Dominic Cummings

If the mainstream media was all we had to go by, the only 3 things we'd know about Dominic Cummings are 
a) Benedict Cumberbatch 
b) he said rude things about Tory MPs 
c) he didn't show up to a select committee. 

If they'd spent as much time actually reading his blog as they did trawling it for headline-worthy quotes we might all benefit. There is some pretty incisive critique of the way we do politics ("it is impossible to describe the extent to which politicians in Britain do not even consider ‘the timetable and process for turning announcement X into reality’ as something to think about — for people like Cameron and Blair the announcement IS the only reality and ‘management’ is a dirty word for junior people to think about"), and a guy who has thought and read deeply about how we do decision making and deliver results. 

Fascinating and rewarding read, if you have a spare hour. dominiccummings.com/

"My role as a church leader is to empty the church"

Great interview with Adam Dyer, from our own Yeovil Community Church, by the Evangelical Alliance:

So my role as church leader isn't to fill the church, but to empty the church – we run these projects not to get people in to the church but to get the church into the community. That idea that our neighbour is right there, that there's brokenness  right there, that we can share this journey with people. Jesus came bringing the kingdom one act of love at a time, and we as a Church are invited into this movement.

Fresh Expressions of Vicar 4: My Generation*, Your Generation, Regeneration

The CofE cannot continue as it is. The Church that hundreds of Curates are being ordained to serve this weekend will be very different in 20 years time: have we prepared them for the church of the past of the church of the future? Guest blogger Andy Griffiths continues his thoughts on Titus as a model for CofE ordained ministry....

FROM INCUMBENT AS CHAPLAIN TO INCUMBENT AS SPONSOR OF INTERGENERATIONAL DISCIPLESHIP
The final theme I see in Titus is that of the generations.  This is a book all about discipleship – but there is no expectation that Titus will “disciple” the Cretan Christians himself.  Rather, as we see in Titus 2.3-5
The older women … [are to] urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind…
and we can infer a similar dynamic with the older and younger men.

Before Titus leaves Crete, he is to have established the sort of church where the generations interact healthily, for the sake of Christian maturity.  How this can be done is another matter entirely.

The country is filled with churches that prioritise the needs of one, or at most two generations, and then co-opt incumbents to be the chaplain for that age group – this most commonly happens where churches are institutionally age-ist (so music, language and preaching style disenfranchises younger parishioners), but it is by no means unknown for a younger generation to “take over” and exclude their elders.

I believe it would be a mistake to concentrate on the separation of the sexes (crucial in first and second century Crete, no longer very relevant in Essex), and should instead ask how incumbents can be sponsors of intergenerational relationships for the good of all.  This is an area where my performance has been poor, though we have sponsored “team-preaching” on six occasions (the sermon being delivered in dialogue by one person in their 40s and one person in their teens)

On Monday, Caroline Gemma and I (aged 47, 51 and 35 but not in that order!) met to plan Holiday Club.  We have about 100 children coming, aged 5-10, about 10 young leaders aged 11-18, and about 6 retired leaders, plus ourselves.  Our discussions focussed on how we could help the event be intergenerational.  We decided that the children would be assigned to groups, each led by 11-18s, who would be the primary storytellers; but each secondary student would be assigned an adult leader to support them, ensure proper safeguarding, encourage them and step in only when needed.  We would love these relationships to continue into the future.

The bottom line is this: when I, like Titus, leave the local church for which I’ve presently been assigned the “cure of souls”, I want there to be a discipling culture so strong that it won’t depend on the next incumbent to underwrite it; and that culture has to be an intergenerational one.  Ask me how this is going in a couple of years.

EPILOGUE: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TITUS?
Church tradition tells us that once he had spent a few years in Crete, Titus’ next assignment was in Dalmatia (what we would call the Croatian coast).  Such is the lot of the incumbent – unlike the ministry team, who are generally longterm members of the local church, we move on to new assignments, hoping that we have made ourselves dispensable enough for our successors not to have to struggle as hard as we did to be successful at equipping from the margins.

A few years ago, I was given an icon of Titus by a colleague who had just visited Crete.  An elderly Titus is in Crete, reading the scroll of the letter sent to him as a young man.  And if church tradition is right, Titus did indeed, eventually, end up back in Crete – not as a member of an apostolic team, but as an old man, retiring back to the scene of his earlier ministry.  Now finally, the story says, he has the chance to be a part of a local church team as an overseer.

The icon captures the moment that he reaches the part where Paul declares that Jesus’ purpose was
to purify for himself a people that are his very own, zealous to do what is good.

He looks into the middle distance.  Possibly, the icon writer intended that Titus is looking on us, seeing how we are doing with the legacy he left us.

If you’ve read all four of these reflections: respect!  Thank you for your patience.  What do you think?

Andy Griffiths is now an Area Dean (“middle management in the Church of England”) and Vicar in Essex, and has been guest blogging this week about incumbent ministry.  This is the fourth and last post. Follow the Titus Series tag to read the others, or click...
Part 1 - from manager to team member
Part 2 - from do-it-all to enabler on the margins
Part 3 - keeping the main thing the main thing: but what is it?

* The Who's recent gig at Glastonbury 'inspired' the title of this post. 'People try to put us down' takes on a whole new meaning when the band are all in their 70s. If the song was released today, it might be seen as a protest against legalised euthanasia. 

Fresh Expressions of Vicar 3: One Message, or 3000 Sermons?

3120 sermons. That's how many sermons a person will hear if they go to church every Sunday for 60 years. More, if they take the God Channel. What do vicars talk about for all that time? What do we really need to talk about? Andy Griffiths continues as guest blogger...

FROM INCUMBENT AS MANAGER TO INCUMBENT AS VOICE OF GRACE

My second post may have given the impression that the incumbent’s job is primarily that of being a manager of volunteers. 

If so, it is perhaps a surprise that Titus’ role is primarily focussed on what he is to say.  He is not to manage every part of church life, but he is to be a voice for what really matters.  “Keeping the main thing the main thing” is going to be crucial, because there will be so many distractions, and his method to keep the main thing the main thing is primarily rhetorical.  At Crete, the “disruptions” (1.11) centre on the promotion of circumcision and the telling of mythical stories (1.10-16); in 3.9 we hear that foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law are unprofitable and useless.

Some people are “divisive” (3.10), and it seems to be Titus’ role, not that of the ministry team, to

warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them.

