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Tag: parish

  • Bruised Reeds and Mustard Seeds   

     by the Revd Jody Stowell, Vicar of St Michael and All Angels, Harrow Weald and member of General Synod

                                                          

    The book above has come out of a number of years of struggle and frustration as a parish priest of a smaller church. In the introductory chapter I describe it as a ‘passion project’ and that has been what it is, with bells on! I am utterly convinced that the value, worth and endeavour of smaller churches is one of the most underestimated resources in the Church today, and particularly in the Church of England. Current obsessions with growth in numbers and finance often land squarely on the shoulders of local parish priests and their congregations. My desire for the book is that those who find themselves reading it are uplifted, encouraged and above all feel less isolated and alone in their call to lead, serve in or attend a smaller church.

    The well-being, particularly of clergy has been on my heart for a long time. I’ve had to attend to my own well-being in my ministry, and I know what it is to wrestle with the very real need of finances for a church to function, and the small numbers of congregation who are living in a cost-of-living crisis and who, even if they weren’t, would be unable to pay the standard cost of ministry, which covers the cost of the vicar, including pension, housing and training, as well as more general mission costs of the diocese, and which in my diocese is over £105k. It’s hard to carry the weight of seeing the mission of God through the lens of increase and growth, attendance and finance. Clergy and congregations often find themselves focusing on how to reach the biggest growth, rather on what the Spirit is calling them to.

    The book talks of what ‘small’ means. This is often the first question I get asked, I suspect because many would like my definition not to include them! One way to alleviate anxiety around being a small church is to deny that it includes you. The definition of ‘small’ used in the book is fairly wide and generous, focusing more on the idea of ‘Smaller Church Energy’, and the charisms that are inherent to smaller church communities; for example, nimbleness, attentiveness to the Spirit and belonging.

    I then explore issues around anxiety, aiming to offer comfort and challenge. We inhabit an institution which is highly anxious, and anxiety transmits. When anxiety drives an institution, we can end up with solutions which are about soothing the anxiety that comes from financial insecurity, rather than being a church able to catch unexpected glimpses of the Spirit in places and through people that are undervalued, unseen, invisible in both the institution and the nation. The solutions, programs and conferences offered can act like a drug, a form of self-medication against the anxiety, but which can’t last. So the anxiety is passed on until it often lands on the parish priest to deliver the shiny initiative that will somehow save the Church of England. No wonder clergy are leaving ministry early, often sick, stressed and disillusioned.

    But the smaller church is a gift. Even as we name the challenges, there is a golden thread running through Scripture of God illuminating the places that are weary, marginalised, vulnerable, fragile and small. Bruised reeds and mustard seeds, or Bethlehem the littlest clan. God is drawn to these places, and they are also the places from whence God comes. These places are not simply to be ‘done to’ – to be helped and ‘resourced’ from bigger and better entities – but are also places which can help the anxious institution lay down its anxiety rather than passing it on. Such places can resource their bigger neighbours and teach them how to be faithful in the face of a multiplicity of temptations to focus on success in numerical terms.

    I’ve chosen to dedicate one chapter to clergy well-being, not because I think it is only the clergy who are impacted by this institutional anxiety and obsession, but because they are often the ones who hold the anxiety from ‘above and below’.  Clergy do need to set a tone, or tell the story about who they are again and again to their communities. It is very easy for congregations to be demoralized and anxious themselves. They know that money is required to keep going, and the threat of closing smaller churches can lead to an expectation that somehow their vicar can ‘fix it’. And this is a dangerous place for clergy to be. Edwin Friedman, who wrote on leadership, warns

    The position that is most dangerous to a leader’s health is what I call the “togetherness position,” in which the leader feels responsible for keeping a system together. Such leaders are most likely to suffer burnout, function badly, or suddenly die when forces pulling in opposite directions have stretched their capacity to hold things together to its breaking point. (Friedman, Location 4015)

    Sadly, it can be literally life-threatening not to deal with our institutional anxiety issue.

    There is also a requirement for clergy to choose boundaries and non-anxious responses. In our parishes, we do actually have quite a lot of autonomy. One of the challenges that I offer in this chapter on clergy well-being is for clergy to resist the narrative and begin to be catalysts themselves for the unsticking of this institution that we not only work for, but love, because it is to this part of the Body of Christ that we are called.

