Vicars of the Future: Finding More, Keeping More

Update: more thoughts on new vicars here

In 2012 I wrote this piece about the future of the Church of England, especially its clergy. It remains the most viewed and commented article on this blog. I wrote: The stats project clergy numbers forward to 2016. I would suggest that someone needs to go further than that.

Well, if you wait long enough….. As part of the Renewal and Reform initiative, the CofE has now published stats on clergy numbers, projecting forward to 2035. It makes the case for the national CofE target of increasing the number of ordinands by 50% year on year.

The Stats: a few highlights

1. There are currently 20440 Anglican clergy. Of those, 7730 are paid and in parish ministry, 6500 are retired but still active. 3300 are ‘self-supporting’, i.e. ordained but not paid by the church. What caught my eye is that 2670 are either chaplains or in ‘other’ posts (Christian agencies, tutors, non-parish appointments).
2.  Of the 7730 stipendiary (i.e. paid) parish clergy, 75% are ‘incumbent status’ – i.e. running a parish church or in local church leadership. That’s 5800 of us (I’m one!)
3.  On average, 285-90 are ordained to stipendiary ministry, and 260 retire from it. So you’d think clergy numbers would be going up, but…..
4.  Another 300 people a year leave stipendiary ministry – half to other clergy roles (and half this number also rejoin parish ministry from other roles) like chaplaincies, diocesan posts etc. A further 10% take early retirement, 9% go to unspecified roles, and 25-30% each year are ‘unknown’ – i.e. they disappear off the radar completely.
5.  I note in passing that if the 90 a year who leave parish ministry were retained, this would be a equivalent to a rise of 1/3 in ordinations. I don’t share Linda Woodheads agenda for the CofE, but she did a very useful piece of research back in 2014 which showed that 49% of clergy felt the CofE was ‘Bad’ or ‘Quite Bad’ at supporting their skills, gifts and initiatives. I wonder if there is a connection. 
6. The average age of men ordained to stipendiary ministry is 39, that of women is 42. On average they (we) retire at 65. We’ll come back to that later

There are various other stats – on ethnic minority ordinations (rising, but still too low), age profile, gender profile etc. But the thrust of the main document is to set out 4 scenarios for clergy numbers, projecting forward to 2035:

-       Status quo – no change in current figures for joiners, leavers, age profile etc.

-       Retiring later – clergy retirement age rises 1 year (pretty realistic, it would now make much more sense for me to retire at 68 than at 65).

-       Increase of 50% in ordinations from the current average, and the age distribution of females matching that of males (i.e. more younger women), sustained long term.

-       50% increase up to 2023, then a fall back to current levels.

Here’s how those pan out (sorry its a bit blurry, the perils of copying from a pdf):

The worst scenario (status quo) gives us 6300 stipendiary clergy, the best (sustained increase) means we hold steady–ish at 7610. With more people going into training, there’ll be a higher percentage of curates than at present (23% to 14%). 66% will be ‘incumbent status’ – i.e. there’ll be 5022 vicars.

“the scenarios presented address those aspects that seem most likely or can be influenced by policy decisions” says the commentary.

I have a few questions to ask of the data, and of our response to it:

a)    The number of stipendiary ordinations fell from a high of 700 around 1960 to 300-350 in 1970, and has stayed in roughly that range ever since. Why has it taken 45 years to respond to this?

b)    Whilst making the case for a 50% increase in vocations, the papers from the CofE don't say very much about how this can be done. There are 2 strands, one is an overall rise in ordinations, the other is towards more younger female candidates (most of the under-30s are men, most of the over-45s are women). We have the diagnosis but the prescription is still a work in progress. The younger candidates themselves are clustered in Dioceses with higher student populations (London, Ely, Bristol, Sheffield, Oxford)

c)  The average age at stipendiary ordination is 40. These are the ones who will end up running a parish (we have 13000 parishes). If average retirement age stays at 65, that’s an average 25 years per person. So we’ll need to replace 1/25 of the workforce every year just to hold steady. Currently that would mean 309 ordinations a year, which is actually only a 10% rise on what we’re doing.

d)    But: 2670 clergy are currently in chaplaincy or other non-parish appointments. The projections assume no change in that – i.e. we will continue to have to ordain enough people per year to maintain this figure. Based on the 21 year average working life after a curacy, that’s 127 stipendiary ordinations a year to maintain chaplaincies, agencies, dioceses (our diocese currently has 11 clergy on its paid staff). Could we do more to promote lay ministry in posts currently held by clergy – Archdeacons? Chaplains?

e)    And the other issue not addressed is the drop out rate, with nearly 100 people leaving stipendiary ministry each year and either retiring early or leaving paid ministry altogether. I could reel off quite a list of clergy I know who have burnt out, dropped out, stressed out, or (often under pressure) done something which has made their ministry untenable. Compared to, say, recruiting and training an extra 10 people per year, how much does it take to retain 10 people per year? 

which leads me to my final point. I wrote this in 2012 and it still stands:

If the current figures merely flatline ….. each full-time vicar will be looking after an average of 3 church buildings in 2.5 parishes containing 10,000 people between them, with 200 regular (once a month or more) worshippers. They will take an average of 29 baptisms a year, see 5 new people confirmed, take 12 weddings and 34 funerals. Less than half of them will have any kind of informal meeting space, toilet facilities, or kitchen facilities within church premises, which will severely limit their ministry to the community. And they'll each have roughly 1 CofE school, no doubt with a 'tradition' that the vicar is chair of governors. Oh yes, and they'll be encouraged to develop 'fresh expressions of church' as well. 

We need to devise a way of being the CofE that can function with only 5000 full time staff, alongside the small army of volunteers, lay ministers and unpaid clergy. And we need to work out whether the paragraph above is a realistic job description. 