“When the church needs hard work and generous action”, comments Tom Wright with reference to this passage, “it’s interesting how some people, perhaps as an avoidance technique, suddenly discover that there are all sorts of theological and biblical disputes that they need to hide behind”.  In the face of these disrupting alternative narratives, and of a bent towards Law (whether this is to be understood as Torah-based boundary markers or a more Gentile legalism), Titus is to be a single-minded champion of a message of “grace” followed by “zeal”.  

Here is that message in Titus 2.12-14 and 3.4-8:

Grace teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, zealous to do what is good.

But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.

The pattern repeats several times in these verses: the Saviour delivers by grace, and that grace, given quite apart from any worth in our actions, leads us to devotion, zeal, doing good, saying no to ungodliness, etc.  John Stott expresses the message of these verses with customary thoroughness: “Salvation’s need is our sin, guilt and slavery; its source is God’s gracious loving kindness; its ground is not our merit but God’s mercy in the cross; its means is the regenerating and renewing work of the Holy Spirit, signified in baptism; its goal is our final inheritance of eternal life; and its evidence is our diligent practice of good works… The past is justification and regeneration.  The present is a new life of good works in the power of the Spirit.  The future is the inheritance of eternal life.”  

This goes beyond a Reformation commitment to sola gratia (by grace alone) – it may suggest sola gratitudine (living by gratitude alone), in which a life eager to do good is motivated not by pride (you’re better than this), threat (you’d better do this) or guilt (if only you’d done this) but simply by unforced, confident, cheerful gratitude.  If your zeal for good works is slipping, don’t look to the law, look to the grace of salvation.

The incumbent is to be a voice for grace that leads to zeal to do good.  “The dominant theme in Titus is good works for the sake of outsiders”, says Gordon Fee, but the way to stimulate these is to help church members appreciate the wonder of salvation.  Without such a voice, a church will slip into legalism and distraction, and ironically the end result will be not only a depressed, defeated church, but a demotivated church not engaged in active love.  

This rings true to my experience – lay preaching teams seem to have a tendency to need bringing back to the rhythm of grace that leads to action for the community.  The answer to this natural slippage is not for the incumbent to once again take on the mantle of “the preacher”, delivering all the sermons and leading all the midweek groups, but for her to use every rhetorical advice at her disposal to help the ministry team exemplify this rhythm – and if necessary to make sure legalists and distractors do not have a microphone at their disposal. 

And if we can move incumbents to the margins of the church, there is some hope that they will be able to bring grace to bear on the structures of the community, pioneer new projects, and be active in creative evangelism.  Of course, this is not guaranteed.  But if incumbents are still having to chair the PCCs, pacify the flower-arrangers, raise money for the spire and visit two housebound church members a day, the scope for this fruitful, grace-voicing marginal ministry is almost nil.

The final reflection will be posted here tomorrow

Andy Griffiths is a dad, a husband, a Vicar in Essex and the “Warden of Ministers” of a Mission and Ministry Unit Team – he’s talked about the appointment process for this in his earlier posts,  I've invited Andy to guest blog four posts about incumbent ministry, originally written for the church of Essex. Because it's the only way. This is the third post – in his first two posts he spoke of incumbents as team members and enablers. Follow the Titus Series link below for the other posts. 

Fresh Expressions of Vicar 2: How to get the Vicar out of the Way

In a bid to save the vicars of the future from guilt, burnout and untimely death, Andy Griffiths continues his guest blogs on Titus and ordained ministry in the CofE. 

FROM INCUMBENT AS FOCUS OF UNITY TO INCUMBENT AS ENABLER ON THE MARGINS

The team sent Titus to Crete to appoint a ministry leadership team and let them (not him) be central to church life.  And then he was to leave them to it, and move on to a new assignment.   So Titus 1.5-9 describe the qualities to be looked for in this local team:

The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.  An elder must be blameless and faithful to their spouse; if they have children, they should be believers not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer manages God’s household, they must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, they must be hospitable, loving what is good, self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.  They must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that they can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

The criteria for the ministry team members are clear: faithful in their families (v6), faithful in self-management (v7), faithful in relation to outsiders (v8).  Incumbents oversee the selection, empowerment, training and encouragement of ministry teams.  This is a better use of their time than acting as Vicars.

“Vicar” is an oddly apposite word for what incumbents have often found themselves doing – they are substitutes, standing in for others.  They sometimes stand in for the parishioners by having a prayer life so other people don’t have to (“Say one for me, Vicar”) and they sometimes stand in for those in the pews and chairs who would be more than able to lead worship, preach sermons, care for one another and run the church if only the Vicars got out of their way.  (I was present at a diocesan consultation day where we were asked for a word that gave us the most hope for new life and growth in their parishes – every single layperson in my group chose “interregnum”).  

We incumbents may try to justify this in terms of us being the “focus of unity” (how did this choice of words enter the conversation?  Isn’t it meant to refer to bishops?), but in fact I wonder if we are simply resisting a call to move towards the margins and let others be centre-stage. (I was deeply unsettled to meet a priest who had discouraged a congregation member from seeking ordination with local deployment, because that would have compromised his position as “Eucharistic Focus”).  

By contrast, Titus was not a vicar but an enabler, appointing and enabling the elders/overseers to do their tasks as a team.  I have made this move very imperfectly – I still sometimes wake in the night, concerned about Galleywood, which implies that I may still somehow see myself as indispensable to it.  But here are two anecdotes that give some impression of how I have tried to be less vicarious and more like Titus.

First: back around the year 2008, we were starting to set up a pastoral care team.  But I was hearing complaints from some of the elderly and housebound people we would visit: when a couple of laypeople from the pastoral care team dropped in, it felt as if “that didn’t count” or “the church hadn’t been”.  After the death of one elderly parishioner, the son complained that in her whole last six months, the church hadn’t been to see her at all.  “I’m so sorry”, I said, “I’d understood that Elva and Edith were regular visitors.”  “O yes, they were often round, I don’t know what mum would have done without them – but they’re not the church, they’re normal people!”  

So I made a decision: for a year, I wouldn’t visit anyone, ever, in their homes for pastoral reasons.

By the end of the year, it was a common subject around the village that the Vicar didn’t visit.  But it was also commonly known that there was a pastoral care team, and Rosemary (a lay person) led it, and it was really good. Make no mistake, a parish’s felt need to have the incumbent at the centre of everything is often at least as strong as the incumbent’s felt need to be there – but we must engage in the struggle to extricate ourselves and get back to the margins where we belong.  

Not long ago I covered a service in a parish I didn’t know.  I asked what their expectations were (is someone doing the intercessions?  Is someone reading the epistle?  that sort of thing) and was told that in that church, the members didn’t get involved in saying things at the communion.  Imagine my surprise to discover that “not getting involved” included not even saying the words in bold print in the service booklet – including not only the sanctus and Gloria, but even the Lord’s Prayer and the amens!  I guess that would have felt unanglican.  Brothers and sisters, we took a wrong turn somewhere.  . 

