Church membership patterns in Bath and Wells Diocese

This is going to be a pretty niche post, as I guess the Venn Diagram of a) statisticians who are b) interested in Somerset and c) interested in Anglican attendance is not going to have a huge shaded area.

But hey, I'm in the shaded area, and this is my blog, so....

Every year Bath and Wells, like all dioceses, collects church membership stats to calculate 'Parish Share' - the contribution each Anglican church makes to overall running costs. The latest set include membership figures from the last 2 years, the amount of Parish Share paid, and the parish 'category' - an indicator of how prosperous (or not) the parish is.

Here's what our 484 churches look like, with Bath Abbey (542) to the left, and Greinton (0) to the right, and the rest of us in between.

Compared to the CofE as a whole, our churches are a bit smaller on average. If your picture of the average church was of 60-80 people with a Sunday school and a vicar, think again. 50% of churches in Bath and Wells have an average Sunday congregation of 23 or fewer. 

...which is a problem, as smaller churches are more likely to be shrinking, and to be shrinking faster, than larger ones. In fact it's only larger churches as a group which are growing in this Diocese:

This table collects several bits of data - church size, church growth, Parish Share paid by these churches (an indicator of financial viability) and the number of CofE clergy that equates to (we cost about £50k per year when salary, housing, pension, training etc. costs are all added up. Someone else can blog about whether that's value for money!!). The smallest churches would need to club together in groups of 15 to support 1 vicar, whilst the largest ones pay enough parish share to support 3 clergy per church - in practice, this usually means they are supporting clergy posts elsewhere in the Diocese. Wells Cathedral and Bath Abbey are the only churches in Bath and Wells which get to recruit 3 or more full time vicars. 

You can see that it's only the larger churches that are doing anything like holding their own - this is just 2 years membership stats, so the smallest ones have lost a pretty steepling (sorry) 13% in 2 years. 

In passing, of the 7 shrinking churches in the 200+ bracket, 5 have had a vacancy in their senior leadership position during these two years. Church practice usually ensures these vacancies last for at least a year. In small churches the key relationships of the congregation will be with each other (and they may only see the vicar every 3-4 weeks), whilst once you get over 80-90 people, the vicar becomes more of a focal individual. Church members can't know all the other members, but they all know the vicar. So a void in this chair in a larger church could have a bigger effect than in a smaller one. 

There's still around 25% of churches growing, but many more shrinking. Here's what that looks like in people numbers

 And finally, I had a look at whether churches who paid more or less in Parish Share did any different. Category 'A' are the richest parishes, F, G and s are the poorest.

The top category is skewed by having Bath Abbey as one of the two churches - the largest church in the Diocese, and also the one that is growing most strongly (79 new members in 2 years). The 2nd fastest growing church is in category G, St. Pauls Weston super Mare, which has added 78, and this rather skews that line of the table - without this church it would see a -3.5% fall in membership.

However, there is a significantly higher proportion of churches in the bottom 3 lines growing than in the top 3. Does that mean we're doing better in poorer neighbourhoods, or that churches with a smaller financial burden from the centre have more resources to give to mission and ministry?

There are 2 other questions I'm not sure we're asking. One is of the growing churches in each category, to find out what they're doing well so that good practice can be shared. The other is of those which are falling off a cliff - 35 churches lost 1/3 or more of their membership in these 2 years. Some are very small churches, but when a church of 100 loses 30 members in a short space of time, we have to ask if there is any extra support needed, or anything that could be done to catch this sort of thing before it happens.

If you're from a different diocese and want to have a play with the figures, email your finance department and ask them for an Excel spreadsheet of the parish membership stats collected for parish share. Ours were very obliging, though they might think better of it now they've seen the results!

'Evangelism Team Leader' - new post at Diocese of Bath and Wells

It wasn't so long ago that my Diocese released a course for all its churches, including a talk from a senior staff member who argued that local churches should 'forget about being missionary'. There was maybe an important point buried in there, but it was symptomatic of a wider complacency about evangelism, mission and church growth.

How things have changed - we're now recruiting for this:

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Diocese of Bath and Wells as we start to implement our new strategy which seeks to put mission and evangelism at the heart of everything that we do.

We want to appoint someone who is passionate about Evangelism who will inspire, teach, train and enable others in this ministry, working across the diocese at every level.

