More Thoughts on Extra Vicars

One of the stated aims of Renewal and Reform, the CofE's national vision and strategy* for the next generation, is to increase the number of people being ordained each year by 50%.

In their (our!) own words - The Church of England is seeking an increase of 50% in the number of candidates for ordained ministry. This means an increase in numbers per annum from around 500 to 750 in the overall annual cohort. The Church is seeking both numerical growth and an increase in diversity within the cohort of ordinands so that it reflects the communities in wider society where the Church is engaged in mission, in terms of age, gender and ethnic and social background.

Stats released last week give some background to what this might look like. I've not detected much response in the blogosphere as yet (Ian Paul, comments at Thinking Anglicans). I posted a few thoughts of my own the other day, and here are some more.
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1. Firstly, great. Every time I come across someone who feels God is calling them into leadership in the CofE, I'm delighted. Not just because I know what a privilege it is, but also that it's a sign that God isn't quite done with us yet as a church. Whatever else is going on, God wouldn't be calling people into this ministry if we were making a complete pigs ear of it.

2. Increasing the number of ordinands by 50% will mean a rise of 150 in those ordained to paid full-time ministry to 450 per year. The average age at ordination is 41, add on 4 years for a curacy, and retirement at 65, and you have a long-term stipendiary workforce of 9000 clergy. That's 1300 more than we have at the moment. By the time we get to this figure, the UK population will have increased by another 10m to 75m, so there'll still be plenty to do. If the CofE succeeds in lowering the age profile, we may have closer to 10,000.

3. But.... there are several big issues, some practical and some theological, that we really need to deal with, and I'm not sure if we are doing:

a) At the moment we are ordaining almost exactly the same numbers as those retiring from ordination. so whilst the main narrative around the drop in clergy numbers is retirements (25% of those in my diocese are due to retire in the next 5 years), there is another major factor. On average we ordain 290 people a year, 280 clergy per year retire or die, and another 300 per year leave to do Something Else.

b) Something Else #1  2500 ordained clergy are in chaplaincies or other non-parish appointments. The CofE projections assume this will stay the same for the forseeable future. Why then do we train all clergy for parish ministry? Why is every curacy served in a parish setting? CofE training is front-loaded (2-3 years in college/theological course then 3-4 years in a curacy), and apart from the occasional specialist placement, the main focus of activity, training, and ministry models is the parish. This seems like a spectacular waste of resources on two fronts. Firstly that many of those thus trained will end up in a different setting to the one they were trained for, and secondly that the model is designed for a static society and ministry setting (what you learn when you're 25 will serve you well at 65). Spreading learning and training throughout ministry makes more sense, as it can be better tailored, and more responsive to context.

c) Something Else #2  About 100 clergy per year leave the role before retirement, and we have no idea where they go or what they do. In other words, for every 3 people ordained, one will drop out. We may have to revise that 9,000 figure down a bit. If the attrition rate remains the same, there'll be 150 clergy per year dropping out if the ordination targets are hit. Some of these clergy are dropping out for health reasons, others for stress, others because (often stress is a factor) they've done something that makes remaining a vicar untenable. There's evidence that we could support clergy much better than we do, and my own experience is consistent with that. On more than one occasion I haven't been very far from becoming a clergy casualty, and each time stress and lack of support have been key factors. This resignation statement is from a US church leader, but would probably find an echo amongst many CofE clergy.

d) We owe it to the future clergy we are praying for to look at what they are being called to do. There are attempts to simplify what the CofE does, but a do-able job description, realistic expectations from parishes, and greater sharing of ministry between lay and ordained are all vital. George Herbert may be long dead but his ghost still stalks the vestry of a thousand parishes, whispering of home communions and Morning and Evening Prayer, heard in echo every time someone complains 'the vicar hasn't visited'. I was stunned to hear the Herbert model advocated by a CofE college principal not that long ago.

e) Digging still deeper, what about 'ministry' itself? The CofE claims to follow the historic pattern of 'Bishops, Priests and Deacons'. Sure, and I use the Book of Common Prayer every day. The role of CofE bishop is a long way away from the bishop/overseers of the New Testament, who were in team leadership of local churches. Deacons, with a handful of exceptions, are a holding bay for apprentice priests, it's what you are for 12 months after initial ordination. We still have only 1 full-blown licensed lay ministry (lay Reader), despite having lay gifts in evangelism, pastoral care, discipleship, healing, preaching, worship leading, organisational leadership, children/youth/womens/mens/older persons ministry etc. And by restricting leadership at communion to priests, promoting communion itself as the be all and end all of worship, and amalgamating parishes, we have created a situation where every Sunday hundreds of vicars are driving from church to church to wave wafers at small groups of people, whilst never having the time to have a proper conversation with any of them.

There has to be a better way, and there has to be a better theology - of church leadership, of worship, of the church as the body of Christ and people of God.

f) Before we invest a lot of money finding, vetting, training and deploying new ordinands, we need to invest some energy in looking at the system we are putting then into. How much investment is needed to support 1 vicar in post, to keep them from that one mistake which will potentially destroy them, their family and their congregation, compared to the investment needed to train up their replacement? Not so long ago, some parishioners of a clergyman I know wrote a letter to his Archdeacon, complaining about something trivial. Because they'd had it in writing, the Archdeacon told this faithful vicar that the Diocese couldn't offer him support, as they were now involved in a complaints process. I'm sorry but that's disgraceful. We must do better.

I'm delighted that at last the CofE has woken up to the facts, and is doing something, I'm glad that before anything else we're being encouraged to pray. I hope that we let the dominoes keep falling - becoming a mission-shaped church will change our thinking about church, ministry, training, priesthood, and a whole host of other things. Historically, our thinking about church life hasn't been shaped by mission, so it shouldn't be a surprise if we have to rethink pretty much everything. Bring it on.

*5 years ago this phrase would have been a cartoon caption. I still have to pinch myself that it's a reality, after years of wittering on about the fact we don't have one. 

Vicars of the Future: Finding More, Keeping More

Update: more thoughts on new vicars here

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

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

The Stats: a few highlights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do You Trust This Blogger?

Are we becoming more trusting? Some new research published at the Institute for Government (I can feel your pulse racing from here) on who we trust and how much. I was struck by the chart below, on how trust has changed over time (the catchily named Veracity Index, big version here so you can read the labels). Doctors and teachers remain at the top, politicians and journalists at the bottom, with clergy like me fighting it out with newsreaders and police. I was surprised we came out that high. Wonder where celebrity panel-show hosts would rank?



This next one's a bit clearer, a snapshot of who we trust at the moment. For the 25% of you who don't trust me to tell the truth, here's the original. Ha!

It would again be interesting to compare the general with the particular. Do you trust your doctor? Your childs' teacher? Your local vicar/pastor/priest? Your MP? Fiona Bruce? The estate agent who sold you your house/arranged your rental?

And whilst we're at it, do you trust your neighbours? Do you trust the internet provider which has logged the fact you're reading this? Do you trust the internet?



Do you trust yourself? Should the rest of us?

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.

College Chaplain/Associate Vicar post in Yeovil

Regular readers of this blog will, I hope, develop a yearning for Yeovil, a sensation for Somerset, a deep love for the deep south.

So if any of you are able to get ordained at short notice (or you know anyone who's a CofE curate/vicar already), then this job might be of interest, serving Yeovil College, the main FE college for the area, and the town centre parish of St. Johns & St. Andrews. It's a new post, reflecting both the need for chaplaincy at the college, and the growth of the parish church, with a key town centre ministry.

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.