church: what colour is yours (Appendix 2)

This is a great piece - makes you realise how valuable the Church times is as reading matter:

APPENDIX TWO                  Church Times article (Madeline Davies 28^th Feb 2020)

(my italics for emphasis)

PARISHES in the diocese of Chelmsford are to be given a stark message next month: if they want a priest, they will have to pay the going rate. Last Sunday was designated a day of prayer, asking God to “loosen the drawstrings of our hearts”.

In the diocesan synod meeting next month, members will be asked to agree changes to the way clergy vacancies are filled. Benefices that are unable to cover the costs of a full-time stipendiary priest — on average, £80,180, which includes a portion of central diocesan costs — will enter a new process in which alternatives are discussed, such as interim ministry, a self-supporting priest-in-charge, or a licensed lay minister. If voted through, the new processes will come into effect immediately.

This week, the Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, soon to move to York, said that the diocese had needed “a big reality check. My text for all this has been ‘the truth will set you free’. . . People may hate what I am saying, but it’s simply impossible to disagree with it: the accounts reveal everything.”

The immediate cause is the loss of a substantial subsidy from the Church Commissioners. Under the previous formula (known as “Darlow”, which is currently being phased out), Chelmsford received £3.1 million a year, enabling it to balance its budget. It now receives £1 million from the Lowest Income Communities Fund (LICF), and further funds from Strategic Development grants, but that still means a deficit of at least a £1 million. Last year, parish-share receipts fell to 92.59 per cent of the total needed. Over half the shortfall was attributable to 21 parishes.

“The situation has become startlingly simple,” Bishop Cottrell told the diocesan synod in November. “If you want a priest you have to pay. . . If we don’t make these changes, it will lead to much more drastic and unplanned decisions being forced upon us.” Even parishes that met their parish share were not fully covering the cost of ministry, and would be asked to give more.

On Monday, Bishop Cottrell said that the debate in November had been “really good. There was a lot of pain expressed and honesty.” Leaving the problem for another ten years would have been a “terrible irresponsibility”. He was confident that the synod would vote in favour of the proposals. The diocese was not in “crisis mode”, and he believed that the diocese would respond with greater levels of giving. “And if not, there will have to be some cuts in clergy numbers.”

He wanted stipendiary ministry to grow, he said, and the diocese remained committed to the poorest communities. The entirety of the central LICF funding would go to subsidising their parish share, and if parish share was sufficient to pay for ministry, then all of the diocese’s investment income would also go to these parishes.

The changes build on existing reforms in the diocese. When Bishop Cottrell arrived as diocesan bishop in 2010, a pressing problem was clergy retirements: 47 per cent of stipendiary clergy were due to retire within the next decade. This was one of the drivers of the formation of Mission and Ministry Units (MMUs), whereby parishes and benefices have voluntarily joined together to share resources and mission. More than half (57 per cent) of parishes are now part of an MMU.

The “mantra” behind this was that “no priest should ever work on their own ever again,” Bishop Cottrell said on Monday. “It sounds obvious and sensible, but it’s a massive culture shock for the C of E where, for centuries, clergy have led in isolation.” Another driver was the desire to plant more churches — something that individual churches were unlikely to be able to do alone.

The population of east London and Essex is set to grow by 300,000 over the next ten years, and the diocese plans to plant 101 new Christian communities. Last year, it received  a Strategic Development Funding grant of  £3.85 million towards this goal.

“What we are really trying to do is define what we mean by ‘church’,” Bishop Cottrell said. “I think for too long, ‘church’ has meant a building and a vicar and possibly a geographic area to serve, and our job is to sustain that. . . I would say vicars only came into being as a consequence of evangelism not a cause. Europe was evangelised by movements of mission — usually monastic movements. . . We need new movements of mission, and vicars aren’t necessarily the best way of achieving that.”

church - what colour is yours (appendix 1)

This document is helpful in outlining and clarifying much of that referred to the in first post:

APPENDIX ONE                                                                               DS(2020)06 

DIOCESAN SYNOD: AN APPROACH TO REDUCING STIPENDIARY NUMBERS 

AUTHOR:  INTERIM CEO                                         6 JUNE 2020 

1. CONTEXT 

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were following two pathways towards sustainability: 

1. a)  First, we have been progressively reducing the number of stipendiary incumbency 

posts. This work began in 2011 in response to the high average age of clergy and the inevitable rate of retirements. This produced our ‘minimum sustainable number’ of 215 stipendiary posts in 2025 to which all deaneries are working and some have already achieved. With the withdrawal of Darlow funding, which is being phased out and will disappear entirely in 2025, our 2019 estimate of the number of stipendiary incumbents we could afford in 2025 reduced to 202. This assumed that giving levels remained constant. 

