Future church

I've blogged myself about what may need to happen with the dear old CofE as the next few decades unfold. Probably best to look at this one or this one, if you're interested in checking it out. So I had a sense of fellow feeling with Doug's post here; especially when I read this:

 There are now so few stipendiary clergy that it might be time to ask

• whether we should plan for non-stipendiary ministry being the normal exercise of a priestly vocation and see stipendiary ministry as more strategic, focused on big churches (e.g. minsters, church-planting and mission centres and cathedrals) as area deans, as some specialist ministries and so on

• whether that means seeing stipendiary and non-stipendiary ministries alike as something people can move in and out of (often from one to the other), and change the stipend to a salary which allows either the purchase of housing, or (as appropriate) the paying of rent for church owned property.

I'm also minded that some of this is not so dissimilar to the thrust of the Tiller report back in the early 1980's ... We know what we should do, we just haven't got the courage to do it until we're forced to. At best it's a triumph of hope (wishful thinking, more like) over sense.
Five conversations for a declining church � iconotype:

'Work-life' balance, telecommuters vs officeers

This is interesting, well, I think so. Telecommuters with flextime stay balanced up to 19 hours longer: "identifying the point at which 25 percent of employees reported that work interfered with personal and family life.
For office workers on a regular schedule, the breaking point was 38 hours per week. Given a flexible schedule and the option to telecommute, employees were able to clock 57 hours per week before experiencing such conflict."
I'd love to see the research done with clergy in the picture too. Partly because I think that it would bear this out to some extent but, given that often clergy are often not apparently good at work-life balance (judging by the talk at chapter meetings) and probably are working the kind of hours reported here; ie 57 (plus). I know that in parish I stopped counting at 38 hours worked and still did a day or two more. Many clergy feel that they should work a 37 hours week pluss several hours to make their time-worked equivalent to lay officers.

How bishops are viewed

For those who don't sub to the CT, you may have to wait a couple of weeks before you can view it. But it's worth the wait. It's a summary of Mike Keulmans' research on bishops and in particular some polling about how bishops are seen by some lay people, some clergy and some retired bishops. For me it was, on the whole, encouraging in that my supposition that most of us think that bishops probably ought to be able to exercise a more fully pastoral and 'coaching' role towards clergy was vindicated. The concerning thing was my other hobby horse about equalising of stipends was not. I'm wondering whether this is because actually the issues need more airing.

Anyway, to the nub of the matter. Mike concludes with this statement.

My conclusion, based on the survey statistics and the experience of the early Church, is that it is time to turn the deanery of 25 to 35 parishes into a diocese. We must leave behind all the expensive and irrelevant trappings inherited from medieval prelacy, and instead make the episcopal task more manageable and realistic so that practical demon­stration may be given to the essential warmth and care of the episcopal shepherd, who is meant to mirror the Good Shepherd himself

.
I would suggest that this is worth taking seriously. That it implies bishops' stipends should be in line with other clergy and that we should have wider structures to share some minsitries and functions more widely than the mini-diocese. To me this suggests that my previous support of Gareth Miller's plan for ten provinces needs modifying: the dioceses need to be even smaller and perhaps something like four times as many.

Anyway, I wrote to the Church Times. We'll see whether they publish but this is what I wrote.

I wonder whether the results of Mike Keulmans' research fall within
the remit of the dioceses commission, because they really ought to.
Mike's suggestion on the basis of his research really should be part
of any wide-ranging consideration of our practice of episcopacy and
the radical option he points to should be given serious consideration:
that "it is time to turn the deanery of 25 to 35 parishes into a
diocese. We must leave behind all the expensive and irrelevant
trappings inherited from medieval prelacy, and instead make the
episcopal task more manageable and realistic so that practical
demon­stration may be given to the essential warmth and care of the episcopal shepherd, who is meant to mirror the Good Shepherd himself". This conclusion does seem to be warrented by the demands of the role as it should be. And it is not the first time that these columns have seen a call to recognise the deanery as a more appropriate span of episcopal care. Now I reckon that there is some discussion to be had about the number of parishes; at the other extreme I have in mind the example of a diocese in the USA where 90 parishes seemed to produce a vibrant entity for mutual support and mission (interestingly the campanion diocese of Bradford whose recent synodical motion has helped raise the issue for discussion).