A second story: in 2010 there was a sense at St Michael’s that a member of the clergy (myself or my colleague the curate) “ought” to be in church every week.  It wasn’t that anyone resented there being lay leadership or laypeople preaching – but “it just didn’t feel right” for there not to be a vicar in the building.  

So we decided that at least once a month, we’d make sure neither of us were in church on Sunday morning.  

We were not service-providers for a set of consumers, but encouragers of a people with a purpose.  Three years later, all the churches in the Unit have incumbent presence exactly 50% of the time on Sunday mornings, and another important step has been taken towards breaking the curse of dependence on incumbents.  Please note: since this goes alongside the development of ministry teams including locally deployed priests, this does not in the medium or long term mean anyone is deprived of communion – less incumbents need not mean less priests.  

What’s absolutely clear is that for me to spend my Sunday morning driving from church to church, celebrating communion and then getting straight into the car to get to the next eucharist, would not be sane for me or missionally helpful for God’s people.  St Michael’s Galleywood has become a Church of Teams – an evangelism team, a pastoral care team, a leadership team, a preachers’ team, and so on.  Most days, I’m glad.  Some days, it feels like being at the margins instead of the centre is a good place to be, giving me a chance to get involved in mission to those not part of the church community.

Frankly, we have to do something.  I met with an ordained colleague this morning, and the subject turned to whether any of us knew any incumbents who work full-time (that is, 40 hours a week approx.) but no more.  We came to the conclusion that neither of us did know anyone like this, and we feared that if an incumbent did work like this they’d be in danger of ending up guilty in themselves, bullied by their congregations and suspect to their Area Deans.  

Which means that the post of incumbent is closed to all but a select few able to sustain this kind of rhythm, week in week out.  

It is probably closed to anyone with small children and a spouse in inflexible full-time work.  I write as (most of the time) a happy incumbent – even one whose ministry gives him some satisfaction most of the time.  But I am determined, if only as a model for others, to do better at not being indispensable.  I’m nobody’s hero, and I just don’t have the energy to be Jesus any more. 

Andy Griffiths is a Vicar in Essex, an enthusiast for the Moravian tradition and a member of a small new-monastic “mini-order” but his main claim to fame is that he went to college with the Opinionated Vicar (who at that stage wasn't a vicar, but the other bit was true).  So that’s why he’s “guest blogging” four posts about incumbent ministry.  Last time, he presented a model of incumbency where incumbents serve in something a bit like the “apostolic teams” of the New Testament. This is the second post, follow these links or the 'Titus Series' tag for the others. 

Update: the CofE comms blog has What's It Really Like to be a Vicar? 

Fresh Expressions of Vicar: can we do better than 'the Eucharistic prayer and volunteer management'?

Swathes of Curates are about to be unleashed upon the Church of England. Do they know what they are letting themselves in for? Over the next few years, what shape of local church leadership will they be trained for? Over to guest blogger Andy Griffiths...

BEING TITUS: A NEW MODEL FOR INCUMBENT MINISTRY

Most people either didn’t notice Titus, or they did notice but were disappointed that it was him who’d come.

In the first category is Luke, who never mentions Titus at all, despite at least twelve apostolic team members being name-checked and despite Titus having been (on the evidence of the letters) a key figure in the expansion of the Christian movement.  Outside the book of Titus, Paul names him twelve times in letters, but he does so in such a way that he makes clear that no one else shares Paul’s high view of him.  In Galatians 2.1-3 we learn that the Jewish believers were unconvinced that people like Titus were converted at all; in 2 Corinthians 8.23 and 12.18 we learn that the Corinthians were disappointed that it was Titus whom Paul sent with a letter, and so Paul has to justify his choice at length.  Titus was a disappointing nobody.

In other words, Titus is an ideal patron saint and model for incumbent ministers today.  And a new model is very much required.  Chelmsford Diocese, for example, is calling churches to move from being “communities around a Minister” to being “ministering communities”.  Most parishes will gladly sign up to this aspiration – but where does leave those of us who are “Ministers”?  Take Galleywood, the parish which I have served as Vicar for 10 years.  Its PCC (Church Council) is chaired by a layperson, its life is largely run by a lay “administrator and vision coordinator”, there are multiple licensed and authorised lay ministers doing over 50% of the leading of worship and preaching, and pastoral care in the hands of an able pastoral care team which I do not lead, so what’s my role?  Surely it’s not only the Eucharistic prayer and volunteer management?  Is there a way I can meaningfully discharge my “cure of souls” without being central to church life?

My concern here is mostly with Anglican incumbents – I include Priests in Charge, Vicars, Rectors, Team Vicars, and Ministers in Charge – all those to whom is entrusted the “cure of souls” of a given parish or set of parishes, whether they happen to be paid or not (though as a matter of fact the enormous majority of incumbents are paid).  In the Church of England, there is an additional complication, because a high proportion of incumbents will be retiring in the next 10 years – about half, by some estimates, so that an influential article spoke recently of “the leading of the 5,000”, suggesting that there will be approximately five thousand paid Church of England incumbents left, compared with 23,235 in 1901.  So there’s a danger that those of us remaining will be stretched ever more thinly and be ever more isolated.  I want to suggest that the book of Titus provides a fourfold model that is life-giving.  It has to be worth a try.

FROM INCUMBENT AT THE HEART OF A PARISH, TO INCUMBENT AS APOSTOLIC TEAM MEMBER

Titus (and the letters to Timothy) have a special status in the Bible.  They give us a window into the organizational structures of the early church.  The later they are – and New Testament scholarship continues to debate their date – the more significant this window becomes, because it implies that we are seeing a mature church after the first flush of charismatic enthusiasm.  To put it bluntly, the letters to the Corinthians presume a context extremely different from the contemporary Church of England, but when we read 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus we are on slightly more familiar ground.

And a quick reading of these letters reveals one simple fact: there are no Vicars in Crete at this time.  At no stage is Titus commissioned to be their Pastor or Parish Priest.  Instead, we see teams: an apostolic team that Titus is part of, and a team of elders/overseers in the Cretan church(es) whom he is to select and assist.   

