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.

Lone Voice

South Somerset District Council has just agreed an £8m discount package to a housing developer, so that a local housing site can be rendered 'viable'. The alternative is that it gets mothballed (that's the claim anyway: Barratts tried that one a couple of years ago on the other side of town then declared record profits the week after the agreement was signed). So that's less social housing, poorer maintenance for community play and open space, less money for community facilities, bus routes, etc. More houses, shabbier environment.

I'm pretty disappointed and annoyed by this, especially as the viability maths was badly skewed (I'll explain if you like but it would take a while).

But I'm just as disappointed and annoyed by this. Scroll to page 4. Only one local resident wrote in to complain. One. There's been plenty of sound and fury on Facebook, of course. And a local politician who's hoping to unseat David Laws as MP next year has been in the papers opposing it. But I note that nobody from his party actually wrote in.

This is potentially a new community of 1500-1700 people. There is a massive social housing shortage in the area. And nobody cares enough to formally speak up. (Note: putting :-( at on a Facebook comment doesn't qualify as 'caring'. That wont fix the swings, provide a bus route, or house a family.)

Someone I meet up with for prayer has a saying 'you've gotta love 'em'. Even on the days when Yeovil makes me sad and angry, I've gotta love em. Drat, it would be so much easier not to, but I don't think Jesus gives us any wiggle room on that.

What annoys us doesn't annoy Jesus, and what annoys Jesus doesn't annoy us.

From a recent survey:

Modern life is a daily struggle. Here, according to a poll of 2,000 Britons for Nurofen Express, are the top 50 most annoying things about it.

1. Your laptop/computer freezing
2. PPI calls
3. Slow Wi-Fi
4. Being stuck in traffic
5. People who take up two parking spaces
6. Public transport delays
7. Junk mail
8. Waiting on the phone for the doctors

I think we'll stop there because I've already cried myself completely out. Waiting on the phone for the doctor? Well, it's a close call compared to dying of Ebola because there isn't a doctor for miles, and no decent road to carry any traffic to the nearest hospital (read adapted shed). It's simply tragic.

Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mould, says Romans 12. If these are the things which really wind us up (I'm talking to Christians here, sorry if you're not one, please bear with me) then we have genuinely lost the plot. Clue: what is Jesus most annoyed about? Probably nothing that's in our top 50.

What annoys us doesn't annoy Jesus, and what annoys Jesus doesn't annoy us. And it should.

Where has God called me?

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

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

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

(a) that you need most to do and 

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

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

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

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

Frederick Buechner

Faith in the Workplace - Equality and Human Rights Commission Survey

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has an open consulation on religion and belief in the workplace:

Has your religion or belief, or that of other people, affected your experiences in the workplace or the services you receive as part of your daily life? Or perhaps they impact on you as an employer or manager?  If so, we want to hear from you, whether your experiences are good or bad.

We want to gather as much information as we can from employees, service users, employers, service providers, trade unions, legal advisors and religion or belief groups so that we can assess how a person’s religion or belief, or lack of it, is taken into account at work and when using services.

This major call for evidence is part of our three year programme to strengthen understanding of religion or belief in public life, to improve knowledge of what happens in practice and to make sure that the laws which are in place to protect everyone’s right to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect are effective.

It runs until 31st October, and the evidence given will shape how the EHRC addresses issue of faith and human rights in the future, and assessment of how the current human rights framework works. (Not sure if that includes recent Conservative policy announcements!) The consultation includes questions about whether more or less legal protection should be given to people who hold religious beliefs. That could be a bit of a blunt instrument: I'd be keener to see more power for Christians to opt out of Sunday working in non-essential services than for Muslim nurses to wear a burka at work.

The consultation relates both to employees, and people receiving services. This is an opportunity to inform the way faith is taken into account in the public sphere and policy making, so please consider taking part.

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.

The parish system: game over?

update: a couple of days after this post, the Bishop of Blackburn raised the threat level in his diocese and has put them on notice that they have only 2 alternatives, fundamental change or extinction. Ian Paul has an excellent analysis of the statement, and the challenges involved. 

From Anna Norman Walkers presentation to the recent 'Westminster Faith Debate' on the future of the parish system:

"In the Diocese of Exeter we have 607 churches, many of which are listed. Over 200 of them attract less than 20 to Sunday services, and 124 attract less than 10. The average age of a committed member is 65..... It is time, I believe, to allow some aspects of parochial life to die and trust God for resurrection rather than resuscitation. The battle for weekly Sunday worship is over in many parishes, and the canonical obligation associated with this need to be rescinded. The maintenance of a parish share system which has become a tax on mission for some, and a smokescreen from the reality of death for others needs to be abandoned, in favour of a system which enables healthy churches to flourish, and sick ones to expire in their present form."

