Recent conversations with friends, colleagues, clergy and the bloke who stopped me and asked how long we got before the Bishop 'moved us' have all included (with varying degrees of knowledge) the issue of the clergy vacancy. The expectations cover all stages from totally unrealistic through to, "Yeah, in your dreams," and yet some of the most unrealistic were from within the church and from those who should perhaps know better!
Some job descriptions stop just a tad short of including sending the poor cleric up the chimney and yet others, looking like a doable role, stun the poor soul reading the advert into something approaching catatonia when they see the dreaded 0.5. Just in case you think the 0.5 post is there for short clerics, let me explain:
There have been some interesting trends and some constructive thinking over the past few years. One involved asking clergy whether they'd be happy to note down the time that school work took and that which related to church schools was work and all other was effectively our hobby (I kid you not). This was repeated over a number of areas (church club = work, veteran's club = hobby and so on) and the end result was that a good idea of what should be paid for by the church and what was merely 'our personal interest' could be separated. When I was asked what I thought the Church should be paying for, the response was simple = everything!
The reasoning for my response comes from the fact that there are some who appear to be looking to reduce the role of minister to something that resembles the sessional youth worker! Where we have a service that demands the presence of a priest, which usually means that an epiclesis* is involved, we budget for one and in so doing restrict our priestly requirement to Communion, marriage and (for some places) Baptism**! So we pay for the presence of priest on Sunday and then, realising, we need one for the Wednesday midweek communion service and subsequent home communions to those who otherwise couldn't make it add another day to the pile. This done, we add to the mix another day to enable hospital visits and other 'Vicar' type stuff (Vestry hour, meeting Wardens, parishioners and the like) and bingo, that's the 0.5 post put to bed.
I have been involved in some amazing conversations about paying our way where the mantra 'can't pay, can't have' has been paraded before an assembled clergy whose expressions said it all:
And so, with that, I'll leave you to have a reflect on this first shot. A shot that builds nicely upon the question of giving to God that for which we have not paid and asks where is our treasure? For that is surely the key to much of this issue.
Happy Saturday :-)
* epiclesis - an invocation or calling down upon or blessing involving the Holy Spirit. This is the bit where we bless people at the end or consecrate the bread and wine or bless the rings or the couple or the water in which (or which will be poured over to enable) the rite of baptism.
** when I was ordained, baptism was not allowed until I'd been priested and so this was a 'priest's job' - that said I have found many handing this over to deacons and I've heard of some who have allowed their Lay Minister's to do the service too (which is still, as I understand it, wrong).
The reasoning for my response comes from the fact that there are some who appear to be looking to reduce the role of minister to something that resembles the sessional youth worker! Where we have a service that demands the presence of a priest, which usually means that an epiclesis* is involved, we budget for one and in so doing restrict our priestly requirement to Communion, marriage and (for some places) Baptism**! So we pay for the presence of priest on Sunday and then, realising, we need one for the Wednesday midweek communion service and subsequent home communions to those who otherwise couldn't make it add another day to the pile. This done, we add to the mix another day to enable hospital visits and other 'Vicar' type stuff (Vestry hour, meeting Wardens, parishioners and the like) and bingo, that's the 0.5 post put to bed.
I have been involved in some amazing conversations about paying our way where the mantra 'can't pay, can't have' has been paraded before an assembled clergy whose expressions said it all:
And so, with that, I'll leave you to have a reflect on this first shot. A shot that builds nicely upon the question of giving to God that for which we have not paid and asks where is our treasure? For that is surely the key to much of this issue.
Happy Saturday :-)
* epiclesis - an invocation or calling down upon or blessing involving the Holy Spirit. This is the bit where we bless people at the end or consecrate the bread and wine or bless the rings or the couple or the water in which (or which will be poured over to enable) the rite of baptism.
** when I was ordained, baptism was not allowed until I'd been priested and so this was a 'priest's job' - that said I have found many handing this over to deacons and I've heard of some who have allowed their Lay Minister's to do the service too (which is still, as I understand it, wrong).
5 comments:
Spot on!
Absolutely everything.
There is a huge misunderstanding about Clergy and what is or should be expected of them.
As you are a TA Padre, you will be familiar with the concept that Regular Soldiers are in theory 24 hours a day and subject to military law at all times. The same goes for TA Officers and Permanent Staff, while TA soldiers (not on FTRS) are only on duty when training or when mobilised.
So, clergy on a stipend are in much the same boat as regular service personnel, on duty 24/7/365, with reasonable (at times) off for rest and recuperation, and looking after their family. My argument would be that given the current stipend paid, full time clergy are probably just about on the living wage, given hours worked (perhaps an average of 60 hrs a week, probably more) or below it in some cases.
I don't know how the church can justify 0.5 stipended posts, nor HFD posts, yet expect those clergy to do serve their communities in exactly the same way as full time stipended clergy, who we've already acknowledged are seriously under paid.
It's OK saying that Clergy are office holders, not employees, but when it comes to retirement and they struggle to find permanent housing, and have to rely on the Pensions Board to fund it, than the inequality between stipend and a normal wage becomes glaringly obvious.
I see how hard my Vicar works, on call 24/7 and the number of extra-parish duties loaded onto her by the diocese. In addition she has a new Curate to supervise an ordinand on placement to supervise and I and another training for licensed lay ministry to supervise. She's pretty good at delegation, but there are some things she isn't able to delegate. She is fortunate that her spouse is retired and is an enormous support in her ministry, in fact, he is probably the unpaid, volunteer, that we should consider paying alongside here.
Were striving to do our best, but there aren't enough hours in the day for Clergy, so I'm really glad when she takes time off - and goes away from the parish, that's vital for her ministry, for her health and for the health of the parish.
The CofE is guilty of abusing the good will of it's Clergy, both those on stipend, those on half stipend and those who are self supporting. But I don't know how the job could be done in any other way??
There is a greater misunderstanding in that Priest is who we are and not what we do. This and the stipend vs pay argument and there are SSM (NSM) and OLD and HfDs and other considerations to be had - but we are on the way!
Thanks for comments (published and mailed) from you all,
V
Many years ago, my then Minister semi-jokingly referred to some survey that had given church members a list of Ministerial duties and asked them to say how long their incumbent should spend a week on each of them.
As you can no doubt guess, the total was somewhat unrealistic for one person.
This is a serious issue. Part of the problem in a multi-parish benefice is that no-one sees the big picture. I know several of my colleagues who are working under immense pressure, of workload, expectations, time (and to be fair, a lot of this is self-imposed by a wish to do the very best for everyone at all times, because this is a calling and a job that we love.) But there needs to be some realistic thinking if we are not to lose many more through burnout.
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