This is the full text of an Epiphany Message from the Bishop of Lichfield to all congregations in the diocese:
When Jesus was baptized by John, heaven opened to him, he saw the Spirit descending like a dove and God said: ‘This is my Beloved Son with whom I am well pleased’. It’s one of the most astonishing bits of the Good News that, before Jesus got stuck into his life’s work, before he did anything much for God, his heavenly Father did something for him and told him how much he loved him. In the same way, long before we start to serve and do things for God, our heavenly Father shows us that he loves us. Jesus himself is the definitive sign of how much we are loved, of course, and wherever Jesus is, in our churches for instance, there are signs for anyone who cares to look, that God loves us first.
Sometimes this happens in quite concrete ways and last year we had a rather exciting turn-around in our diocese. In 2002 we found that we were heading for bankruptcy. Particularly our larger churches had seen decline and children’s work was in free-fall. We had to take drastic action to cut clergy posts and reduce the budget by £800,000. Alongside that we focussed on a Strategy for Growth: praying that God would halt the decline and restore our church. Well, five years later, we can thank God for a wonderful confirmation of his love.
Last autumn we licensed the largest number of Lay Ministers that we can remember.
Back to Church Sunday produced several thousand returnees in church.
Parishes have appointed almost as many children’s workers as the number of clergy posts we have cut.
All those churches which have attended the Larger Churches course have stopped declining and started growing again.
Growth is happening in a large proportion of our parishes, including some of the poorest in the land.
We have been able to balance the budget, and strengthen our reserves.
We’ve decided to:
increase the number of stipendiary curates from 9 to 11 and
not to cut the last remaining three clergy posts of the 50 cuts agreed five years ago. We aim to stabilize the number of clergy and then pray for a gradual increase again.
We will reduce the annual increase in the Share Formula for the first time for many years.
We’ve even been able to offer stipendiary clergy health check-ups and we’ve begun a big programme so that every vicarage can have cavity wall insulation.
It is not all good news of course. Some parishes are struggling. But for every apparently insoluble problem we face there are encouragements and exciting opportunities. So I hope you will join with me at the beginning of a new year in giving thanks. Thank you to God for all the signs of his amazing grace, and thank you to all the faithful parishes where people have upped their giving and their commitment.
After Jesus was baptized and God confirmed his love for him he was ready to face the challenge of the next few years. And when we’ve been particularly loved by God, as we have, it helps strengthen us for what lies ahead.
Now there is a particular challenge coming for which I would value your prayers and your action.
We are going to need more clergy and especially more ordinands. We are just coming to the point over the next five years when the baby-boomer cohort of clergy is planning for retirement. Numbers of ordinands are up, but not yet enough to compensate for the expected number of retirements. Please pray that some of our clergy will retire a little later than at 65. And that we will be able to support more new ordinands each year, paid and voluntary.
It’s also important to pray for the increase in the number of Lay Readers and other voluntary lay ministers to be maintained.
And of course I’m praying for the money to train and pay for clergy and lay workers.
Jesus didn’t exactly know all the details of his coming ministry. But he knew he was loved and entrusted with the Good News. We don’t exactly know how things will be for our Diocese. But as we receive strength from God we will continue proclaiming the Kingdom, making new disciples, encouraging the ministry of the whole people of God, calling out ministries and using gifts, and increasing the number of ministers, lay and ordained.
I believe our aim should be to produce enough paid and voluntary clergy to staff as many parishes as possible. We should aim for high quality clergy, capable of forging ahead and giving leadership for different kinds of parish. Of course, we have to raise the money to pay for them. But a good stipendiary priest will soon pay for him/herself in all but the poorest parishes. Given the chance of a new vicar, most parishes will rise to the challenge of paying for him or her.
So the challenge this year, if we are continue the turn-around and provide for our churches, is not merely to do with the numbers of people coming through the doors of our churches but what happens to us as we walk out of the doors. All beloved sons and daughters have a ministry. My hope is that every parish will be encouraging every member to consider their calling and their ministry, because everyone is a beloved son or daughter. And out of all those callings my hope is that there will be some more from each place who will be given the gifts for ordained and lay ministry so that together we can be a sign of God’s love and grace.
For the last few years I have invited parishes to set aside Ash Wednesday or another suitable day as a day for concerted prayer and fasting for the Diocese. This year I invite you to do the same: first and most important to celebrate and thank the Lord for wonderfully giving us the security of his love; secondly to pray that the turn-around will become a steady growth, particularly in children and young people; and thirdly in prayer to the Lord of the harvest to provide the increase in ordinands, clergy and lay leaders we need for these next years.
And a joyful Epiphany to you all!