We are looking for someone who has:

- An understanding of evangelism and mission in an Anglican context
- Experience of developing church planting, fresh expressions or of pioneer ministry
- Ability to enthuse and inspire others
- Proven ability to develop evangelism and mission and enable numerical and spiritual growth

more details here. Great news.

New Bishop of Bath and Wells "Growth is important...we can't carry on as we are"

The latest 'Manna', the Bath and Wells diocesan magazine, has an interview with our new bishop, Rev. Peter Hancock. Carefully avoiding the subject of bishops housing, here's a few selected quotes which warmed my heart:

"The most important thing is to see flourishing churches at the heart of flourishing communities. We are called to share the love of Christ and to play our part in helping to build, support and transform our communities. A vibrant church can make such an impact."

in answer to 'what makes a vibrant church?'
"Growth is important - growth in terms of numbers, vocations and service. But above all it's a church that is consciously welcoming and hospitable and reaching out with the love of Jesus.

We need to find new ways to draw folk into our life who woulnd't usually come to a church service. So we need pioneering ways of meeting people..."

"We shouldn't become obsessed by our buildings...many churches are now also meeting in different venues... Where we meet is not the most important thing but there needs to be strong links between traditional and Fresh Expressions of churches. The DNA that runs through both has to be the desire to live the mission of Jesus and continue his work in the world today."

"This will need radical thinking, creative thinking and critical thinking. And it needs an honest recognition that we can't carry on as we are....we don't have the resources to continue as we are without making some fundamental changes."

"There are those that say you can't reconcile faith with a scientific view. I think we should stand up and say it is possible.... faith is not just about hearts and feelings, it's also about using our brains to discover the wonders of what God has created"

in answer to a question about the biggest challenges for the church and the diocese:
"We must recover our confidence along with our hope and our joy. We must have confidence in God... In terms of relevance, its about living the mission of Jesus wherever and in whatever way that's needed - a practical demonstration of His love. Not only preaching but doing."

"How can we know what God might be calling us to be and do differently unless we listen to him?"

"I want to undertake my duties as Bishop prayerfully, thoughtfully and with grace. I trust that when God speaks to me I'll have the courage to do what he is asking and if I don't do it well, courage to reflect and seek to do it better. I also want to be intentional about what I do and why I am doing it."

what will be your priorities?
"As a Bishop I am called to lead the diocese in mission, which means passionately, confidently and courageously sharing our faith.... Care for the most vulnerable, support for our young people and concern for the environment and the challenges facing rural communities are three strands of my personal ministry and will be reflected in my priorities..."

"the most important relationship is our relationship with God. If we don't attend to that through prayer, through listening, through thanksgiving, through celebration, we won't become the people God wants us to be."

"I'm striving to be the best husband, father, friend and bishop I can be. That's the journey I'm on but I don't walk it on my own. God inspires, leads and accompanies me on it."

I'm delighted that we have a new bishop who sees mission as central to his role. This hasn't always been so. We face a lot of challenges, not least a rapidly shrinking Diocese: for every 9 members in 2008, we had lost 1 of those 9 by 2011 (according to the latest official stats from the CofE).

In turn there's an increasing burden on those who remain. One of our 2 churches has grown in menbership by 32% during 2006-14. At the same time our Parish Share (amount paid to the diocese to support ministry across the county) has risen by 92%. Even if you add in inflation for the period (26%), parish share payments have still risen around 50% faster than ability to pay. That's not sustainable. Milking growing parishes and amalgamating shrinking parishes has an inbuilt slow self-destruct.

So yes we'll need, courage, confidence, and prayer. It's a while before we welcome Bishop Peter, but I'm encouraged that perhaps God has supplied the kind of diocesan bishop we need for the challenges ahead.

Social Media Guidlines

The sagacious Steve Tilley has written some social media guidelines for the Diocese of Bath and Wells. You can see the whole document here, but I didn't get much further than page 1:

The immediacy of social media is one of its benefits – we can respond quickly to questions, correct misunderstandings, give our perspective about a breaking story in the news media. Responding quickly doesn’t mean doing so without due consideration. 
Before posting always think: 
 Is this my story to share? 
 Would I want my mum to read this? 
 Would I want God to read this? 
 Would I want this on the front page of a newspaper? 

what are your social media rules of thumb?

update: if you ignore the headlines, and the picture of a severe looking vicar, media reporting has been fairly balanced: Telegraph, Independent

New Bishop of Bath and Wells

An introductory vid from the new Bishop of Bath and Wells, Peter Hancock, recorded yesterday as he toured the Diocese.

