Clearly, unless there is a substantial new influx of members, many of our churches will be virtually empty by 2020. Yet there are few indicators that this turnaround is likely. In 2002, for example, one church in five in the Colchester Episcopal Area had a regular Sunday attendance in single figures, whilst fewer than one in three attracted more than thirty people. And our diocese is one of the worst performers in terms of the ratio of clergy to people in church.

Meanwhile, contributions from parishes are failing to close the gap with the demands from the budget, despite strenuous efforts to raise levels of giving.

By two important measures of current effectiveness, therefore, namely the generation of income and membership, we are already in deep difficulty.

Yet collapse is not inevitable. Christ has promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church, so why should we be concerned?

The problem is that we can only head off the imminent crisis in our Diocese by a deliberate initiative to increase the membership of Christ's Church, and here the indicators are not good. Indeed, when one looks at the focus of the Diocesan leadership, it is hard to see that we are in the business of religion generally, let alone the gospel specifically.

Take the Diocesan website. Three headline stories immediately grab our attention: 'Bishop launches Lent appeal for Africa', 'Address the morality and ethics of justice to tackle poverty, says Bishop' and 'Bishop supports childcare focus on poorest and most vulnerable'. These are all commendable issues. But what would a casual visitor conclude is our 'core business'? Surely it is the pursuit of social justice, led by the bishop.

What seems singularly lacking as one browses the website, however, is a clear understanding of and commitment to the specifics of our faith. And the same seems to be true in Diocesan policy generally. The content of our religious 'core belief' is pushed to the margins, whilst the way we relate to the world is placed at the centre.

In the culture of Diocesan management, it does not seem to matter much what one believes, provided one behaves in an acceptable way.

Yet this is to turn God's priorities inside out. God has made it very clear that knowing him means knowing the truth about him. One of the fundamental problems with humankind is that they have rejected that truth, turning from the true God to the false gods of idols - whether they are idols of the mind or physical idols and statues in temples. And to preach the good news is to challenge this wilful ignorance with truth. In Athens, the Apostle Paul does not condemn the Athenians for worshipping 'The Unknown God', but he demolishes their agnosticism with the message of Christ: 'What you worship as unknown,' he says, 'this I proclaim to you.'

The problem for the Diocesan leadership is that Christian behaviour can only flow from Christian faith. And Christian faith needs to be both proclaimed as truth to an ignorant world and protected as truth against erroneous teaching. Yet both these tasks are seemingly given a low priority. Instead, leadership focuses on the much easier task of addressing practical issues, such as the implications of the Thames Gateway or the future of education.

Of course, these things matter. But they matter to all British people equally as citizens. You do not need to be a Christian to recognize that education is a good thing or that more houses will require more transport networks. Christians are certainly encourage to be good citizens, but just as Christ's kingdom is not of this world, so our citizenship is in heaven, and our priorities should reflect this. To adapt a well-known saying, 'Where our heart is, there our treasure should be also.'

The core business of the church should be the proclamation of the gospel message - after all, the word gospel means 'good news', and God has called us to be heralds of the good news, not mime-artists. Our neighbours and friends cannot possibly guess through looking at my consumption of Fair Trade coffee or your efforts to provide affordable housing for young families that the world was made through and for Jesus Christ of Nazareth and that one day he will return as its King.

Of course, people may be attracted to the church by the way we behave, just as they are frequently put off church by the behaviour of its members. But our good behaviour will not dispel their ignorance, and their joining in with our good behaviour will not reconcile them to God. Only faith can do that. But faith is more than sincerity.

The word 'faith' in the Bible is synonymous with belief. But beliefs can be right or wrong. Many people in Jesus' day believed passionately and sincerely that he was not the Messiah. Some of them made sure he was crucified as a result.

In the years following, others believed passionately and sincerely that male converts to Christianity should be circumcised. The Apostles, after some discussion, agreed they were wrong, and today we all take this for granted.

In the Middle Ages, Christians were taught, passionately and sincerely, that salvation depended on the means of grace administered by the church making us fit for heaven and that purgatory awaited all but the few saints. Luther and Calvin on the continent, and people like Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley in this country, taught that they were wrong and so we are free from the fear of purgatory today.

In the seventeenth century, the Church of England held, passionately and sincerely, that people should not preach God's word without a license from the bishop. John Bunyan was imprisoned as a result, but the world gained Pilgrim's Progress in consequence.

The title 'Defender of the Faith' was awarded by the Pope to Henry VIII because of the latter's attack on Martin Luther. We may think that Henry was wrong about Luther, just as the Pope was clearly wrong about Henry, but every minister of the Church, and every bishop in particular, is called to be a 'defender of the faith'.

And this 'defence' means that proclaiming the truth about Christ and refuting error is the core business of the Church. We cannot call people to act Christianly without first calling them to know Christ. And the knowledge of Christ is specific and, we must add, exclusive. It specifies certain things that are true and it excludes other things that are not true - even things which claim to be 'Christian'.

Unless the Diocesan leadership change their approach, the church in this Diocese will continue to decline. And the reason is simple. The Diocesan leadership, and specifically the bishops, control the recruitment, selection, training and deployment of the church's workforce - principally its clergy - and they set the tone for what those clergy and the congregations under their care see as their core business. If our bishops lead the charge in everything but the business of proclaiming the gospel, and leave gospel proclamation chiefly to the clergy and laity, further decline and eventual collapse are inevitable.

Christ's commission to Peter was simple: feed my sheep. That is what defines a pastor, and it must therefore be the focus of the Chief Pastors, just as it is for every pastor.

END