Jonathan Gledhill
I said some time ago that I intended to link on this site to any member of a Chelmsford South church with a blog. To my knowledge, this only means one person: Peter Kirk, who blogs at Gentle Wisdom. Here is an example of his writing to get your attention:
"It seems that the only way to satisfy the aspirations of opponents [of whom Peter is not one] of women priests and bishops, is for them to separate from the current provinces of Canterbury and York and set up their own province, perhaps still nominally in the Church of England, without women clergy. Indeed this is what many of them want. This new province would necessarily be non-geographical, with its own structure of dioceses and parishes, or at least non-parochial congregations, which would necessarily cut across the current geographical hierarchy. And they could hardly expect the continuing Church of England to avoid working at all in the former parishes of churches which have joined the new province. So this “third province” idea more or less implies the end of the geographical hierarchical system of the church."Perhaps this is why there is strong opposition within the church hierarchy to the “third province” proposal, as well as to the recent moves in North America for parishes and even dioceses to put themselves under the authority of foreign provinces. But this opposition is misplaced. The geographical system of provinces, dioceses and parishes is an anachronism, a relic of the “Christendom” of mediaeval Europe in which everyone could be assumed to be a Christian and in which church and secular authority were closely linked. The perpetuation of this system in the early days of the Church of England may have limited the bloodshed of those early days. But now it is time to dismantle this system and replace it with something more suited to the 21st century."
If you want to give an opinion on whether the parish system is an anachronism, or know of other Chelmsford South bloggers, please leave a comment to let us know!
Someone has given us a chocolate advent calendar.
There are 4 problems with this:
It will rot my kids' teeth, or make me fatter, or both.
Daily fights over which of the kids will open it.
They’ll now expect a chocolate advent calendar every year
Possibly the most serious … chocolate advent calendars destroy society, the soul and the planet.
... chocolate calendars “take the waiting out of wanting’”, in the words of the old Access debit card campaign. Instead of building expectation through the month with calendars and candles and so on, you get to indulge yourself from day one.
Forget all that anticipation for 24 days, lets start stuffing ourselves now.
...We don’t wait for the nice bits…
Why wait till you can afford something when with a bit more debt you can have it now?
Why wait for more sex or less arguments when you could quit the relationship now and go and shack up with someone else?
Why wait for a patient resolution to an debate when you can win it with brute force?
Why wait for political funds to come in when you could get them quicker by cutting a few corners?
Why wait for the weapons inspectors to finish their job in Iraq when you’re itching for a fight?
Even the church is getting in on it:
Why wait for a consensus when you could just go and set up your own?
Such a cracking philosophy, you can see how well it works economically, relationally, internationally and in every other way.
… but we put off the hard bits?
As for the planet - well, we’ll sort out our carbon emissions in about 20 years, but in the meantime we’ve got to have plasma HDTV, even if it does hoover up 4 times the energy of our old set.
And make the powerless wait in line
The people that have to wait are the poor and the powerless. Here we are all up in arms about one teacher undeservedly in jail in Sudan, and rightly so. I hope the camera crews in Sudan stick around after the story ends to show us some other people for us to get up in arms about.
I’m not looking to put a downer on anyone’s Advent. If you’re down, you’ll just eat more chocolate, so I hope you have a great month.
Wrapping-Up
I just want to wonder aloud: what kind of world, society, neighbourhood, family, would we have if we could wait a little more, and the poor had to wait a little less? Would it be a better one?
from Dave Keen
Our Vision, as adopted on November 28 2007:
We look to God for power to EQUIP every member to
SERVE South Chelmsford and to
TELL of God’s love.
Our primary values:
-affirmation of God's delight and love for all creation
- worship that connects people with God through Christ
- working together across parochial boundaries and with our ecumenical partners
- a longing for more disciples for Jesus and the extension of God's Kingdom
- in all we are and all we do, to bring honourand glory to God
In adopting this statement of vision and values we intend that it will be central to deanery policies, actions and visitations. Also that it should be integral to the parishes, as each contributes to the vision for Chelmsford South. We will look for this vision to be owned by all those who make decisions on the allocation of resources in the deanery. We recognise that we are all part of a unified diocesan vision, and are committed to this.
How will this vision statement be used?
The great advantage of having a vision statement is that it can regulate every aspect of what we do - from the agenda at synods and chapter meetings to the questions asked at visitations and the method used for calculating Parish Share.
In addition, the archdeacon has assured us that, if adopted by synod, this statement will be kept central to appointment of new clergy, appraisal, and pastoral organisation for the deanery.