We have relatively little information about how the apostolic team functioned.  For example, was it “a team led by an apostle” or “a team of apostles”?  (Both seem to have been the case at different times – an example that is contested for quite different reasons is Andronicus and Junia in Romans 16.7).  My own view is that apostolic teams were “flatter” in structure than a first reading of Acts might imply.  Paul, though not a person with a lack of self-belief, seems to have been wary of acting alone in any way, and even the letters we commonly refer to as “Paul’s epistles” often had multiple authorship (Paul and Silas or Paul and Sosthenes or Paul and Timothy or whatever).  

With direct relevance to Titus, take Paul’s words in 2 Cor 12-13:

Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia.

Here Paul – even though God had “opened a door” for his ministry – could not operate without Titus.  It was Paul and his team, or nothing.  If we ask “why couldn’t Paul preach without Titus around?” we might answer psychologically (“he just didn’t feel comfortable”) or practically (“Paul was physically weak, at least at this point, and needed Titus to be his spokesperson, or to physically hold him up.”)  

But there seems also to have been an ecclesiological point: Paul, on principle, was not in favour of going it alone – that would have modelled quite the wrong sort of Christian life.

So Chelmsford diocese is modelling what it calls “Mission and Ministry Unit Teams” (MMU Teams).  An MMU team contains several incumbents, and may also contain other team members including some self-supporting priests, working together to serve a set of local churches and supporting the local (largely unpaid, and sometimes including “locally deployed” self-supporting priests) “ministry teams” in each local church.  

Take, for example, Southwest Chelmsford Churches, a MMU comprising 5 churches in 4 parishes, served at present by 3 incumbents, a curate and a flourishing lay team.  I am one of these incumbents, and have the “cure of souls” for one of the churches in the MMU; but I am also licensed as an associate priest in the other 4, and have responsibility across the five churches in the areas of Vocation, Vision and Pioneering.  My colleagues Stephanie and Carol each have the cure of souls for two churches each, are again licensed as associates to all the churches in the MMU, and have responsibility (respectively) for Education, Evangelism and Worship and for Community Involvement, Pastoral Care and Spiritual Growth.  It so happens that I am at present also “Warden of Ministers”, which means that I have the responsibility of drawing us together for regular clergy meetings, and also inviting lay people appointed by each church to meet with us; but Southwest Chelmsford Churches is a self-consciously egalitarian MMU, and neither Stephanie, nor Carol, nor I are in any sense the “leader” of the Unit.  (I was LITERALLY appointed on the toss of a coin). 

If asked to describe my role, I tend to say “I’m Titus”, which is unhelpful for anyone who has not read this post.  My intention is not to try to recapture the first Cretan church in some fundamentalist, proof-texting way, but to maintain that there is a resonance between the apostolic team implied in the book of Titus and the structures we are discovering here in mid-Essex.

I think this “Chelmsford Model” has significant advantages over similar schemes in other parts of the Anglican communion, which group churches into clusters but then still treat incumbents as sole practitioners.  It has something in common with what I saw when I received the hospitality of the Augustinian Canons in Poitou, in western France. Sixteen local parishes come under the “episcopé » of four (stipendiary) priests, who live in the centre of the area. Each parish has its own équipe animatrice, a lay team which is responsible for the ongoing liturgical and spiritual life of the parish. One Sunday a month, a priest from the central team visits the parish, celebrates mass, provides episcopé, and trains and supports the équipe animatrice as to how they can lead services of the word over the next three weeks. In Poitiers diocese the policy is to avoid communion by extension, as it is felt to devalue the real Mass. In Poitiers diocese, the équipe animatrice (also referred to as ‘anciens’, elders – though they say this makes them feel old!) are all equal members, without one of them being appointed as ‘team leader’.

So the first part of my fourfold description of incumbent ministry today is this: Incumbents have a responsibility to work together in teams.   It would be good if training included how to work in teams  To those who say that incumbents are too eccentric, too autonomous or too awkward to do so, I can only point again to the eccentricity, autonomy and awkwardness of Paul, and say “if he had to do it, so do we”.   

Andy Griffiths has taught in a theological college in Hungary for five years, worked in France for 5 years and is now a Vicar in Essex, but his main claim to fame is that he went to college with David Keen.(Editors note - these are Andy's words not mine!!)  So that’s why he’s “guest blogging” four posts about incumbent ministry.  This is the first. Follow the links below for the others (will go 'live' as the posts go up)

Fresh Expressions of Vicar 2: How to get the Vicar out of the Way.
Fresh Expressions of Vicar 3: The Only Thing We Really Have to Say
Fresh Expressions of Vicar 4: My Generation, Your Generation, Regeneration

Are you hiding a tightrope-walking dog?

A tightrope-walking dog won Britains Got Talent at the weekend, or did it? It was a remarkable act, but the dog which escaped from jail by tightrope during the routine was actually a stunt double for the star act, Matisse. The second dog was kept hidden backstage throughout the rest of the act, and it was kept hidden both from the judges and the voting public too, who all thought they were voting for a single dog and its trainer.

The routine is very clever, and very skilful, but its in danger of being overshadowed by what was kept hidden backstage.

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but it keeps cropping up so I'll mention it again. Author Simon Walker talks of our 'frontstage' and 'backstage' - what we allow other people to see, and what we keep out of sight. Alison Morgan has done an excellent summary of his work, and here's a clip:

The two stages can’t be kept completely separate – what goes on in one will always to some extent leak onto the other. This is particularly so for social and spiritual leaders and those in caring professions – their own unmet emotional needs, pushed backstage, generate resentment, envy, pride, anger or even rage – and these things begin to leak frontstage. 

When the things we didn't want people to see are discovered, or leak onto the frontstage, the response can be as its been with BGT - quite a lot of upset. There are parts of our lives which, despite the running commentary of social media, are best not disclosed and put on general display. I've actually found that people use Facebook, Twitter and the like more to manage their frontstage - to project an image and the story they want other people to see, it's the brave exceptions who still attract admiring comments.

But it's best not to have secrets if we can possibly avoid it.  There is a merciful Judge who knows exactly what is going on backstage, as well as front, and, to our surprise, won't vote us off if we own up.

Put your mushrooms in the sunshine

Jeremy Clarkson, mushrooms, Acts chapter 5, back stage passes. Its amazing the connections you find sometimes.

Yesterdays challenge was preaching on Acts 5, the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who conspire in secret to buy a good reputation in the early church, forgetting that God sees what we do when we think nobody is looking. Whether it was greed, or desire for the kudos which went with appearing generous whilst trousering some of the proceeds, we don't know. But they sell some property, present what they claim is the full amount to the church, whilst conniving between them to keep some back.

The result is pretty dramatic: God shows Peter the secret scheme, he confronts them with it, and they drop down dead. Be wary of what you put in the collection plate, it should carry a health warning.