"The mission that God has given to us: to proclaim Christs love, to live that love, and to share it with others."

Diocese of Bath and Wells: 'Our Common Fund' DVD

This is a video put together by my home diocese to give local parishes a sense of the work being done across the Diocese, and how the 'common fund' (contributions pooled from parishes) supports this.

It would be interesting to hear from people outside Bath and Wells how this comes across. The idea is to communicate across the diocese about where the money comes from, and goes to, to get past the idea of 'us' and 'them in Wells' to a greater sense of common purpose.

I'm aware of how vicar-centred it is, that most of the Diocesan outgoings on parishes are to put clergy in place. It would be great to see an updated video in 10 years time which has fewer dog-collars and more lay leaders.

What Our Diocese Needs

from the person spec:

The person appointed will have a wide vision of the church and the ways of God. His key mission will be ‘to lead the Church in worshipping Jesus Christ and encouraging people to believe in him and follow him’  (Archbishop Justin).

He will be:
1. Well-integrated and secure in his spiritual journey with a presence that makes the living God real; 
someone who is confident in the distinctive role of the Church of England in God’s mission today; and a  person deeply rooted in the theology of the bible and the church, who seeks to articulate clearly the meaning of the good news of Jesus Christ for this generation.

2. Able to lead the diocese in turning vision into an inspiring and realistic strategy for growth in both rural and urban parishes; and who will be courageous in overseeing the changes that will be needed to deliver that strategy at every level.

From the Diocese of Bath and Wells Statement of Needs for appointing a new bishop. Press release here. (My emphasis.)

There's obviously a lot more to it than this, but we are a Diocese which has been solidly in the bottom 25% of the CofE for growth (i.e. decline) in recent years. If you're the praying kind, please pray for the right appointment for us - the final decision will be taken some time in October.

Choose a Bishop

If you're in Somerset, there's a chance to be involved in the process of choosing the next Bishop of Bath and Wells, whether you're part of the CofE or not.

At Wells Town Hall, this evening, 7.30pm there's an open meeting with folk from the Crown Appointments and the local 'Vacancy in See' committee, to hear public views on the kind of bishop we need following Peter Price's retirement. I'm told there will be wine, not that that should influence any decision to attend.....

Choosing a Bishop

Our first meeting of the Bath and Wells 'Vacancy in See' (you've got to love the names) committee is this weekend, the start of a 7 month process to discern/choose the next Bishop of Bath and Wells.

There's a good explanation of the process here, and this gives you some idea of the composition: a blend of General Synod reps, ex officio places, elected clergy and lay reps (including me), and people appointed by Bishops staff for 'balance'. I fear that, at 43 and 364 days come Saturday, I'll be the youngest person on the committee,  but hopefully I'm wrong about that.

Stage 1 is drawing up a 'Statement of Needs' for the Diocese, we then team up with the Crown Nominations Commission to canvas opinion, before going on to consider specific names.

It's all a bit of a new experience, if you're the praying type please pray for us (and the various other ViS groups also going through the same process, such as Durham). A lot of it will be confidential, but I'm hoping to blog a bit about the process just in case that opens a few helpful windows for people wondering how on earth it all works.

Having taken a few soundings already, it's interesting to hear a cross section of folks saying largely the same thing about the kind of Bishop we need. I then ran into someone this evening who recalled a Cafe Service planning meeting where we debated whether to play 'Pin the Fish on the Bish' with our visiting suffragan (2nd in command) bishop to illustrate a Bible story. I think we decided not to, but it was close. Puts it all in perspective......

Solar Panels for Somerset Churches

coming up...

Solar powered Bath and Wells Environment Gathering

Organised by the Diocesan Environment Group is a unique chance for environment enthusiasts from across Bath and Wells to come together on Saturday 12 November. Bishop Peter of Taunton will be our key-note speaker and the venue is St Michael’s, Galmington which features in the current edition of Manna celebrating their solar panels.

