Church - Rearranging the deckchairs - 4

Looking at the 2010-11 statistics for the Church of England I note that the Diocese of Lichfield clergy figures look like this:

Full-time stipendiary         300
Part-time stipendiary          17
Non-stipendiary                  72
Ordained Local Ministers    56
Total clergy numbers        445   (I notice the official figure is 498 clergy for 2009)

As I'm only looking at a ballpark figure to provide some sort of feel for the numbers we will be taking these as being somewhere near correct for the beginning of the period 2012 - 2020.

It is during this period that we are being told that some 61% of the clergy will be leaving us through retirement and other 'natural' loss. This means that on these figures we will be losing two hundred and seventy-two clergy during the period which when added to the thirty clergy destined to be lost by planned clergy losses (also known as redundancy) brings us to a total reduction (before additions by ordination and other means) of three hundred and two clergy (or a total population remaining of one hundred and forty-three clergy). This means we are left with one hundred and sixty-four clergy before we start ordaining (or otherwise adding).

So before we ordain (Stipendiary, NSM and OLM) we have something between one hundred and forty-three and one hundred and sixty four clergy to service the needs of some five hundred and sixty-seven churches.

There are a number of possible ways forward with such reduced numbers and if an average of twenty-eight  new ministers (stipendiary, non-stipendiary and OLM) is correct (I was told it was but I can not validate this figure!) then over the six-year period we will be adding eighty-four new priests to the total  (Assuming a three-year curacy). The rough working figures then see us with something between two hundred and twenty-seven and two hundred and forty-eight clergy and (before closures) five hundred and eighty-seven churches.

Taking the median of two hundred and thirty-eight clergy this means we will have around two point four churches each.

The issue before us is that we don't have enough clergy to take on the churches and even if we did, unless they were free, we wouldn't have the money to pay for them anyway!

So whilst some are complaining that the church has gone money mad I guess we should look at the figures (only for a minute because we are heading back to the Gospel very shortly) and feel some sympathy for the bean counters whom many are pointing the finger (and quite rightly in some instances - but that's something else for some time ahead too!).

I will leave you with my addled mathematics - all done with the aid of a fag packet and some crude and rudimentary maths. Mind you, work into the equation the sum of £50 per stipendiary and you'll be sweating along with the rest of the financial types.

pax

Vocation - Calling or Job?

One struggle that I have with those investigating a call on their life to ministry is that of trying to help them consider 'the ministry' as something other than a job that one does in a church setting.

We roll out models of submission (Nehemiah) and point to the life and ministry of Jesus; We this discuss primus inter pares (first among equals) and what this means in terms of being church and being called. The end of the 'nine to five' and 'leaving work at home' as we consider things ontological (you are what you do, you don't just do it!) and just as light, which is not an approaching train, appears at the end of the tunnel things get interesting.

"But it is a job because you have appraisals, just like where I work! Not only that but my Vicar told me that the church was making vicars redundant and that's what we're doing where I am at the moment! How come you're telling me that it's more than a job because it looks and sounds like one from where I'm looking at it?"

Well, it never used to be, did it?

Footballing role models

I am often appalled at the antics of that overpaid, cosseted and loose-moralled bunch of people who play professional football but this morning (as the Church celebrates sacrifice in the shape of Perpetua and Felicity) I am cheered by the actions of a couple of them.

For those who don't know, the Scottish football club, Rangers, is in serious financial trouble. The club are trying to cut the players wage bill and whilst some have accepted cuts, others have dug their heels in (or more accurately, their agents have dug their heels in). Two players, Gregg Wylde and Mervan Celik, have come to the fore and offered to take up voluntary-redundancy to help save the club from closure.

Wylde puts it like this:

"I volunteered to walk with no redundancy package today to help the other people in the club who have families, like the kitchen staff. I thought it was important to play my part in saving Rangers. I offered to walk away yesterday and the club told me today that they would accept that offer. At the moment I have nowhere to go and I don't have another club. I don't know what is going to happen next but I thought it was important to play my part in saving Rangers."

Two men who have put their colleagues and club first. Makes a nice change from race rows, drunkenness and adultery doesn't it?

Pax