the President of the United States recently announced a $700 billion bailout plans for banks and financial institutions. One of the ironies about this financial crisis is that it makes action on poverty look utterly achievable. It would cost $5 billion to save six million children's lives. World leaders could find 140 times that amount for the banking system in a week. How can they now tell us that action for the poorest on the planet is too expensive?
At June’s Deanery synod, we started a discussion of the way in which parish share is levied. The process will continue with three meetings of a review group appointed at the synod, and a vote of the whole synod on their proposals at September 11’s synod at Bicknacre.
The following points were made on sheets distributed to all participants:
A 10 participants wanted to move towards a “you get what you pay for” system; 5 wanted to move towards a “fair shares” system which does not take the number of ministers serving a parish into account; 5 wanted to maintain the status quo (a mix of these), and 20 expressed no opinion.
B 6 participants wanted affluence more strongly taken into account (though some specified this should be congregational affluence, not affluence of the area); 12 wanted affluence to be a less of a factor; 27 expressed no opinion.
C Most participants opposed any introduction of a congregation’s total income as a factor in determining parish share. There was no appetite for a hardship fund, a deanery mission fund or a deanery youthworker.
D Many respondents (19 for, only one against) wanted an “offsetting” scheme first suggested on this blog whereby “”It should be possible with the agreement of all parties for stipendiary clergy at parish A to help out at parish B for a certain percentage of their time, with a corresponding transfer of costs to parish B and a reduction in parish A’s parish share”.
We also broke into “buzz groups”. The following were the main points noted by groups on their flip-chart sheets or Christine’s feedback sheets:
1. We need to recalculate the grading, perhaps with a view to congregational affluence; We should not be taking into account the affluence of the area, but the affluence of the membership; We should judge congregational affluence, not area affluence; we could do anonymous congregational surveys to determine affluence; mean income of each church could be worked out (3 groups)
2. Changes to the system are definitely needed; the system needs to be changed so that it is perceived to be fair (2 groups).
3. We’re not sure if we need to make changes; Whatever system we come up with, there will still be winners and losers (2 groups).
4. Any changes need to be phased in gradually. (2 groups)
5. Membership is a better factor than attendance – as long as membership is not just the electoral roll; We need to find better ways to count both attendance and real membership. (2 groups)
6. We need to encourage mission through parish share; a “mission precept” so that where there is growth more resources are invested (1 group)
7. Overall annual income should be taken into account. (1 group)
8. We need to encourage generosity between the parishes. (1 group)
To be honest, apart from points D and 1 above (and maybe 4 and 5?) I’m not sure any of this feedback gives a clear mandate for radical change.
One final point: by my calculation, the churches of Chelmsford South Deanery should have sent around 86 people to Deanery Synod (all elected deanery representatives plus clergy plus treasurers). Only 40 people were there, and half of them did not fill in one of the individual sheets asking for their views! So if you're a member of one of these churches and you don't like the opinions about parish share that have been expressed - find out if your representatives were there, and how they represented you!
Dear Friends,
Nudist Colony in Galleywood
Yes, it’s true. A nudist colony on Bakers Lane, in Galleywood Church Parish. With a national magazine (“The Naturist”) associated with it – lots of pictures of naked people, whose particulars have been covered by strategically placed bowls of fruit or pieces of furniture. A weekend haunt for many Londoners, and a few locals.
No, it does not exist today – it was there in the late 1940s. Villagers who were at school in Galleywood in those post-war days remember cycling over to Bakers Lane, hoping to get a glimpse through the fence or get past the bouncers at the gate (they never succeeded). History does not record the response of the formidable Reverend Roughton, Vicar of Galleywood at that time, but I bet he wasn’t in favour of naturism. A few of the children from the Naturist Community even attended the Junior School in Galleywood – in school uniform, of course.
Why do I tell you this story? Well, partly for the pleasure of writing “Nudist Colony in Galleywood” as a headline in Viewpoint. And I think it’s important to hear again stories from the community’s history. But more importantly, I want to introduce a word to you. The word is “counter-cultural”.
