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.”