    I finish with a chapter which offers some ways forward, although I’m careful not to be offering the ‘quick-fix’ to soothe the anxiety! As this is quite a new conversation, there are not necessarily models to copy, and the reality of smaller church is that it is rightly contextual, even hyper-contextual – and so ‘off the peg’ doesn’t work so well in our places. All offerings will necessarily need re-contextualizing in a new place. However, there are a couple of pathways that are being explored and I offer three of these for pondering. The hope is that this lifts the debilitating fog of isolation that stops us from thinking well, and helps us to recognise that there are others (I would argue most of us!) who are trying to navigate this strange land. One of the pathways being offered, by Bishop Guli to Chelmsford Diocese, is Travelling Well Together. It is undefensive and honouring of the realities of local small parish churches. We are told that

    For the foreseeable future, there will be no more diocesan initiatives outlining common approaches to mission and evangelism. Rather, we are seeking to tip the traditional organisational hierarchy on its head, to enable and empower local churches and worshipping communities to discern for yourselves what it means to be God’s people in your particular part of the world (Chelmsford, 2023).

    Bishop Guli challenges her diocese that, when a community is under threat, something of which she has first-hand experience, it has three choices: fight, flee and take the consequences or strengthen the inner life. She chooses, for herself and the church, the third option and I will leave you with an excerpt from the book on this:

    ‘However, [strengthening the inner life] is not an easy way. Our anxiety is still something we need to own and understand. And that anxiety may not be entirely erased because the external narrative has changed in one area of the institution. So, if we are not given a strategy from the central institution, then we potentially have no one to blame for our failure to live up to the image of success that we still hold. There is no focus to receive, and therefore soothe, our anxiety. If we tried the strategy and it didn’t work, then it is ‘their’ fault. If there is no strategy other than strengthening that inner life, getting closer to God, being faithful in the ministry to which we are called, then that is our responsibility. This is a good thing! It is not easy, but it is not hard in the way that being told to control things outside of our control is hard. It is hard in the way that tilling the earth is hard work, that picking fruit is hard work, that listening well is hard work, that making up a spare room for a guest is hard work. There is satisfaction, rather than frustration.’

  • Share and Share Alike? Living in Love and Faith and Funding the Church of England

    Professor Helen King is an authorised preacher in Oxford Diocese and an elected lay member of General Synod

    (picture credit: BBC/Yourkevich)

    In her review of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Lower than the Angels in the London Review of Books for 6 March, Lucy Wooding observed that, ‘Few things expose the potential for illogicality, hypocrisy and cruelty within the Christian tradition more clearly than its attitude to sex.’ Put sex and money together, and you’re into a whole new league; and that’s where some dioceses already are.

    The Church of England operates with a model of giving which, depending on your diocese, is called ‘parish share’, ‘parish offer’ or ‘common fund’. It’s not the most exciting topic – although if you’ve been to a meeting of deanery treasurers you’ll have seen the passions it can arouse – but it’s essential to keeping the show on the road. The money that comes in pays the costs of clergy but also the costs of running the diocese, and of training future clergy. My own diocese, Oxford, explains it here. Parish share works differently in different dioceses, but the principle is simple: there is a formula usually based on a church’s electoral roll and weekly attendance, taking into account factors such as being in a poorer area, and this is used to divide up the overall cost. In my diocese, this is then sent to different deaneries, and they use their knowledge of the local situation to pass those costs on to individual parishes. By paying parish share, we are ensuring that the work of the church reaches into every community. We are supporting each other.

    Only that’s no longer the case. For the last few years some churches have decided that they don’t want to fund the wider Church of England in their diocese – they only want to fund churches with whom they agree. Quite who makes this decision is not always clear, and I shall return to that. There are also different situations here; some such churches simply withhold part of their parish share, others funnel it through a further body on the understanding that their money won’t go to the wrong sort of church.

    Wrong sort of church? This is exclusively about one issue; yes, the one which has taken over pretty well every debate at General Synod… the Prayers of Love and Faith, commended for use in existing services with same-sex couples wanting to be blessed in their civil relationship.