A Counter-culture for the Common Good
“Counter-cultural” means “different from the way the majority of people in the culture act and believe”. In the late 1940s, before the swinging sixties, before global warming, in mid-Essex, taking clothes off in public was very definitely counter-cultural, and quite brave. Not commendable, but brave. So I got to thinking - what would be counter-cultural today?
- If a group of people believed that there was more to life than what they could see and touch and buy at Tesco’s, that would be counter-cultural. Believing in love and justice and hope and community and a real, personal God – that would be swimming against the tide.
- If a group of people determined to treat each person, regardless of their age or wealth or celebrity, as an eternal being that will have a continued existence when the galaxies have imploded into nothingness - that would be counter-cultural.
- If a group of people, faced with a culture that said “there is no public truth, I have my truth, you have your truth”, resolutely continued to say that God has chosen to reveal the truth in Jesus and the Bible – that would be counter-cultural.
- If a group of people said that they would continue to meet together once a week to worship God and hear what he has to say to them, even though the world around them gave a hundred other options for what they could do on a Sunday – that would be counter-cultural.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is such a counter-cultural community in Galleywood, believing differently from the majority beliefs of our culture, acting differently from most people in our culture. They are the church.
This is not the counter-culture of some kind of sect, that believes its members have the whole truth and doesn’t care about those outside the cult. This is a counter-culture for the common good, a group of people who are consciously living differently from those around them for the sake of the village, humbly trying to serve it any way we can. And being different from our culture doesn’t mean we’re weird or think we’re better than you are, either; we’re just normal people who have been surprised by the joy of experiencing God in our lives.
It takes a certain bravery to be counter-cultural. We’re all faced with friends, colleagues and neighbours who insist that knowing personally the God who made the universe is less important than earning an extra £25 a week, getting the latest bargains at Bluewater or taking the children to football practice. But every year, new people are deciding that they dare to shed their inhibitions and join this counter-culture for the common good. You can join us, too.
But, please – come clothed.
fondly,
Andy
This article appears as the Vicar's column in "viewpoint" magazine.
Here's a presentation made by Bob Jackson, the local archdeacon, at Solihull deanery. It made me laugh out loud as well as stimulating my thinking! The slides on church noticeboards might be a useful way to start a PCC conversation, I thought.
I received this from an anonymous source:
"A Proposal for Parish Share
Since Chelmsford South Deanery is searching for a new way of calculating Parish Share, and since in the Rural Dean’s words “it’s a vision thing”, I humbly propose the following mechanism. I hope it will be of use, if only as a discussion starter.
My proposals start from the premise that whatever mechanism we come up with should express a “longing for more disciples for Jesus” and “working together across parish boundaries”. With these clauses of the mission statement in mind, I propose
1. Completely de-coupling the average attendance count from the calculation of parish share. This way, churches that make more disciples for Jesus are not financially penalised for doing so. I accept that this would be to the financial disadvantage of parishes which are presently “over-staffed” (ie have more than one stipendiary clergy-person per 90 average attenders): Galleywood, Moulsham St John, Moulsham St Luke, South Woodham Ferrers; and that it would be to the financial advantage of parishes that are by this reckoning “under-staffed”: Great Baddow, West Hanningfield, Woodham Ferrers and Bicknacre. (If my calculations are right, it would make little difference to other parishes in the deanery). However, read on for ways in which the “losers” in the new scheme could greatly mitigate their loss.
2. Encouraging much more pooling of the time of stipendiary clergy, providing financial incentives for PCCs whose clergy work “across parish boundaries”. With the agreement of both PCCs, and without any formal pastoral reorganisation, a stipendiary in an “overstaffed” church (that is, a church with more than one stipendiary per 90 average attenders) could give, say, 15% of his/her time to a parish with no stipendiary clergy; the “receiving church” would gain valuable ministry, while the “sending church” would see their parish share decreased accordingly.
3. The establishment of a “hardship fund” for churches facing unforeseeable financial demands, eg the roof falling in. This is surely better than a system in which it is simply understood that churches facing this kind of hardship will default on their parish share payments.