2. b)  Second, we have recognised that a very high number of parishes do not cover their “full cost of ministry” and are being subsidised (even if they have faithfully paid their allocated parish share in full). These issues were first discussed by Diocesan Synod in November 2019 and a formal proposal to implement a new approach to how vacancies will be handled would have come to the March 2020 meeting for approval. See the paper From Subsidy to Sustainability DS(20)02. 

These approaches remain valid but are now not sufficient to address the financial crisis we face. As a result, DS(20)02 is not being brought for approval at this meeting of Synod but its principles will help to inform the proposals in this paper. 

At their meeting on 12 May 2020, the Finance Committee has approved the proposal to bring forward implementation of the planned 2025 numbers to the end of 2021. This means reducing the number of stipendiary incumbent posts from 275 (as at 31 March 2020) to 215 in the next 18 months. This paper sets out a proposed method to achieve this. 

2. GUIDING PRINCIPLES 

In doing this work, it will be important that we do not unnecessarily damage our capacity for mission and ministry. As far as possible we plan to: 

a) Prune in order to enable growth. Based on Jesus’ teaching in John 15, our aim must be to enable gospel growth. Care will be taken not to cut posts that have strategic potential.

b)  Include our Strategic Development Funded Church Planting Projects in this planning alongside existing incumbencies. 

c)  Recognise and build on existing deanery plans. 

d)  Make phased decisions so that further cuts can be implemented without major re
       planning work if our financial position deteriorates and, conversely, our plans for
       reducing numbers can be scaled back if we can afford to do so. 

e)  To proceed in hope and confidence that God’s Spirit will lead us into new and fruitful
      ways of being church. 

f)  Expect that reducing our reliance on stipendiary ordained ministry will foster new
     vocations to lay and ordained ministry including self-supporting, part-time and
     House for Duty ministry. 

HANDLING CURRENT VACANCIES 

We have an unprecedented number of vacancies across the diocese which totalled 48.5 posts at the end of March. 

Freezing these vacancies would take us to within 12 posts of our 2025 objective. However, this is not recommended – not least because it would not address Principle a) above. Also, these vacancies are not uniformly distributed across all deaneries and a blanket approach would be neither missional nor fair.  However, to avoid the risk of compromising this planning task, it would be sensible to pause filling as many stipendiary vacancies as possible until September. 

4. PLANNING THE REDUCTION OF STIPENDIARY POSTS 

Archdeacons are asked to coordinate this work in partnership with Area Deans, Lay Chairs and Area Teams to code each stipendiary post as Green, Amber or Red. In summary, Green would mean this post is of strategic importance and is to be retained (or filled if vacant). Amber means this post is desirable and should be retained if finances permit but other options for enabling ministry could be considered. Red means this post is unlikely to be filled with a full-time stipendiary incumbent and other options for enabling ministry should be considered. This is a deliberately simple and subjective assessment to start the ball rolling. Please note, this coding is about stipendiary posts and is not an assessment of parishes or benefices – many of which are thriving with other patterns of ordained and lay ministry. 

In order to encourage reimagining ministry for mission, the maximum number of ‘green’ posts across the diocese should be restricted to 150. This is 25% below the affordable number determined in 2019 and is a reasonable worse-case scenario for long-term affordability. By limiting ‘green’ posts to this number we should not have to repeat this exercise in the foreseeable future. 

Once the ‘green’ posts are agreed, the ‘amber’ posts can be ranked in each deanery to determine those which will be retained subject to overall affordability. Thus, we expect a significant number of ‘amber’ posts to be retained when the 2025 number of posts (215) is reached at the end of 2021.

There can be flexibility between deaneries to allow Archdeacons and Bishops to provide for particular mission opportunities. Such changes would need agreement by Area Mission and Pastoral Committees or the Diocesan Mission and Pastoral Committee, as appropriate. 

Archdeacons are asked to produce an initial coding of posts in each of their deaneries by the end of July. This will allow refinement at AMPC and DMPC leading to a plan that can be ratified by Synod in November 2020. 

Some implementation, where there is agreement between all parties, can begin immediately, subject to the approval of the bishops and CEO. This includes making appointments to ‘green’ posts and initiating any necessary pastoral reorganisation needed to close ‘red’ posts currently in vacancy. 

We recognise that a simple allocation of posts into three categories may not be sufficient to record the effects of, for example, potential pastoral reorganisation or the deployment of time-limited Interim Ministry posts. We plan to develop more detailed guidance in the coming days so that a consistent approach can be used across the diocese. 

5. ACHIEVING THE REDUCTION IN POSTS 

Once the plan for stipendiary posts is agreed, work can then begin on any necessary pastoral reorganisation of parishes and a range of options can be explored for those incumbents who are in posts that will not be retained beyond the end of 2021. These options will be explored sensitively, confidentially, pastorally and vocationally in individual conversations with bishops and archdeacons. 