We need to look at both recruitment and retention. And we need to look at what we are recruiting people to. 

I forgot to add church councils to the above description (4-6 meetings pa per parish, plus AGM, and trying to recruit 2 churchwardens, secretary, treasurer, safeguarding officer, H&S officer in each church). How can we make the job less of a burden, whilst providing more support? If half of clergy don’t feel that their diocese appreciates or supports their gifts and skills, then surely we need to look at how we help the current crop of clergy to thrive and survive, as well as  how we add to their number? 

At the moment the system is buttressed by 6500 retired/non-active clergy who, with 'permission to officiate', keep the show on the road. Just as we have a blip of retirements coming up, so we will have a blip when God finally retires his servants and they join the heavenly chorus. By 2035, we won't have as many retired clergy either. And we shouldn't have a system which depends on them in any number, whether it's 6 or 6000. 

Update: One final thought, if the CofE is planning on the 2500+ in non-parish ministry continuing, why are we still training people as if they will all end up as vicars? That is a massive number who are trained for one thing, but end up doing something else. We are either wasting a big chunk of our training budget, or at the very least misdirecting it. 

The Leading of the 5,000 part 2 - vocations and canaries

Every few years the CofE publishes an analysis of the number of vicars, and the latest (covering up to 2015) has just been published.

By some distance, the most-read post on this blog is 'The Leading of the 5000?', based on the previous set of clergy stats. It was an attempt to work out the number of vicars the CofE would have in the long-term:

if every year the CofE ordains 275 people, who work on average for 25 years, then our long-term full time workforce is 6875 full time clergy. Some of those will end up as archdeacons and bishops and cathedral staff (about 360 on current numbers) and others will end up in diocesan jobs, which leaves about 6200. There are currently around 1000 ordained clergy in chaplaincy jobs, in the NHS, armed forces, educational institutions, theological colleges etc. 

Which leaves 5000 of us in parish ministry, some of whom will be in training posts, so not allowed (I nearly said 'not able', but that wouldn't be true) to run a church. 

Has anything changed? The latest stats show a very slight move in the right direction. Average age at ordination is now 42 for women, 37 for men - with 60% of new ordinands being male, that makes an average age of 39. Add on 3 years for a curacy, and you're now looking at 26 years of active ministry for each one who works until retirement.

However, even though clergy can work until retirement, the average age at retirement is 64-65, which probably reflects the scores of clergy who take early retirement. There isn't any mention in these figures of retention rates (or 'collateral damage', as this post terms the loss of clergy to stress, burnout or ministry-wrecking moments partly induced by the nature of the job). If that average retirement figure takes in the number who leave early, then we're looking at an average working life of 23 years.

The numbers ordained each year were, in each of the last 4 years, 266, 288, 286 and 315. We'll know in the next few years if 315 is unusual, or the start of a trend. Here's the impact that might have:

If the CofE is ordaining 266 people a year, who work 23 years each, our long-term f-t workforce is 6118
If the CofE is ordaining 315 people a year, who work 23 years each, our long-term f-t workforce is 7245.

And as I said 3 years ago, from that headline figure you have to subtract bishops, archdeacons, clergy in non-parish jobs etc. Even the higher figure is 500 fewer than we currently have, and Peter Ould notes that some dioceses face a monster recruitment task in the next 5 years with 30%+ of clergy due to retire.

The CofE has a big push on now for ordinations, and ordaining younger people. Good. We also need to put time and thought into the number of clergy who are leaving, or living on the edge of leaving, because of the demands of the role and the inadequacies of their preparation and support. There are too many stories like this:

We were a cohort of men and women, on average in our 30’s, passionate about our faith, hopeful for the future of the church, and committed to lead and serve the church in its worship and mission.  10 years later I happened upon two of that same cohort seriously considering leaving the ministry.

The issue here is the same as the issue in 'The Leading of the 5,000'. We haven't redesigned the way the church works to accommodate the new reality. A system designed for over 10,000 full time priests serving a population of 10 million is not going to work with 5,000 serving a population of 55 million. Those leaving the dog collar behind are the canaries in the coalmine, they have sung, but is anyone listening? 

When was the last time you......?

Speaking about vocation is a bit like asking for more Sunday School teachers. The generalised notice at the front of church has pretty much no effect; a few face to face conversations along the ‘have you ever thought of…?’ lines is much more like it.

So two questions:

• When was the last time you seriously asked God what He wants from you and your life?

• When was the last time you asked someone else a question about their own vocation or call?

If the answer to either is ‘not recently’ then maybe you need to prayerfully ask God what He may be saying…

One of my favourite stories recently is about someone attending a vocations course. The course coordinator was not messing around. She made it very clear that vocation is a serious business, that understanding and feeling affirmed in God’s call on our lives is not something to be done lightly or hurriedly. Therefore the course members needed to get their heads in gear and commit to the whole course – no ifs or buts; no lame excuses about missing the odd session. They were here for the duration. And if this particular course coordinator says it’s Wednesday then you really do need to work on the assumption that it’s Wednesday.

So, imagine the fear and trembling of one course participant as she approached the coordinator explaining how she wanted to finish the course early. Nervously she came up at the end of an evening to say that she wasn’t intending to come back for the final two sessions.

There was some significant push back on this until the participant said: ‘Look. I came onto this course as a nurse. I am now absolutely certain that God is calling me to be a nurse. I am absolutely where God wants me to be. I’m sorted.’ Fabulous

Read the rest here. 

Where has God called me?

Vocation "it comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a man is called to by God.

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-interest. 

By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work 

(a) that you need most to do and 

(b) that the world most needs to have done. 

If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). 

On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren't helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Frederick Buechner