The aim of the gathering is to bring together those who carry a concern for God’s creation and who may currently feel isolated. The findings of the recent Churches Environment Survey will be shared, with feedback to Bishop Peter and David Maggs, Social Justice and Environment Adviser. It is a chance to become more involved and better supported at a local level through an Environmental Champions Network. There will be information about the Diocesan loan scheme for the fitting of pv panels on church roofs and the Energy Saving Benchmarking scheme will be launched.

The gathering will start at 9.30 (tea and coffee from 9.00) and finish by 12.30. Please indicate your interest in attending by emailing petehawkins.environment@gmail.com

from Connect, the online Bath and Wells newsletter.

New Bath & Wells website

Update: the comms people are pretty responsive - emailed most of the following to the site, and they were happy to recieve suggestions and are working on one or two of them. Am now linked.

My Diocese has just revamped its website, the new one looks a bit more up to date than the old, and is easier to get around. Some of the sections have been tightened up, and most of it seems to work. It's a lot easier to look at too, nice bright front page, good pictures, and it has the kind of stuff you want on a front page - news, key links, events etc.

The local churches bit is better - picks up info direct from 'A Church Near You', but doesn't seem to link to the churches own websites. It's also a bit of a worry to find that I'm not listed on the staff of my own Deanery or church. Better keep my head down.

Best bit: lots of templates for employing youth and childrens workers - policies, contracts etc., and some of the childrens resources 'Seasonal Prayers for Children'. Look forward some some of the resource booklets that the Childrens Advisor puts together being made available online. They're excellent, but having to trek to Wells for hard copy means they don't get the circulation they deserve.

tricks missed? - there are lots of great resources on other Diocesan websites, and it would be good to see some of these linked. There are links back to the national CofE site, which saves some duplication, but things like mission and communication resources are a click away, and they're all here in one place to save trawling through 43 websites.

The other thing is blogs - there's an intermittent blog by the School of Formation (training department), which isn't very high profile. There aren't links to the few of us who blog out there in the wilds of the parishes. Maybe for good reason, if they've actually read the stuff that me and Steve write about. Sorry, Steve and I. No wonder we're not linked with grammar like that.

The Future of the Church of England

There are days when being the Bishop of Bath and Wells is a tough job. Last week Peter Price gave a lecture in Wells Cathedral on 'the Future of the Church of England: the Next 25 Years'. Prophetically, he opened it with this:

There are few moments of regret in a bishop’s life, but agreeing to this somewhat catch all title for a lecture has been one of mine! Its somewhat disparate title requires me from the beginning to appeal to the Higher Power for grace and forgiveness. Ken Dodd was once asked whether he could make God laugh, and he responded, ‘Yes, tell him your plans.’

Attempting to prophesy the future of the Church of England, let alone the Anglican Communion, Christian churches and other faith traditions is to risk God’s hollow laugh.

It's an interesting read despite all that: he speaks of the 'half a revolution' of Vatican 2, and challenges the church to look outwards to the world and the poor, and not inwards to its own debates about sexuality and women bishops.

Another snippet:

The years following the Vatican Council were heady times. Two of those present going on to be elected pope, Karol Wojtyla and Josef Ratzinger, John Paul 2 and Pope Benedict respectively. Despite some opposition, much energy was expended and expectations were raised of a new church vibrant with the possibility of a humanity and a planet finding its true purpose.

But, and it seems there is always a but, in McCulloch’s words Vatican 2 was only ‘half a revolution.’ Key among the areas which it failed to address were the issues of the role of women, contraception and celibacy. Perhaps the hidden agenda of what was not tackled was that of patriarchy, dominance of men.

Here in a sense we come full circle, back to the present realities of not only the Roman Church, but also the Anglican Church, and at this particular moment, the Church of England. For the issue of women in leadership, particularly as bishops is once again a hot potato. Conservatives and Catholics within the Church of England find themselves often in strange juxtaposition with Roman Catholic and Orthodox teaching on the ‘headship’ issue in relation to women.

Even more of a juxtaposition now...... but the key passage is on pages 7-8

It seems to me we have a choice at this moment in history. Either we face inwards and increasingly narrow the focus of our lenses on the minutiae of whatever we perceive as ‘deal breakers.’ Or we face outwards and have a radical change of heart towards the priorities determined by the plight of the planet and its people. We cannot do both. To do the latter will need moral imagination.