    Some parishes have signed up to something called the Ephesian Fund. Resisting charges of ‘blackmailing the dioceses’ it says it is actually making it possible for those who are unhappy to pay their parish share, and recasts that ‘wrong sort of church’ view by saying that it is ‘fuelling orthodox ministry’. Last September the stated aim was to see 500 churches paying their parish share through this fund. Its patrons are CEEC/New Wine/Living Out people (with a GAFCON UK person among their trustees) and the aim is that the money that may have funded ‘sin’ – which is what same-sex faithful relationships are classified as being, in the conservative evangelical world – can instead be diverted to help only ‘local churches that are committed to biblical faith and have signed up to the Ephesian Fund basis of faith.’ That’s the same as the CEEC basis of faith, including ‘We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family.’ CEEC put out a podcast on the role of the Ephesian Fund last October, on how ‘the direction of travel’ with LLF had made some people nervous about paying their parish share.

    It’s a bit odd, when parish share isn’t exactly being used to fund ‘sin’; a same-sex couple asking for the Prayers of Love and Faith doesn’t get a cheque. Behind the slogan of wanting to be sure your money is being used for ‘gospel purposes’, the established system of poorer parishes being subsidised by wealthier parishes is being transformed into helping only our mates. This hasn’t happened with, for example, second marriages for divorced people, or the ordination of women as priests. As far as I know, no church refuses to pay its parish share because the money may support another church in the diocese where there is a woman incumbent.

    This is made more complicated when some dioceses have a parallel scheme, like the Oxford Good Stewards Trust, set up in 2021, not only before the Church of England Evangelical Council came up with the Ephesian Fund idea, but also before the Living in Love and Faith process had got as far as offering prayers to use with same-sex couples. OGST has the same statement of faith as CEEC and the Ephesian Fund. It is entirely open about how it exists ‘to enable parishes to make their contribution to Diocesan work and ministry collectively with like-minded churches rather than directly with the Diocese or through their own Deanery’. ‘Like-minded churches’: our mates. While a vicar may have a ‘mind’, I am not sure that most churches do; they contain people with different views on all topics, and personally I think that’s healthy. If a church uses OGST, some, or all, of the parish share goes to the Trust and then they send it in to the Diocese, I assume with strings attached. I have no idea how that works; is there a list of ‘like-minded churches’? OGST also takes donations from individuals – well, why wouldn’t they? – and has a list of projects to which you can donate. These are almost all about funding an extra minister in a church – I can think of plenty of churches who would love one of those – although one of the projects is rather different, as it includes funding a man to work at a theological college ‘with a distinctive focus on promoting and resourcing the use of biblical Greek in Christian ministry’.

    The Charity Commission gives the total income for the OGST in the year ended 31 December 2023 as £448,099. Those levels of money sound serious, although in the world of CofE finance they are not so significant (Oxford diocese receives over £19,000,000 from parish share).

    It’s quite hard to understand what is happening here, other than some sabre-rattling. The thing about a common fund is that it’s common – it’s not that some five-pound notes are labelled as having come from a particular church within your diocese. It’s just one pot.

    Making this even more muddled is the point that some parishes are not diverting what would have gone to parish share into either a local or national scheme that targets only the right kind of churches; instead, some parishes are not paying their parish share in full. This has consequences. If you don’t pay in full, your parish ceases to be eligible for various discretionary diocesan funds, so this strategy could hurt you more than anyone else, but I suppose that would count as a fair sacrifice to make in order to uphold your principles. There are of course also parishes which can’t pay their share in full, because they just don’t have the money. In some deaneries, other churches are encouraged to meet that shortfall locally so that the total for the deanery as a whole can be reached – which can also have the result that the deanery is eligible for an early payment discount. Win-win: we’ve done this in my deanery. But would other churches be willing to pay more to compensate for one in the deanery that has the money but refuses to play ball? I somehow doubt it.

    What does this look like in action? Let’s turn to a specific example. At the March meeting of Oxford’s Diocesan Synod I put this question in to the Chair of the Diocesan Board of Finance:

    How many churches in the diocese are placing limitations on how their parish share contributions can be used, by withholding parish share, donating through the Ephesian Fund or similar third party, or through a special arrangement with the diocese, such that their contributions cannot be used to support all churches and clergy in the diocese? How much money is affected by these arrangements?