Since becoming Rural Dean, I've been approached by many members of Chelmsford South churches who want to talk about the way parish share is levied. Sometimes they say that we are wasting time talking about vision when we should be finding the right way to apportion the parish share. My answer is always that parish share is a vision thing.
As far as I know, there are two basic means by which parish shares are levied: on the basis of average attendance and on the basis of the cost of a parish's ministry. Let's call these the "attendance model" and the "ministry cost" model.
The Ministry Cost model
A parish with 1 stipendiary clergyperson pays around £35 000 for her/him, plus something towards diocesan and area team costs; parishes with two stipendiary clergy pay double this, those with "half a priest" pay £17 500, etc.
This is the system used in London and Europe Dioceses, and by most free churches.
Compared to our present system, this would be financially advantageous for parishes like West Hanningfield without stipendiary clergy, and parishes like Great Baddow with relatively few stipendiary clergy (less than about 1:85) per average weekly attender.
The Attendance model
A parish pays around £650 per average weekly attender per year, adjusted for the affluence of the area.
This is the system used in Southwark Diocese.
Compared to our present system, this would be financially advantageous for parishes like South Woodham Ferrars with relatively few average weekly attenders (less than around 85) per clergyperson.
We in Chelmsford South, on the other hand,
presently use a formula about halfway between these two models, with each parish paying 50% of its ministry costs plus a pooled amount depending on average attendance, adjusted for the affluence of the area. The formula was agreed by the deanery in 2003, and Harry, our Deanery Treasurer, is entirely impartial in the way he applies it to the present situation.
In 2008, we will revisit this subject, and deal with it as a vision issue. For example, if our vision is accepted by synod next week, it says that one of our values is "a longing for more disciples for Jesus" - I would expect proponents of the ministry cost model to argue that the attendance model penalises churches for gathering more disciples! (A sizeable number of large Southwark churches refuse to pay their parish share because it constitutes, in their view, a "tax on church growth"). At the same time, I would expect proponents of the attendance model to argue that another of our values is "working together across parish boundaries", and that therefore churches with high attendance should be expected financially to help out churches with low attendance. Either way, it's a vision thing, and we need to make the decision based on our common vision; then we can ask Harry and our hardworking Treasurers to come up with a formula that will work in practice!
The following comments have already been made below - please add to them when your PCC has discussed this issue!
1. It may perhaps be true to say that the role of Christian leadership is to prepare God's people for works of service (Ephesians 4). But realistically the role of deaneries is to manage meagre resources of finance and personnel, persuading the parishes to give more and more and receive less and less. Facing up to this issue and being honest about having to close or amalgamate parishes in the near future would be much more effective than debates on women as bishops or gay divorcees as clergy.
2. I just wanted to say how refreshing I find this kind of simple, visionary document. It has a capacity to inspire and my vote is for not only adopting it but living it out in every aspect of our discipleship.
3. Comment 1, I'm sure you aren't saying that Ephesians 4 has no relevance at deanery level, but I do agree completely that we need to be honest about the issues that face us on the ground.
4. In that case, why is the next synod debating women in the episcopate, a subject that neither relates to the "vision" nor has anything to do with the local realities in the parishes of the area? Sorry - I'm a grumpy old man.
5. Am I alone in noting that this statement makes no mention of inclusion or creation care? At a time when these issues are highly controversial in Anglicanism worldwide, the draft mission statement above seems to me to be unbalanced in its individualism and "evangelical" feel. This deanery has not been explicitly evangelical in the last few years, and I would hate it to become so under new leadership.
6. First line of values should read
"affirmation of God's delight in, and love for, all creation" -
otherwise the preposition is wrong.
I'm a paid-up pedant. Other than that, I'm very supportive of this statement (as long as it gets acted on).
7. Roger (comment 5) would hate the deanery to become uniformly evangelical, and others would hate it to become uniformly any one other thing. But the problem with the whole concept of a deanery vision statement is that it pushes the deanery towards uniformity, unless of course that statement is so broad as to be meaningless. Perhaps we ought instead to recognise the variety within the deanery of visions for the church, and agree to respect one another's visions.
(ordinary member of Meadgate, Great Baddow)
8. (Andy) Thank you all for your comments so far - I hope there'll be plenty more.
Roger and Peter, I promise you that I have absolutely no interest in making the deanery uniformly anything at all, and the vision really did flow naturally from the parish submissions from churches of all ecclesiatical bents. Yes, we should certainly respect each church's vision and not try to "push" one another.
On the other hand, the entity called "Chelmsford South deanery" does, for better or worse, exist. It's part of the decision-making structures of the Church of England, it has responsibilities for oversight, and it is expected to use its influence. I for one am the sort of person who needs to be clear about why am doing what I'm doing, and needs to be inspired by a sense that God is calling me to something beyond my natural inclinations - for me, the draft deanery vision provides exactly that sort of clarity and inspiration.