I may blog at some stage about this weeks Vatican manoeverings. But actually there are far more important things going on in the church, and in the world. In the grand scheme of things, how much does it really matter if a few dozen priests and a few hundred worshippers decide to become semi-detached Roman Catholics? Stick a couple of zeroes on the end if you want, it's still nowhere near the billions in poverty, the 800 million without clean water, the number of chronically depressed people in the UK right now, or pretty much any other indicator of human need and suffering you choose.

We love the intrigue, I'm not sure God does. I'm with my Bishop on this one.

Re:Source meeting in Taunton

Info via our Diocesan newsletter:

ReSource (formerly Anglican Renewal Ministries) are about to start a series of regional meetings, with evenings for supporters which will be repeated on an annual basis. The SW meeting is at St James Church Taunton on the evening of Wednesday 26 August - refreshments from 7.00 - start at 7.30 and finish at 9.30.

For more information call Christine Treanor 01749 672860

Here's the full list of regional days, from their website
- 26th August for the South West region in Taunton, Somerset.
- 30th September for the South, in Reading, Berks.
- 18th November for the South East in Chelmsford, Essex.
- 9th December for the southern part of the North, in Halifax, Yorks.
- 6th January 2010 for the Midlands in Loughborough, Leics.
- 21st April 2010 for the northern part of the North, in Penrith, Cumbria.

I'd just like to note that the word for the 'southern part of the North' is Yorkshire, but please don't describe Yorkshire folk as 'southern', it's just not done....

The Church of England - the Next 25 Years

If you were putting together a 5-part lecture series on the title above, what would you cover? Who would you invite? Would that have changed since last Sunday? Here's what Wells Cathedral have come up with:

15th Sept 'The Arts and Contemporary Expressions of Christianity' (Nick Bury, Dean of Gloucester)

22 Sept 'The Church and the Liberal State' (Theo Hobson)

29 Sept 'From Obligation to Consumption: Different Ways of Being Church' (Grace Davie)

6 Oct 'TS Eliot revisited - the end of Christian society?' (John Clarke, Dean of Wells)

13 Oct 'The C of E: the next 25 yeas in the context of other faiths, the worldwide church and the Anglican Communion' (Peter Price, Bishop of Bath and Wells)

It's 40 minutes up the road, and there are a couple of these I may go and here, Grace Davie and Peter Price. Personally I have trouble working out where the CofE will be in 5 years, let alone 25, so best of luck to them. Lectures are at 7.30pm, followed by Q&A with the speaker, free entry.

Interesting, but not uncommon from my experience of diocesan websites, to find that there was no obvious link to Wells Cathedral from the Diocese of Bath and Wells homepage.

Glastonbury Festival (the other one)

Here's the programme for this Saturdays celebration of 1100 years of the Diocese of Bath and Wells, free event in the ground of Glastonbury Abbey. More info on travel, accessibility etc. here.

Programme of events:
9 am Main Abbey gate opens. Full peal from the bells of St John's Church begins.
10 am Exhibitions and stalls open in Abbey grounds. Gate from Silver St open.
St Margaret's Chapel and almshouses open (all day). Iconographer John Coleman's work on display in almshouses.
11 am Children's World activities (until 4pm)
11 am Food and drink outlets open (until 8pm)
11-11.30am Salvation Army Band (refreshment marquee)

12 noon A Service of Celebration (main stage, around 45 minutes)
1.15-1.45pm Salvation Army Band (refreshment marquee)
1.45 pm Music workshop details start
Also see details of Music workshop leaders (booking needed - see leaders page for details)
1.45 pm Talks and Workshops start

2 -3 pm Restorative Justice dance groups (main stage)
2 -2.45 pm A Midsummer Night's Dream, performed by Baltonsborough primary school (Abbey ruins, to 2.45pm)
2 -3 pm Roly - a clown for all seasons (main m arquee) for more info on Roly see: http://www.rolybain.co.uk/
2 -3 pm "A Beginner's Guide to dong nothing". A talk by Bishop Stephen Cottrell of Reading (see Speakers) about finding space for prayer and contemplation in daily life (Town Hall)
2 - 4pm Glastonbury Sacred Circle Dance Group(Abbey grounds)
2 - 4pm Avalonian Free State choir (Abbey grounds)

