans to send a team of 40 people to Cardiff to set up a merk new church there from September.

"It will be called Citizen Church and will be based at St Teilo?S Church in the Cathays area of Cardiff. The 40-strong team includes 10 worshippers who already live there, a family moving from Brazil, some moving from London, and 17 worshippers who will relocate from Harbour Church in Portsmouth. It will be led by the Rev Ryan Forey, currently curate at Harbour Church."

When the project was unveiled in 2019 the Church in Wales suggested that the project would ?Seek to attract young people who are currently outside the church, eventually planting more church communities in the diocese", displacing existing congregations in the process.

Displacing regular worshippers has a familiar ring for traditionalist Anglicans who were forced out because they sought to keep the Apostolic faith against a tide of secularism.