Simon Walker has written some excellent leadership books, where he talks about the front and back stage. The front stage is performance, what we let others see. The back stage is private: fears, decisions, research, private crises, the things we normally keep people out of. The election campaign is all front stage: a frenzied attempt to manage what is seen and heard, and an equally frenzied attempt to keep all the 'back stage' stuff out of view. Nobody wants another Gillian Duffy moment. So, David Cameron was in my constituency yesterday, a fact I only discovered on the news later. Why? Because the only people who knew were Conservative supporters and invited journalists. God forbid he should meet a real voter.

Politicians dread the moment when the back stage mess falls through the curtain onto the front stage. Don't we all. It can be very public - Jeremy Clarkson has gone into some of the 'back stage' reasons for his well publicised blow up a few weeks ago. They don't excuse it, but a combination of divorce, bereavement, cancer and a high profile highly scrutinised job probably isn't a recipe for mental calm.

There was a recent food programme which mentioned that mushrooms, if exposed to sunlight for an hour or two, turn from nutritionally useless fungi into a rich source of Vitamin D. Something grown in the dark, when exposed to the light, becomes a health benefit rather than a mould.

Paul writes "you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light". If Ananias and Sapphira had let someone else backstage, had brought the mushrooms out into the sunlight, they might have realised that trying to decieve God was a stupid idea, and thought again. God already knows everything we're trying to keep secret, as we try with varying degrees of anxiety to manage our front and back stages. What a gift to find someone who we can allow back stage, and who treats kindly what they see. What a gift to find someone with the integrity and character to allow some of their back stage to be visible.

The more stage managed the appearance, the more we think 'you must be hiding something'. My draft question for our local hustings next week is 'in your personal life, or in your parties policies, what are you not telling us?' Just because a politician, (or a vicar, or a TV personality, or a friend, or...) doesn't admit to having a back stage, doesn't mean it isn't there. The church should be a place where we are aware of the damage it can do to keep things in the dark, and where we find sufficient trust and grace to bring things out into the light. Put your mushrooms in the sunshine.

In Praise of the Green Report

Nearly half of the Church of Englands paid employees think the CofE is 'Bad' or 'Quite Bad' at supporting and developing talent (full data here p9). You would therefore think that a report addressing how we could do this better would be greeted with delight. Not so.

The 'Green Report', an internal report which seems to have been intended for publication this month, was leaked/announced by the Church Times just before Christmas. To say the CT wasn't impressed was putting it mildly. A lot of vigorous discussion followed (links here, here, here, here,  and now a new set based on the report getting an award from the FT for opaque English)

The report addresses two unquestionable issues
1. The Church of England faces a time of massive challenge and change. Society is changing fast, and the CofE, on current trends and in its current form, does not have a long term future.
2. Training and development of clergy is inadequate, to put it kindly. For the report, the focus is senior leadership (principally bishops and cathedral deans), but this is a specific instance of a more general problem. (something the Church Times itself has recognised)

The focus of the report is the current training and induction of Bishops and senior clergy, and the development of generations of future leaders for the CofE. It looks at how to align this training with the stated priorities of the CofE (growth, reshaping ministry, and contributing to the common good), and how best to develop the senior leaders the CofE will need in the future.

Justin Welby explains part of the rationale, probably better than the report itself:
We talk much about discernment and do little as an institution. To leave the discernment of a vocation to the episcopacy to the brief moment of a CNC* is absurd. One cannot leave it that late. The process of the Green Report enables discernment to be carried out in a thoughtful and sustained manner over a period of a number of years, with excellent pastoral care for those who are not going to be appointed to senior posts. It is also absolutely essential that we have institutional structures that are seen to be fair and just. The experience of too many is one of profound rejection after a period of extreme crisis.


There's always a suspicion that some of those criticising the report haven't actually read it, so here's a few quotes to give a flavour:

the aim is to "develop clergy of exceptional leadership potential to make a significant impact in every area of the Church’s endeavour, and to be more open to the emergence of leaders from a wider variety of background and range of skills than is currently predictable... the church must be more intentional about drawing in those with high potential who do not appear to ‘fit in’ "

‘the goal is more ministry, not more bureaucracy’

“This generation of leaders faces a huge challenge in terms of balancing the development of their spiritual life and developing the skills needed to lead the Church through a period of profound change. These leaders have received little (or no) leadership training to prepare them for the challenge."

“the current MDR (on the job training for clergy) process is too fragmented and of variable quality to provide a suitable foundation for talent and leadership development processes”

The report states that internal trainers and theological colleges 'failed to provide sufficient challenge' for senior leadership development in the CofE, which may or may not explain why one former theological college principle has been a highly vocal critic of the report.

I was at theological college in the 1990s, and whilst the theological and some of the practical training was good, training related to leadership was non-existent. At no point did the college seriously address issues of character, holiness and integrity, at no point did we look at how you develop teams, identify gifts, lead change, set a vision or grow a church. Yes we could theologically reflect with the best of them, and we could empathise until some of us were past oral caring. It was only when I was invited to join the Arrow Leadership Programme at CPAS, 2 years into my curacry, that I discovered what was missing. The vague uneasiness I'd had at theological college that we were skirting round something fundamental turned out to be right. Here was a whole stack of perspectives, insights, personal challenges and skills that have turned out to be indispensable to me in local church leadership.

In identifying future leaders, the Green Report proposes a 'talent pool', a rolling 5 year programme of spiritual and leadership development (yes, spiritual development, it's not all business-speak) for people identified as having the potential for senior posts. Critics of this speak as though the 'talent pool' was being imposed upon a void. Far from it. Patronage societies, old boys networks, theological networks, there is an array of informal 'talent pools' already at work within the CofE. Look at the appointments made by Robert Runcie when he was ABofC. Do we want the best people in our senior leadership roles, or just the best connected?

It's also clear that those in leadership need more support and help with issues of integrity and spirituality. Chris Brain, Mark Stibbe, Mark Driscoll, and plenty of ordinary parish clergy: every year there are new additions to the casuality list of people who lost it personally, theologically, or spiritually and crashed off the road. The more demanding CofE ministry becomes, the better prepared and supported our leaders, and especially our senior leaders, need to be.

And what is better, a new bishop who has the role sprung on them, or someone who's already had time to think, learn, experience and prepare? Jesus is clear fairly early on with Peter that he'll have the foundational role in the early church, but he has a few years of apprenticeship to serve first. We face the same issue with any position of responsibility in the church - churchwarden, childrens leader etc. We're not great at planning ahead, and many of these roles are filled by the last person to say no, rather than someone who's been prepared and trained up. Lets face it, the CofE is poor at this across the board.