2 - 6pm Mothers' Union Cream Teas (Abbey House Gardens)
2.30 - 3.30pm Poetry reading in St Margaret's Chapel

3pm - 4pm Youthful Spirit gospel choir from Churchill School (main stage) for more info see: http://www.youthfulspirit.org.uk/
3pm - 4pm "The moral component of fighting power, or why there is more to life than politics and economics" - a talk by Major General Tim Cross (main marquee) for more information see Speakers

4.15pm Pageant. A romp through 1100 years of history (Abbey ruins)
6pm - 8pm Concert, including Youthful Spirit gospel choir, Adams Apple jazz band, and Lyrica (harmony group http://www.lyrica.co.uk/ )

Let The One Who Has a Field, Sell It to a Developer

Housing Projections
Latest government projections suggest that in just over 20 years, there will be 6.3 million extra housholds in the England. This is a rise of nearly 30%, driven by a combination of population increase, higher life expectancy (half the extra households will be 65 and overs), fracturing families and net migration. Summary here.

Impact on the South-West
The South-West will see a rise from 2.11 million households to just over 3 million. That's 1 extra home for every 2.1 houses - picture that in your street/town.

The planning agency for the South-West has planned extra housing up to 2026 - South Somerset's share of that is 19,700 houses, of which Yeovil is identified for 11,400 extra houses.
That will increase the population of Yeovil from the current 40,000-ish to 65,000.

However, the planned totals for 2026 are based on old government projections. These new ones represent a 10% increase on previous estimates. That could be spread evenly around the area ( = 1000 extra houses for Yeovil), or done on a more 'lumpy' basis.

A final version of the 'Regional Spatial Strategy' for the South-West is due at the end of June from the Department of Communities and Local Government. I don't know whether Hazel Blears departure will affect those timings.

Here's the regional projections from 2006-2031, figures in '000. If you want to work out population, the average household size is estimated at roughly 2.2 people per household:

North East: 1,110 to 1,316 19% rise
North West: 2,931 to 3,617 23% rise
Yorkshire & The Humber: 2,181 to 2,932 34% rise
East Midlands: 1,849 to 2,539 37% rise
West Midlands: 2,237 to 2,762 23% rise
East: 2,371 to 3,211 35% rise
London: 3,178 to 4,016 26% rise
South East: 3,447 to 4,425 28% rise
South West: 2,211 to 3,001 36% rise
England: 21,515 to 27,818 29% rise

Implications for the Church of England
1. Unless there is a massive rise in ordination levels, the ratio of clergy:general population will continue to drop.

2. This in turn raises serious questions about the nature of local leadership within the CofE. We need to be planting churches which can function well with lay leadership and less clergy input, and recalibrating the ones we have to work in the same way. That's not about doing the same work with less resources, we need to rethink the work itself.

3. Ecumenical mission partnership moves up the agenda. The parish system is creaking at the seams, and in many places exists more on paper than in reality. If these projections are even half true, many areas will be transformed over the next 20 years. Ancient parish boundaries will bear less and less relationship with reality, and without a serious effort at church planting, the parish system itself will cease to mean anything.

We can be committed to neighbourhood churches without having to run them all ourselves. In nearby Weston-super-Mare, different neighbourhoods in new estates are served by a mixture of churches, not all of them Anglican. Here in Bath and Wells we've just appointed an Ecumenical Mission Enabler (had a good chat earlier this week), and the whole ecumenical agenda itself needs to focus more on collaborative mission.

4. Dioceses will need some kind of church planting strategy for new estates, and to take time to resource local church leaders who are trying to engage with new communities on the ground.

A local picture.
We have a local situation with a 4-parish benefice, 4 village churches, but where more than half the population is in an urban area on the edge of Yeovil, mostly built in the last 20 years. This neighbourhood doesn't have an accessible, local parish church, even though it falls into 3 (rural) parishes. The parish system hasn't kept up with real people and real lives, but whenever you talk, about moving boundaries people mutter darkly about how long it will take and what a faff it will be. Within current structures, with so much new housing planned, that is a picture of the future for more and more people.

If we are committed to the parish system, then we have to find a way to reform it so that it keeps on working.

and finally... presently, nobody is building anything. You can plan all you like, but at the moment neither developers, nor government, can actually afford the houses we need right now, never mind the houses of the future....