One example: synods for next year. Of course, Christine and I and the standing committee could just invite a random set of speakers and have a random selection of debates. But if this vision is adopted, we will be accountable to make sure that synods deal with how to equip every member to serve their local community and how to equip every member to tell of God's love, with a balance between these two aims and with nothing that does not contribute to them.
Another example: levying the parish share. I'm determined that this needs to be a "vision thing"; we have hundreds of thousands to collect, and we need to do it fairly and in line with our purposes as a deanery.
What do others think?
9. (Andy) Roger, your point above was taken into consideration by the subcommittee, and we have added a new line to the "values" section accordingly - we hope you like the new version more than you did the old one!
Every PCC in the deanery has been asked to discuss the admission of women to the episcopate. Civil comments on this topic can be added here.
CAM reports that "the Chelmsford Diocesan Synod decided on Saturday 10th November not to vote on a motion from Braintree Deanery urging the bishops to uphold Lambeth Resolution 1.10 (a statement which speaks in favour of listening to the experience of those with same-sex attraction, but against accepting same-sex relatationships as compatible with Christian discipleship).
A procedural motion to move on without voting was passed by 65 votes to 60 on a second count.
The same Synod saw a number of questions put to Bishop John Gladwin about his patronage of the campaign group Changing Attitude, and the effect this was having on the Diocese."
Statistics from the Church of England reveal that the average weekly giving by parishioners in 2005 increased to £5.08, and more clergy are being trained and ordained now compared with 10 years ago.
According to Church Statistics 2005/6, which this year is only available on the web, direct giving to parish churches averaged £5.08 per electoral roll member per week and tax-efficient giving increased to an average of £8.26 per subscriber per week. The number of parishioners subscribing to tax-efficient regular giving through Gift Aid rose to a further record of 523,200.
“Achieving £5 a week was quite a milestone and the latest figures show a further increase of 4% in total tax-efficient giving,” said John Preston, the Church’s National Stewardship and Resources Officer.
“Church members continue to give generously to charitable causes compared with the population at large. Average giving to the church is around 3% of average incomes, still somewhere short of the 5% of disposable income recommended by the General Synod since 1978.
“The 5% aim was based on the Christian tradition of tithing or giving away 10% of income and the recommendation was to give half of that to the Church in thanks for God's gifts and half to other charitable works.”
The total income of Parochial Church Councils (PCCs) in 2005, the figures show, rose to £792 million. Total expenditure rose to £779 million, of which more than £50 million was devoted to charitable giving by the PCCs to other charities and mission organisations, 8% of their recurring expenditure of £568 million.
The statistics also show increases in the number of clergy being trained and numbers being ordained. The Church recommended 594 future clergy for ordination training in 2005, the greatest number for more than a decade and maintaining the upward trend since the mid-90s. In 1994, 408 candidates were recommended for training.
The Church ordained 478 new clergy in 2006, a drop on the 505 ordained in 2005, the highest number since 2002, but more than the 469 in 2004.
Overall, more women (244) than men (234) were ordained in 2006, though the majority of these were ordained to non-stipendiary ministry. Of those ordained to full-time stipendiary ministry, 128 were men and 95 were women.
At the end of 2006, there were 20,354 ministers licensed by Church of England dioceses, including clergy, readers and Church Army officers: one minister for every 2,500 people in England.
“The nation continues to enjoy the spiritual ministry of an increasing variety of Church of England ministers, many of whom contribute to the health of their local community in a voluntary capacity,” observed Revd Lynda Barley, Head of Research and Statistics.
The total does not include some 1,600 chaplains to prisons, hospitals, the armed forces and in education, nor around 6,600 retired ministers with permission to officiate.
Attendance figures for 2005 were provisionally issued in January and have not changed. Regular Sunday attendance fell by 2%, while weekly and monthly attendance fell by 1% or less. This follows two years in which the numbers increased or held steady.
Meanwhile, Christmas Eve/Christmas Day attendance increased by 6%, the number of children and young people attending at least monthly increased by 1% and more than half the parishes reported running or planning a ‘fresh expression of church’.
The new statistics confirm that around 1.7 million people attend Church of England church and cathedral worship each month, while around 1.2 million attend services each week – on Sunday or during the week - and just under one million each Sunday.
The Rev Keith Magee has agreed to be Chapter Clerk for the deanery - this task primarily involves arranging dates, venues, formats and (where appropriate) speakers for the Chapter, a regular gathering of clergy from the deanery.
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