Here in Bath and Wells we have just under 500 churches, 66 of these have 10 members or fewer, another 162 have 11-25. And we have a parish share system (for non-Anglicans, this is how parish churches contribute to central costs, including training and provision of vicars): the practical result of this is that one of the churches in our parish has grown by 32% in the last 9 years, the Parish Share we pay to our Diocese has grown by 92%. A further 10% rise awaits us next year. It doesn't take a maths genius to work out that this can't be sustained in the long term. Worse, it means that there's less resources available to invest in growth for the future. Every growing church set in a declining Diocese is faced with the same

The only escape from the spiral is that a) the majority of churches in the Diocese start to grow instead of decline (in the latest stats I have, declining churches outnumbered growing churches by 6 to 1) b) we change the way the sums are calculated and collected (as many Dioceses are beginning to do) c) we find the ecclesiastical equivalent of George Osborne and do some serious austerity. Otherwise, in the words of the designer on Titanic 'the ship will sink, it is a mathematical certainty'

The post on this blog that's been read more than any other, by some margin is 'The Leading of the 5,000', which looks at how the CofE can function with 5,000 frontline staff in a system designed for 3x that number. I note that whilst demand for some of the churches 'services' is stable (baptisms, weddings), we don't have a parish system that can be sustained with the projected number of paid clergy in the CofE. Part of the solution has got to be fewer buildings, releasing the thousands spent on insurance, heating & maintenance every year to be spent on the living breathing body of Christ.

This might be seen as abandoning the smaller churches: my view is that unless smaller churches (indeed, all churches) can learn to see their life in Christ as something distinct from their building, they are in serious danger. Our buildings are resources we have for a season, nothing more. Unfortunately, as Marshall McLuhan nearly said, we shape our buildings, and then our buildings shape us. If a church cannot conceive of existence without a building, it has not just been shaped, it has been warped out of recognition.

One part of the possible answer: Exeter diocese are exploring the idea of 'Festival churches': parish churches turning into places which provide people with occasional offices and festivals wanted by the community, putting ownership back in the hands of the community, and releasing the local church community from the task of maintaining the building on their own.

Update: the next debate in the Faith Debates series looks at whether buildings are an asset or a liability. Could be interesting.

Availability

What do we mean by 'reliable'? I forget the source now, it may have been one of Tim Chesters excellent  books on culture and mission, but one insight has really stuck with me. It's the difference between two sorts of availability.

People like me, with diaries, watches, appointments etc., work on chronologial availability: we agree to be in x place at y time, and we are. (Mind you, those who know me and work with me might observe that I'm frequently a few minutes late, but that's another issue). We book things into the diary, that's how we organise our availability.

Or there is emotional availability: the person who is always there when you need them, but don't expect them to agree to a cup of tea a fortnight on Monday. Availability is organised around need, relationships, family and the present moment; rather than schedule, priorities and ordered time.

To the latter, the former group might seem a bit distant, standoffish, over-busy. To the former, the latter might seem a bit chaotic, unreliable, high maintenance - needing to be reminded about meetings and appointments.

Chronological availability is more typical of middle class culture, but will come more naturally to people of a certain personality type (yes, Myers-Briggs again, I'm a 'J' - i.e. a natural planner/organiser/strategist), emotional availability is perhaps more typical of working class culture, (or the Myers-Briggs 'P', go-with-the-flow type)

All too often, people start a conversation with me with 'sorry, I know you're busy....', I wonder if that's to do with all of this, or the fact that I tend to whizz around at high speed a lot of the time. Perhaps that's the nature of this role, with over 200 church members, double that (at least) of community/'fringe' contacts, never mind friends and family. I'm aware of relationships which struggle because the two partners work with different types of availability, and the mindset of the other seems deliberately contrary, rather than just a different way of being available.

Jesus seemed to manage both, he was emotionally/spiritually available in the moment - the blind man at Jericho, the woman in the crowd - but also managed his time and his priorities ('let us go to the other villages, for I must preach there also').

A challenge in church leadership, and in discipleship generally, is how to blend the two. Being on time for a meeting is just as much about caring for and valuing people as being on the other end of the phone when they need you.