Clergy Vacancies and Church Decline

Bob Jacksons 'The Road to Growth' (digested version here) speaks of the 'self inflicted wounds' of the Church of England - decisions the CofE has taken which have contributed to declining membership. One of these is allowing long vacancies between vicars. Most Dioceses do this to save money, though on the positive side it can give parishes time to take stock and work out what kind of leadership they need for the next chapter of their mission and ministry.

Jacksons research suggested that churches with a vacancy of longer than 6 months would see a decline in membership, and that even though membership often rose with a new leader, it didn't recover to the levels prior to the vacancy. From a sample of 155 churches, vacancies of 6-9 months saw a drop of 9% during the vacancy, those of 9-12 months a drop of 12%, and longer vacancies saw a drop of nearly 20%. Here's his chart, which you can find in this presentation.

I have to say this makes a lot of sense, and has been my own experience of churches. There is one here in Yeovil which saw a 8% drop in membership during a recent 9 month vacancy, which (thankfully) has recovered strongly since the appoinment of a new vicar.

But: at our Diocesan Synod last month, a local statistician presented a different picture. He argued that, from his evidence, a vacancy (also known as an 'interregnum') had no effect on church membership. He compared 1 group of churches, which had experienced a vacancy, with a control group of churches which, over the same period, hadn't experienced a vacancy (there were a couple of other things he did to iron out differences, which I won't bore you with). With over 100 churches in each group to iron out individual quirks, any major differences between the two could be linked to the absence of a clergy leader.

I was expecting his stats to back up Jacksons research. They didn't. He found no evidence for the effect of a vacancy on membership at all, whether 1, 2 or 3 years after the event, whether the church was large or small, urban or rural. Here are his stats

Vacancy group (118 churches)

Membership before 6586 average m'ship 55.8 index 100

Membership during 6647 average 56.3 index 100.9

Membership after 6223 average 52.7 index 94.5

No vacancy

before 6325 ave 53.6 index 100

during 6173 ave 52.3 index 97.6

after 5987 ave 50.7 index 94.7

Basically, both groups showed a decline of around 5% over the same period.

I really don't know what to make of this. Here are two decent sized samples of churches, analysed differently, which produce completely different results. At gut level I'm with Jackson, his findings just seem to make sense, but......

You can prove a lot of things with statistics, and this may just mean that the leadership of Anglican clergy is so ineffectual that it doesn't make any difference whether we're there or not (!), but I'm not aware of any other organisation that leaves long leadership vacancies because it sees them as a good thing.

I don't have the detailed workings, and the Bath & Wells chap is a professional statistician whilst I just have a couple of school passes at Maths. But now this is bugging me...

Update: Bishop Alan goes into detail about what they do in Bucks when a parish falls vacant. Good discussion there, and some interesting, and creative ideas about what to do during a vacancy. There's more to this than the length of the gap, there's what you do with it: just wait 11 months and save some cash, or use it to do some hard work on strategy and community?

We're all going on a.....

...... clergy conference
No more blogging for a day or two
Lots of vicars at the clergy conference
There's room for me and you -hoo - hoo
If you're from Bath and Wells too.

We're going where the beer flows nightly
With Bishops Peter one and two
We've seen the fliers and the programme
Now we'll see if it's true

(with apologies to Cliff Richard)

The 'No Small Change' conference prayer: "Lord, you are the changeless one, who comes to change us into the likeness of Jesus Christ your Son: as we gather in your name give us the courage to let your Spirit transform us that we may hear again your call to be an instrument of changing lives in the world you so love. Amen."

Bath and Wells 1100th anniversary website

New website online from today for the 1100th anniversary of my Diocese, Bath and Wells, which is next year. There's quite a lot of stuff on it, and it looks like a good resource for next year. If you're in Somerset, it's worth a look.

Blurb on our main Diocesan website says:
2009 marks the 1100th anniversary of the founding of the Diocese of Bath and Wells. It seems too important a landmark to go unmarked, and a perfect opportunity to give thanks for our past, celebrate our present, and challenge the future.

Bath and Wells Communication Survey

If you're in Bath and Wells Diocese and want to let them know what you think of Grapevine (the Diocesan newspaper) and the Diocesan website, then you can do an online survey here.

I've had my say, but I've not gone in for the free M&S goodie bag at the end, so it's all yours...........