This suggestion is added weight, I believe, by taking note of a significant trend and its implications: the pattern of clergy deployment and employment conditions. Increasingly we are seeing self-supporting ministries and part-time ministries of a variety of patterns becoming a more normal part of the ministry patterns in many areas. One of the challenges that has become apparent with these ministries is that they don't fit easily with patterns of mutual care and co-ordination which works ''best' for those with full-time availability. So it is easy for them to be sidelined and that is even more unacceptable when their numbers become proportionally greater. It is in those kinds of circumstances that a bishop with more availability to support clergy of a variety of ministry-patterns becomes important and strategically valuable. The obverse of greater localisation would also be to make sure that there are mechanisms for
sharing of ministries and resources more widely so that each mini-diocese isn't going to try to replicate current diocesan resources but can call on and contribute to officers to help with such things as legal advice, inter-faith issues or resource-development. So we may wish to consider arch-dioceses and/or provincial structures as units of wider sharing of resources.

One of the issues, of course, that this would bring to the surface would be the issue of stipends. Mike's figures show little support for equalising stipends with 'ordinary' clergy. Space may have prevented
him from elaborating on any indications of reasons for this. My guess is that it is an 'instinctive', culturally-influenced sense that seniority and responsibility should be rewarded financially. Of course, this reason would look far less convincing under Mike's proposal of smaller dioceses. Perhaps, though, it indicates also that we also need to have a fuller debate about the meaning of 'stipend' and whether 'responsibility' really washes in a stipendiary framework. With reference to the proposal to reduce the number of bishops in order to save money, it would surely be a better option to equalise their stipends with the rest of us and increase their numbers otherwise we're merely likely to be turning them into figureheads and civil functionaries and that seems a bad use of a stipend, all told.

So can be ask the dioceses commission to research and bring forward proposals for an appropriate span of care for bishops under different models of responsibility and of the measures needed to support such patterns of ministry?

Church Times - How bishops are viewed

Bishops, more or less

In the general Synod meeting at the end of this week, "there is a diocesan synod motion from Bradford. The diocese wants to reduce the number of bishops and other senior clergy. It points out that, while the number of stipendiary parochial clergy has fallen, there has been no fall in the number of suffra�gan bishops, archdeacons, and other senior clergy.
It asks whether there could be part-stipendiary or self-supporting dignitaries, or whether their work could be shared between teams of parochial clergy. The motion asks the Archbishops’ Council to formulate proposals for a reduction, and bring them to the Synod in three years."
I think we should be asking the kind of question this motion throws us into. My own view is that this is the wrong way to go about the issue. We do need to cut costs, but I can't see how reducing the number of bishops etc will help without a change in their roles. So if we have to consider what bishops etc are for then let's have that debate and decide on that basis. Practicalities impinge: if we stick with episcopal confirmation, then is there a danger that fewer bishops become more focussed on dispensing that particular sacramental?

My preference is to start with the 10 provinces idea which effectively takes a look at the geography and also gives a framework for cutting back on some senior posts and offers savings to dioceses in the form of sharing resources at provincial level. Now, if we baulk at creating more provincial level issues, then I'm comfortable with replacing the idea with that of having 'archdioceses' (like those urban dioceses where they have episcopal areas) but with the aim of sharing across the archdiocese.

I would like to encourage us to consider whether we should do two things instead (and this is a different proposal from the 10 provinces one, though not exclusive of it): one is to extend the equalisation of stipends to all clergy, bishops, archdeacons, deans of cathedrals. I see no argument for calling a salary a 'stipend' if it is going to be differential according to hierarchical status rather than need. Then we can look more sanguinely at the proposal that we actually need more bishops. I would suggest that either bishops cover a deanery-sized area or something the size of about half a dozen deaneries. The aim being to allow bishops to be real supports and coaches to their fellow presbyters (recall, they are still so ordained), they might be also involved in some kind of ministry in a parish or chaplaincy too. Consider that Italian bishops are effectively, I'm told, the bishop for a town or city. That seems a reasonable way forward.
Church Times - July Synod to be leaner, but, with any luck not meaner:

Defrocked priest squatting in vicarage

I'm not a lawyer but ... (words to strike fear into anyone connected with law, no doubt) ... it seemed to me that this is the kind of case that perhaps the new common tenure arrangements might just help with. The full article is here: Defrocked priest squatting in vicarage given reprieve | UK news | guardian.co.uk. The short story is that a defrocked priest is squatting in his former vicarage and the defence at the moment is this: "'In law, the vicarage belongs to the incumbent, the vicar. In this case, there isn't a vicar to own it and so the judge wants to ensure that, before he gives possession of the property to the bishops, the bishops do actually have the right for that. We have been given some time to do more legal research and we will do that, and at the next hearing we'll hopefully get the possession.'"
I suspect the resolution will wind up looking at the roles of patron and bishop in appointing a new vicar. I could see there being argument that the patron of the parish, in whose gift the living lies, would be regarded as the caretaker owner in an interregnum. However, since a vicar cannot exercise a public ministry and be instituted, inducted and so forth into the living without the bishop's licence then the bishop could claim some part in the matter. In addition, since the practice is that the diocesan parsonages board maintains and acquires and disposes of vicarages, it might well be ruled that they are the de facto caretakers on behalf of the patron and bishop. We shall see.

Letter to Bishops Final 23 April 2009

Here's one for my clergically inclined readers.
I've just received papers explaining more about the changes to terms of service almost certainly about to take place for C of E clergy. And if you click on the title of this post you'll be directed to the 'commontenure' website, set up by the CofE.

On it we're told:

Since 2002, the Church of England has been reviewing the terms of service under which clergy hold office. New terms and conditions will be conferred on clergy through Common Tenure. It preserves the historic office holder status of parochial clergy, whilst giving them rights broadly equivalent to those of employees

• February
  2010 – Amending Canon 29 will return to General Synod for
  final approval and the capability and grievance procedures will also
  be considered by General Synod.

• Information pack about common tenure

We know that a great deal of work in preparation for the implementation of common tenure has already been going on at diocesan level - forexample arrangements for ministerial development review andrecruitment of HR Advisers, and frameworks for assessment at the end of curacy. However, it might be helpful to flag up some of the otherwork that will need to be done at diocesan level before common tenure can be implemented, particularly the arrangements that you will need to have in place to enable you to comply with requirements of thelegislation on issuing statements of particulars.

We attach an information pack consisting of the following items.

1 A model letter that you can adapt and use to update clergy in yourdiocese on the progress of the Terms of Service legislation

2 A list of actions in dioceses required to implement common tenure,including

(a) structures

(b) policies and procedures

(c) practical arrangements for common tenure

(d)training


3 An example of the statement of particulars that the regulations will require you to issue to all clergy in common tenure appointments

Communication

We are sending a hard copy of this letter and the information pack to your diocesan secretary and the chairs of your diocesan houses of clergy and laity. We are also sending the pack by email to the following

Chairs of DBFs, Suffragan and area bishops, Archdeacons, Diocesan registrars and chancellors,

CME officers, Diocesan directors of ministry, Diocesan directors of ordinands, HR advisers

Please feel free to share this material with anyone else who needs to know, for example, all members of your staff council.

In addition, we are putting the information pack on the Church of England website, where information on the new terms of service arrangements can now be located more easily by going direct to the new domain name www.commontenure.org

Members of staff and the Terms of Service Implementation Panel are very willing to come and talk to your diocesan synod or staff meeting if you would find that helpful. Please contact Patrick Shorrock AT cofe.anglican.org for further details.

In addition, during the course of 2009, the staff at Church House will be providing further material to support dioceses, and will be running some further training events, as dioceses start to put the necessary arrangements in place.

This work on terms of service has taken a long time to reach this stage, and we should like to take this opportunity to thank you for your patient engagement with it. Now that the Royal Assent has been received to the Measure, we are in a position to make detailed plans on implementing a project that will help us all in the service of Christ by providing greater clarity, fairness and support for those engaged in ministry.