If we are to be good stewards of the gifts that the Spirit has given the church, then we should do our best to develop them. And this needs to happen all the way through the church. Talent spotting (or 'discernment' to use the churchy word) needs to be normal good practice for everyone from the home group leader to the Diocesan Bishop. And not only spotting talent, but developing it, supporting it, and making sure practical and personal gifts are deeply integrated with prayer and character. The Green report seems to me to be a step in the right direction.

*Crown Nominations Commission, which appoints bishops

Update: for a very helpful executive summary of the Green report, go to this post at Useful in Parts. also has a rolling list of links to comments and commentary.

Vicars - A Great Resource Squandered?

A major survey of clergy views on a range of issues has just been published, covering everything from austerity to the parish system, immigration to assisted suicide. Full tables are here, press release from Linda Woodhead here, and a helpful summary at British Religion in Numbers.

There are various fascinating bits of detail, e.g. a much higher concentration of liberal clergy in Cathedrals. The bit that caught my eye was this question:

Based on your experience, do you feel that the Church of England is generally good or bad at identifying and supporting clergy’s talents, gifts and initiatives?

Bad 16%
Quite Bad 33%
Neither Good nor Bad 20%
Quite Good 25%
Good 3%

Women were slightly more likely to rate the CofE better, as were younger clergy, and those ordained in the last 14 years, since 2001. The only subgroup in the stats who gave a net 'good' rating were Archdeacons and Bishops. Well, you would wouldn't you, if you were the ones who had the main responsibility for 'supporting clergy talents, gifts and initiatives'. (And this makes the problem worse - those who are mainly responsible for supporting clergy, or for making sure the support is there if they don't directly provide it themselves, actually think they're doing a good job)

This is a shocker, to say the least. About 70% of our budget goes on clergy, but only 1/4 of those clergy feel that their talents, gifts and initiatives are well supported by the church. Almost 50% feel unsupported to some degree or another. If half of your main workforce aren't being supported and resourced in using their talents and gifts, then it not surprising the whole enterprise is struggling.

Mind you, it would be interesting to see a similar survey of CofE laity. I don't recall any training in my 4 years at theological college on how to recognise and support the talents and gifts of my congregation. Though a key part of leadership is spotting, nurturing and deploying talent, we are still wedded to a vicar-does-everything model. In some places, it's the laity who are more determined to maintain it than the clergy. For a great post on what a gift-affirming church could look like (but doesn't) read this at Learning to Float.

Though a lot of the comment on this survey will focus on split views on same-sex marriage, or on whether the church can/should 'disagree well', this is a stat that needs close and sustained attention. If we really are failing 50% of our frontline paid staff then the CofE needs to look long and hard at how it supports us, and helps us to support others.

Leadership is Influence

"Dr Paisley's life has cast an influential shadow over at least three generations: as a faithful preacher of God's word, as a people's politician and as a distinguished leader in church and state."

Some words spoken at the recent memorial for Ian Paisley. Not sure I'd want to be spoken of as casting a shadow, but we'll leave that one there. 

It reminded me of a definition of leadership I heard recently, that 'leadership is influence'. Which means we're all leaders, from the moment our cries first summon a nighttime feed or nappy change. Leadership isn't the exclusive property of those who call themselves leaders, or who hold the 'top' jobs, or who get their memorial services reported on the BBC. A word, an action, a comment on a Facebook thread, anything which nudges someone else's life, is leadership. You can lead from a throne, a pushchair, an armchair, a wheelchair, an academic chair, the second chair, anywhere.  

Which is both an exciting thought, and a scary one. Lead well dear reader.

Church Leaders: The Legacy Thing

I'm enjoying, and being challenged by, Tim Chesters 'Unreached: Growing Churches in Working Class and Deprived Areas'. It's packed with good insights - e.g. on the contrasts between middle and working class culture (e.g. on reliability - middle class meaning = chronologically reliable, turning up on time etc., working class = emotionally reliable, there for you when you need them).

Here's a bit that's got me chewing: bits in brackets are my paraphrases. And it applies in any culture.

"What is church growth? According to the parable of the sower (where 3/4 of the seed is wasted) it's not about numbers, but about the fruit of changed lives...the size of our Sunday congregagtion can all too easily become the focus and measure of how we feel about ourselves. (But) the goal is not numbers, but heart change. 

This brings a very different focus to the ministry. We don't need to feel insecure about leading a small church. Jesus has a small 'church' who all ran away when the crunch came! It means we can be bold in challenging unbelief, because we're not worried about people not attending....It means we can and will rely on God...when we aim for heart change, we are forced to realise it is not under our control (and therefore we pray more)

It means we leave a legacy. A church in our areas fell apart when the pastor left. The pastor had been caring, but had not taught the gospel or confronted sin. When he left, there was nothing. I want to leave behind a legacy of changed lives."

All too often we leave a legacy of changed premises (according to the wife of one theological college head 'show me a vicar who has been in post 7 years and I'll show you a building project'. Guilty m'lady) but not changed lives. The former is easier than the latter. We find ourselves encouraging deeper involvement in the church, rather than deeper growth in discipleship.

I want to leave behind a legacy of changed lives, for Jesus. Chester is reminding me why I do all this in the first place, and making me wonder about whether I'm aiming for that legacy, or something else.

Do you have an Ecclesiastical Exoskeleton?

One of the problems of having growing children, is that each time they shed their skin we have to dispose of it in a separate waste container to keep the council happy. I'm joking of course. But churches, that's something else. Churches have exoskeletons, they can grow a bit within current structures/buildings etc., but any serious attempt to change size requires some skin-shedding.

I've just finished 'The In-Between Church' by Alice Mann, (summary here), and it rang a lot of bells. She argues that church growth occurs in steps, rather than a smooth gradient, and the big steps are between 4 exoskeletons (my word). Here are the 4 size categories, the numbers refer to membership, and the descriptions are broad-brush:

Family size 0-50: like an extended biological family, all know each other, addition is by birth and marriage, new members incorporated very  slowly, matriarchs and patriarchs hold authority, clergy part time and short term, function as chaplains to the family. They normally have 1 good community ministry, offered in ‘down home’ style. Clergy are there for pastoral care, but will find it hard to lead change. These can survive both good and bad leadership.