It is expected that in most instances a mutually agreed plan can be put in place. However, there may be instances where financial support will be needed to enable an incumbent to follow a different vocational pathway and, in the last resort, some Common Tenure posts may have to be made redundant. We anticipate that the Church Commissioners will consider grants for such transformation costs where necessary. 

6. APPROVAL SOUGHT 

Diocesan Synod is invited to NOTE this paper and SUPPORT the actions proposed, subject to formal AGREEMENT in November 2020. 

church: what colour is yours?

As Chelmsford diocese looks to embark on ‘drastic’ reductions as it looks to lose some sixty  stipendiary posts over the coming eighteen months; something on the drawing board but now accelerated as a result of the impact on finances that is Covid-19.

Chelmsford diocesan synod’s finance committee briefing papers (20th June 2020 - see next post) outline how plans to  reduce to a ‘minimum sustainable number of two hundred and fifteen posts (from two hundred and seventy-five) by 2025’ has been accelerated for completion by 2021 (a period of eighteen months) - and Chelmsford’s diocesan synod are in favour of this and so, subject to formal agreement in November, this is the emerging reality in Chelmsford and quite likely in a diocese near you before too long and this will result in posts being classified by means of a ‘traffic light’ system:

Green: To be retained or filled if vacant,

Amber: Desirable and should be retained if finances permit,

Red:      Unlikely to be filled with full-time stipendiary incumbent - other options for
              enabling ministry should be considered.

Chelmsford’s upper limit for GREEN Zone posts is set to 150. This is 25% below the affordable number determined  in 2019 as a reasonable worse-case scenario for long-term affordability – and, if achieved and maintained will preclude the need for the establishment to re-examined in the ‘foreseeable future’.

The next phase of the process will be to assess and rank the AMBER zone posts, which will be retained (if affordable).  Chelmsford, “Expect a significant number of ‘amber’ posts to be retained at the end of 2021.”

Then final phase will be to consider the RED zone posts. Benefices unable to cover the cost of a full-time stipendiary priest  (Chelmsford assesses the average cost as £80,180) will be invited to discuss alternatives, such as interim ministry, a self-supporting priest-in-charge, or a licensed lay minister (The post after next)).

There are obviously implications for posts available to newly ordained priests. In Chelmsford stipendiary curacy posts have increased from twelve to sixteen (thanks to the national vocation drive) but only two of the additional four posts are being funded by the Church Commissioners. The briefing paper explains:
“The time is now right to reconsider the number of stipendiary curates we will need to maintain incumbent numbers as well as the length of curacies and the possibility of placing curates towards the end of their training to support vacant parishes. We do not plan to furlough stipendiary curates in order that training and formation continues. And we recognise that many of our curates have been in the forefront of applying technology for ‘church at home’.”

Plans for reduction of stipendiary posts in Chelmsford have been in place since 2011 when almost half the stipendiary clergy were due to have retired within ten years of that date bring ‘natural reductions. The situation has been made more urgent by the loss of a subsidy from the Church Commissioners which results in a budgetary deficit which is hampered by lower parish share income. Interestingly, over half of the shortfall was attributable to 21 parishes (so guess which colour they might be?).

Three-months of Covid-19 closure has further exacerbated the financial situation as parish share receipts (everywhere) have dipped bringing about a real challenge for diocese finance teams seeking to meet ministerial and other costs in their patches. Chelmsford has, at the time of writing, forty-eight vacancies but, thankfully, it has been decided that ‘freezing’ them is not the way forward – but the reality (as I see it) is that they won’t be that speedy thanks to a combination of the Covid-19 and financial situations.

OUR TASK
I offer this document to you as something to be reflected upon for ourselves and the churches under our care. Far too often clergy are taken up with the situation of the churches around them as they seek to make cuts and changes elsewhere that will effectively leave them relatively unscathed.

Some will continually plead special circumstances (claiming to be a poor church perhaps?) and others will bemoan the reductions in clergy numbers where they are and the pressures these realities have brought about in their patch. Some will point to all the good work which they, or their congregation and the people working in it do (why? It’s what we are supposed to be doing isn’t it?) as a reason to be subsidised and supported.

One of the Archdeacons I have worked with repeatedly used this mantra:
“If you can’t pay, then you can’t have!” 

This, it seems is the reality before us – our task is to ensure that our diocesan resources are sufficient to meet the demands placed on it.

This is not a something that is, “All about money” (something some parochial clergy could do with learning) but is concerned with the establishment and maintenance of prayerful, effective, intelligent, collegial, missional and pastorally-engaged ministry.

I would commend to you the words of the Archbishop of York in the second appendix as something to take to heart and make your own.