Church Times - Clergy can get shirty over trade

I've not bought a new clerical shirt for ages, but now there is a fair trade option; why didn't anyone thing of this before? Here's the article Church Times - Clergy can get shirty over trade and Simon Butler's rationale: "“About six months ago I was discussing the issue of fair trade with my colleagues, and we real ised there was nowhere you could buy Fairtrade clerical shirts. It seemed ridiculous that clergy didn’t have the option to buy accord ing to conscience when it came to our own uniform. All of my col leagues are com mitted to fair trade, and it got my mind buzzing about doing some thing about it.”"
Good, eh?

Holy tipple may take priests over limit

This looks like it could be a problem that Anglican clergy could share. "with a chronic shortage of priests both in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, Father Brian D'Arcy says that many priests often celebrate more than one mass a day, sometimes in different parishes. 'The shortage of priests has resulted in those who are currently ministering having to say multiple masses, and often drive from church to church to do so, having drunk from the chalice in each church,"
However, when you start thinking about the practicalities, maybe it need not be a problem; it just requires that those presiding at multiple Eucharists be aware of the alcohol content of their ministry! But not putting so much wine in the chalice, getting lay help with consuming afterwards, even reserving wine for later consumption are all possibilites. Where there's a will ...
Holy tipple may take priests over limit | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

Vicars urged to drop 'risky' dog collars

Over the last few years, I realised recently, I have grown more wary of wearing my dog-collar when not on 'clergical' business. I think that somehow I have become aware that I am more prominent. Once upon a time that prominence was helpful and spoke good things into the community and witnessed, somehow, to the rumour of God. Now, I feel vulnerable in ways that I didn't twenty years ago. My prominence has become a cause for concern: it attracts people who tell stories that don't add up but would relieve me of money; it attracts people who seem all too quick to become abusive; and it would appear that beyond my direct experience, it attracts those who are prone to violence.
"More attacks are carried out on priests than probation officers and GPs, according to the latest figures. Between 1997 and 1999, 12 per cent of clergy were assaulted and seven out of ten were abused or threatened."
I guess too some of my reluctance is about feeling that, now I'm older, the 'witness' of a younger person wearing other items that were reasonably fashionable is no longer as helpful as once it was: now I feel like I'm just another middle-aged figure in a dog-collar not speaking by my presence of anything more than the male, white, middle-years-ness of my church and that is a message that the world doesn't need to hear.
But perhaps I'm a victim of my own cowardice and finding clever little excuses for it.
Vicars urged to drop 'risky' dog collars - Telegraph:

Despite stresses ... prayer can help

This is in the USA, but this storyMoney really can't buy happiness, study finds | Chicago Tribune tells us:
"TOP OCCUPATIONS IN JOB SATISFACTION
1. Clergy
2. Physical therapists
3. Firefighters
4. Education administrators
5. Painters, sculptors ..."
Worth looking at the specifically Christian comment here. The question they end up asking there is "Are the statistics about pastoral burn-out and depression inflated? Do we overstate the hardships of ministry as a perverse way to make us feel more noble and courageous for continuing? Or, are most of us actually experiencing deep contentment, pleasure, and spiritual satisfaction in our labors?"
I think, in as far as this might play out in the UK too, that clergy actually tend to feel keenly the difference between themselves and their parishioners when it comes to employment, not least because, ultimately, they are paid by these parishioners. One response to the tensions around this is to retreat into self-justification (which presents as emphasising hours worked and specifically to try to show value for money by having a list of achievements). However, the dark side of that can be sudden 'snaps' and depression when things are not such as to produce ready markers of worthwhileness. And yet the ability to set own hours and goals, to a large extent, and to be dealing with a sense of fulfilling vocation is known to be worth a lot in terms of working against stress. I suspect the sets of figures are both true, just of different people at different times and products specifically of the questions asked, I suspect.

It's also worth having a look at this report from the Church Times. One of the interesting things reported there was, "A study by the Revd Dr Kelvin Randall of 340 clerics from England and Wales found that the younger clerics burned out more quickly, and felt more depersonalised. One reason the researchers gave was that older clerics had learnt to pace themselves. The Church needed therefore to introduce “strategies to care for and support its younger clergy.”" and even more interestingly and perhaps not surprisingly (but it's nice to have it confirmed) "In another study, of 1278 male stipendiary Church of England clerics who had responded to the burnout surveys and to a prayer survey, those clerics who had a “positive” attitude to prayer did better than those who had not."