Pastoral size 50-150: multi-cell organism, coalition of several family/friendship networks, unity is based around the pastor. Big enough to look like ‘real church’, small enough to feel personal. 2 or 3 strong ministries, personal touch in worship. Everyone knows the vicar and the vicar knows everyone. Clergy are expected to meet spiritual needs of the members. Works well for clergy with good interpersonal skills, but starts to break down at 130+, as people start to feel they don't know each other. Growth will often depend on the effectiveness/popularity of the pastor.

Program 150-350: Leadership team, has quality and variety in programmes. Critical mass of people from several demographic groups (children, youth, seniors etc) and entry points for people  from various backgrounds. Staff team, often with paid heads of ministry. Basis of unity is a shared vision and programme, rather than shared relationships with leadership/key people. Role of pastor is recruitment, training, supervision, vision & strategy, key ministry is to other leaders, not members. Not a great place for a leader who loves pastoral ministry. 

Corporate 300-500+ institutional presence in the community, key location, big building, large staff. Figurehead leader. In the CofE these are mostly cathedrals, plus a few churches in the larger population centres.

Growth between the sizes can be limited by several bits of the exoskeleton:

 - physical: e.g. parking, cramped buildling, rooms for childrens work

 - community - e.g. fixed population or low-flux culture (church growth is fastest in London, which has a larger population churn rate)

 - organisational: i.e. a plateau between one of these two size categories. A newcomer in a larger 'pastoral' church misses out on a visit because the vicar is too busy. A newcomer in a 'family' church finds they can't break in to the set roles and relationships and gets disillusioned. Etc.

Mann encourages churches to plot their membership/attendance history and note where the plateaus are - are there regular zones where membership levels out, or gets stuck?

Transition from one size to another is a crisis: the church starts to feel the pressure of outgrowing the exoskeleton, and needs to reorient its way of being: from family to pastor focused, from pastoral to programme etc. Evolving through the size stages will be like the Exodus - there'll be times when the cost of leaving 'Egypt' will seem to outweigh the promised benefits, which haven't fully appeared yet. When the old exoskeleton becomes compromised, it has to be shed or the church will hit a ceiling and fall back again. 

It's interesting to compare this to our experience in Yeovil. We have two churches. St. Peters is a 'family' style church, run by a close-knit group of people almost independent of clergy leadership for quite some time. In recent times some of the older members have gone to glory, and several new people have joined us. Several of those, with experience of larger churches, are struggling to work out how things work at St. Peters! The transition is coinciding with a number of new bits of outreach, and some growth.

St. James, the larger church, seemed to be plateauing at 100-120 (combined parish membership 120-140, one vicar, which fits the model). My post was a new 0.5 appointment 8 years ago, followed by a childrens worker 2-3 years later. St. James is now at 160 members, but faces a new exoskeleton, the building. We can't fit the regular congregation into the church, so we're reshaping the building to put in some extra seating. After that, we'll have to look at staffing again, and possibly looking at repeating the main service in another time slot or venue, which will mean identifying and training up some more worship leaders and preachers (which is getting into 'programme' style).

I'd be interested to hear if this all rings true with anyone else, and whether there are particular things which hit particular denominations - Anglicans have lots of 'family' sized churches (240+ of our 500 churches in Bath and Wells are 24 members or fewer). Looking at our recent membership stats (2011-12), out of 37 churches larger than 130 members, only 7 grew year-on-year. In the zone where you''d expect 'pastoral' churches to be compromised (140-200), 20 of the 22 churches in this size group were flat or declining. 

This may also explain one of the findings in 'From Anecdote to Evidence', the report on church growth in the CofE earlier this year. It found that amalgamating parishes was a good way to ensure declining members. Churches in 'pastoral' mode which have to cope with a smaller share of their vicar, will end up with smaller congregations. And it will be very hard for stretched leaders to put the time and energy needed into a church which is trying to shed a skin and grow. 

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.

Vicars: Personality Type and Church Growth

I'm working my way through some of the material from last months Church Growth Research Programme report, and came across something quite startling, though so far little reported. The slides from David Voas presentation on numerical growth have lots of helpful charts on different factors in church growth. There are a couple on the personality type of clergy.

Most of us who've been through vicar factory have probably done a Myers-Briggs test or three. If you don't know it, the test explores 4 aspects of personality (here's my rough summary):

• Extravert/Introvert - are you energised by the outer world and other people, or the inner world
• Intuitive/Sensing - do you look at the big picture, possibilities, and process information with your imagination, or do you look at the details, the present and the empirical facts.
• Thinking/Feeling - do you process information through logic and reason, or through relationships and how people will be affected.
• Judging/Percieving - do you like to organise things and plan them, or take things as they are and go with the flow.

The startling finding is this: "Growth is associated with E(xtravert) and N (intuitive). The combination of E and N is particularly effective. I-S clergy are three times as likely to preside over decline as substantial growth, E-N clergy are twice as likely to experience substantial growth as decline"

Extraverts will tend to do more motivating and enthusing of people, and here is the correlation in the research between 'motivating' (generating enthusiasm and inspiring people to action) as a personality quality for the vicar, and how much their church has grown, or not.

And here is the chart for '"Envisioning" (having a clear vision for the future and being focused on achieving it" (which is principally an 'Intuitive' quality)

Alternatively, being 'empathic' and 'persisting' were identified as 2 qualities which don't make for church growth. Both are good qualities, but if 'persisting' becomes 'inflexible' and 'empathic' becomes 'don't do anything that will upset people" then its easy to see how a church can get stuck. 

They are also two qualities which link at a very deep level to the culture of the CofE and the way it has traditionally seen ministry. I remember a visit to a senior CofE cleric who suggested that if I wasn't motivated principally by doing house visits to the sick (pastoral care) and saying my prayers according to the daily office (persistence) then perhaps I didn't belong in the Anglican church. Do we have a serious cultural problem here?

I don't believe that these charts simply sanction lack of 'empathy' or 'persistence' - you need persistence to see a vision through, and you need empathy to love people. But perhaps the role of the leader is to make sure that good pastoral care is going on, rather than doing it all themselves. For the Anglican church to grow, so that we can keep saying our prayers and loving people, we need more leaders who don't fit the current mould.

As an extrovert (I blog, what did you expect?) intuitive, I find this all quite encouraging. But what does it mean for people who are wired differently? One of the other qualities strongly correlated with growth is 'reflection' - the ability to evaluate what you're doing and change/improve it. That's something introverts should be good at. And maybe it also encourages us to think about leadership teams, rather than vicars alone, and enabling lay leadership with the qualities which we ourselves lack. We have both a lay pastoral team, and visionary/motivating leadership on a new building project, also led by a lay member of the church. 