My proposed formula (after adjustments for provision of housing, fees etc as at present) is as follows:
a) Each parish should pay £38 000 per stipendiary clergyperson, or pro-rata bearing in mind agreements between parishes for the informal redeployment of stipendiary clergy time. Churches without a stipendiary should be asked to pay £4000 to cover the training costs etc of their self-supporting clergy.
b) In addition, a charge to cover diocesan services and a deanery hardship fund would be levied on each parish. I would estimate that this would be at the rate of around £13 000, multiplied first by a factor relating to size of congregation (0.5 for parishes with average attendance below 50, 1 for those with 51-100, 1.5 for those 101-175, 2 for those over 175, 3 for those over 250), and then by a factor, as at present, to represent affluence.
Two imaginary examples of how this might work in practice:
1) Parish 1), A fairly large church in an affluent area has 200 average attendance and three stipendiary clergy. At present, it pays £120 000 parish share and employs a youthworker out of its own funds. Under the new formula, it would pay
a) £38 000 x 3 = 114 000
b) £13 000 x 2 x 1.25 = 32 250
Total £146 250.
Faced with the new demand, the PCC became extremely uncomfortable – until they received a call from church 2).
2) Parish 2), a very small church in a relatively deprived area, has 40 average attendance and no stipendiary clergy, and has been paying £29 000 parish share.
Under the new formula, it would pay
a) £4 000 for the retired clergyperson giving their time to take services
b) £13 000 x 0.5 x 0.75 = £4 200
Total £8 200
The parish was amazed at this total, and very pleased! However, the PCC resisted the temptation to tell everyone to reduce their standing orders or install a jacuzzi under the tower. Instead, with the full agreement of the retired clergyperson in situ, they approached Parish 1), and asked if that parish would consider seconding their youthworker and some young people to them one day a week to start a midweek youth service; for this, they would pay parish 1) £1 500 a year. In addition, they asked parish 1) if they would consider seconding one of their stipendiary priests to parish 2) for 50% of their time; in return, the retired priest at parish 2) offered to spend 50% of her available time at parish 1). Result:
v the total for parish 1) reduced to a manageable £127 250,
v the total for parish 2) was now a realistic £27 200 (plus the youthworker costs)
v parish 2) was revolutionised by the new youth congregation and the young families whom their new part-time stipendiary had been able to bring in
v the growth in discipleship of the people of parish 1) was stimulated by the experience and skills of the retired priest, who enhanced the ministry team enormously
v two parishes had learnt to work together across parish boundaries
v there were more disciples for Jesus.
I offer this proposal to all for their views and discussion."
Back as we were deciding on the text of a vision statement for the deanery, I remember Chris Poulard saying "the test of whether the vision is real to us is whether it inspires us when the big finance conversation comes up". Now is the moment for that test.
But we do not face the test alone. On 17 December 2007 some of the deanery leadership team were joined by Canon Don Cardy (Chairman of Diocesan Budget Committee) and Anthony Nicolle (Vice- Chairman of DBF) - who have kindly agreed to advise us.
Four themes emerged from a very helpful conversation:
1. Decline in attendance. Since 1991, average attendance across the deanery has declined by 30%; this is strikingly greater than both national and diocesan averages, and needs to be explained. Our advisers suggested encouraging each church to graph their attendance records, see what caused particularly sharp declines, and make some sensible projections and plans about the future. This has obvious relevance to conversations on finance, since shortfalls may have arisen as much due to a loss of members as due to individual members not being sufficiently generous.
2. Best practice in stewardship. As a group, we were clear that best practice for parishes includes moving towards the appointment of Giving Officers and the use of a stewardship programme such as TRIO. We noted some parishes (such as East Hanningfield and Great Baddow) moving in the direction of best practice.
3. Formula Revision. We set our synod on 9 September 2008 as our deadline; on this date, the synod needs to vote on a new formula for levying parish share. On June 11 there will be an open discussion at synod about the vision and principles that should inform this.
4. Advice to individual parishes. In the period February-September Don and Anthony have kindly offered their services to help individual parishes in the deanery; they have served other deaneries in this way with considerable success.
What do you think? Start having your say here!
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.
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