Final note of caution: the figures above are based on the leaders own reports of whether their churches are growing or declining. You'll notice that it looks like the majority of churches in the survey are growing, which clearly isn't the Anglican reality. So the stats may be less stark, but they're still significant.

update: plenty of debate in response to this on Twitter, if you can make sense of it!

update 2 good reflections from Jody Stowell on what constitutes good leadership. Makes the important point that a good leader is reflective, which is also made in the research, and that's not always what comes naturally to Extraverts.

Growing Churches and Good Vicars - blog round-up and thoughts

"lots of local churches are growing in numbers, they are being extremely effective in their local communities, partly the things they've always done... and in some of the needs that have arisen over the last few years in terms of poverty and deprivation..

"we are falling in numbers, and there is a change in the attitude to Christian faith generally across the country, that is unquestionable and we need to be realistic about that

"we need to specialise in what we do, which is the worship of God and seeking to lead people to faith in Jesus Christ.... around the country the main effort and impact of the church comes from the local churches, working incredibly hard."

"Of course there are churches that are doing better and churches that are struggling more, depending on area and on leadership. But the reality is that where you have a good vicar you will find growing churches."

the Church "needs to be very flexible in how it engages locally, and it needs to be very clear about its intention of growing its numbers. It doesn't happen accidentally. All the research we've got is that if we don't actually set out to grow the number of people and draw people to the reality of the love of  God, in Jesus Christ, it doesn't happen. It's not a collateral benefit to existing. So you've got to be very intentional, and you've got to be very flexible about how you do it"

I've struggled to find a full transcript of Justin Welbys comments on church growth on New Years Eve, but the full interview is here, and a lot of people have already had their say on the 'good vicars' comment. For example:

Excellent piece from Jo Neary, from a rural Dorset context: Good vicars equal growing congregations - maybe. But perhaps the challenge this year is to try to be a good vicar and enable people to grow: in faith, in hospitality, in leadership and in discipleship.  This year has to be about growth, but it may not be about numbers.

Rambling Rector questions whether you can be a 'good vicar' and keep the rules and regulations imposed by the CofE, whilst living with the pastoral demands of the community. 

David Scott wonders what is a good vicar and a growing church anyway, and thinks that measuring growth is opposed to the New Testament. I disagree with him on the last point - Luke seems to spend most of the days after Pentecost doing headcounts and reporting numerical growth, it clearly is important.

There's a good debate on Peter Ould's post, and on Ship of Fools. I liked this comment: The minute you start to talk about the necessity for congregations to grow, those (clergy) whose congregations aren't growing start to talk about how it makes them feel a failure. It's important to be supportive to colleagues. However, it's equally important to have a vision for growing our congregations. Not for the sake of numbers, but because every number is a person.

Kelvin Holdsworth focuses on local leadership, and recognises that it's a more complicated equation than good vicar = church growth. I found this helpful: within what he was saying was something rather important which is that vicars – clergy generally matter. Should they be miserable, unsupported, unloved and sad there is almost no chance of a church in their care thriving. Clergy matter an enormous amount and if one wants churches to grow one does need to think about clergy rather a lot.

The short version is, clergy matter. And so do bums on pews. The two are related. But oh, oh – it’s complicated.

St Mungos Edinburgh has some reflections on the headwinds a 'good vicar' faces that mean the equation doesn't work out, but concludes Church growth, whether that a small little family sized fellowship, or large mega church is complex.   But I do agree with the Archbishop’s general principle the church growth is very dependent upon leadership.

Vic the Vicar thinks it's good medicine

Good post from The Blog of Kevin, pointing out the other things that Justin Welby says: that the key things in the local context are flexibility and intentionality: When we came to this church, the congregation knew when everyone was there, so the welcomers closed the door and sat down. When we begin to expect and anticipate newcomers, it changes how we approach the welcome. Intentionality. From nothing for kids at all, we went from a kids colouring table at the back, to kids sitting at the front on the mat, to a regular kids group. Intentionality.

Geoff Read notes that a focus on mission and numerical growth means an uncomfortable culture shift for many in the CofE.

Artsy Honker helpfully distinguishes between evangelism and recruitment, and calls for more work on what 'good' evangelism looks like. She adds some personal reflections as someone who left church, her experience of what put her off (ouch.....), and then came back, exploring the key factors. Worth a read.

Church Times opinion piece from Adrian Newman, writing from a Diocese (London) which has growth at the heart of its vision to 2020.  it is only partially about the numbers. Growth cannot be an end in itself. Like the Church, it must serve a higher calling. Hmm, yes and no, every '1' in the numbers is a person, a person who is worshipping God, (hopefully) growing in faith, supporting and being supported by other Christians, and engaging in ministry and service to the world. The calling of the church is to call people to follow Jesus, to baptise and make disciples. Healthy growth (not just people shopping around for a more convenient church to be part of, but actually responding to God), is a sign that our highest calling is being fulfilled.

The reality is more nuanced than the soundbite, but I'm glad that at the beginning of a new year
 - we are talking about leadership, and the need for it in the church, and what good leadership and pastoral ministry looks like. 
 - we are talking about church growth, alongside the reality of decline, rather than ignoring it or relabelling decline as 'spiritual growth'. That's going to be painful.

Personally, I need to be careful. Our church has grown steadily for several years, so I'm going to hear Justin Welbys comments about good vicars and growth in a very different way to someone whose church is shrinking. They aren't easy comments to hear if you're working your socks off and seeing little or no fruit.

Not all good leadership has to come with a dog collar. The vast majority of the gifts, energy, time vision and resources of the church are the 'ordinary' Christians. It's not all down to vicars (thank goodness), but there are some key tasks - e.g. setting vision, spotting talent - that enable the gifts of others to flourish.

And there are also different ways of being good: Alice Manns The In Between Church explores the dynamics of different sizes of churches, and argues that certain styles of leadership work better in certain contexts. I guess that will also apply to the social, ethnic and class background of a place, as well as the size of the church. 

I know that in a few years time, if our Diocesan financial system and interregnum policy doesn't change, we may well see some decline (we have a 'parish share' system which means that growing churches face an invoice from the diocese which rises 10-15% a year for a church that's growing 3-5% a year. In the long run that will mean cuts to the staffing and ministries which have enabled our growth in the first place so that we can pay the Diocesan bills, which in turn will choke off the growth.) So there are structural, as well as local, headwinds which the local leader and church will struggle with. I know good vicars whose churches aren't growing - as several of the bloggers above note, it's complicated. 

And finally, the Church Growth Research Programme will be publishing its results at a conference on Thursday. It sounds like there's an embargo on it all until then, but there might be some material which has a bearing on this debate.