    His response was: There are some questions of interpretation in the interests of answering this question precisely but our best estimate would be that 4 parishes in 2024 placed limitations on how their parish share contributions could be used. For these four parishes the total allocation was £689,536, and the amount actually paid was £498,198, leaving a shortfall of £191,339. In 2025 the number of churches has already risen to 5, with a shortfall expected to be around £300,000. The number of parishes paying part or all of their parish share through the Ephesian Fund or Oxford Good Stewards Trust is currently 11.

    In responses to supplementaries, the Chair clarified that uncertainty over how many parishes are opting out of the usual way of paying parish share, or not paying at all, is one reason why the diocese can’t forecast how much will be needed from parishes next year. I note from the Oxford Diocese accounts that the 2023 future plans included ‘Manage the impacts of Living in Love and Faith.’ In those same accounts, the risks identified include ‘Significant under payment of Parish Share’. For 2023 the parish share receipts of £19,060,000 represented 94.5% of the total apportioned (2022: 95.2%). Some of those not paying in full, as I’ve said, were simply unable to raise the money.

    Looking at the detailed breakdowns of parish share allocation and payment for each deanery in my diocese, I note that, for 2024, there’s a parish where only 74.5% of the allocated share was received. That is Great Chesham, mentioned in the supplementaries to my question. They were supposed to have paid £238,811. What has happened there is interesting, and although it has been mentioned in the local and national press it deserves to be more widely known, not least because of the questions of process it raises. So, based on some of the documents that are in the public domain, here goes…

    Great Chesham covers seven churches. On 10 April 2023 the Guardian reported that ‘The PCC voted last month in favour of withholding the [parish share] payment but must rerun the process after failing to comply with church rules.’ They don’t specify which rules, but that doesn’t sound good. The minutes for the 30 April 2023 ADCM (Annual District Church Meeting) of St Mary’s with St John’s Bellingdon, chaired by Revd Edward Bowes-Smith, included a finance report with the information that the DCC and PCC were ‘considering pausing the Parish Share to the Diocese’. The impression was given that there would be a pause until July at which point the money ‘can be paid over depending on what the Review decides’. This Review Group acknowledged that there were ‘different views about the Parish share’. It was not clear whether the 280 members of the electoral roll had been consulted. A question raised at the ADCM was ‘How can we still be giving monthly without everyone being notified of this?’ The response was that the monthly donations were being ring fenced while the Review Group was meeting. The minutes do not record how this was being done.

    After that ADCM, a story published by The Christian Institute on ‘CofE’s leadership has abandoned ‘the true Gospel of Jesus Christ’ by blessing same-sex partners’ made reference to Great Chesham’s PCC being about to vote to pause its parish share payments and quoted Bowes-Smith alongside John Dunnett of the Church of England Evangelical Council.

    In the following month, on 17 May, the APCM (Annual Parochial Church Meeting) of the parish of Great Chesham was held, also chaired by Bowes-Smith, as the Rector of the whole group of churches. 55 parishioners attended. It doesn’t look like the parish share pause was a specific agenda item; the minutes make no mention of it until the item on ‘Rector’s Thoughts’. Here, at last, there is specific mention of the elephant in the room, described as ‘the Church of England’s potential change in doctrine with the proposal to introduce Same Sex Blessings’. The parish clergy had said they would not conduct these blessings and ‘The PCC are happy to support the Clergy in exercising their conscience’. That, of course, is fine; it has been clear from the beginning of this process that no clergyperson has to use the prayers if they are not happy to do so. But how does the PCC pausing parish share ‘support’ clergy consciences? The minutes do not explain this, and instead the Rector mentioned the issues around how the parish share was divided between the Districts.

    It’s clear from the minutes that those present were well aware that there was more to this than how parish share is divided between churches, and that some took advantage of the opportunity to ask questions following the ‘Rector’s Thoughts’. Someone said that it was ‘inappropriate’ to have decided to pause paying parish share before the approval of the minutes of the 22 March PCC meeting at which a paper had been circulated with the interesting title ‘Supporting our Clergy and Reflecting Together on the Implications of February’s General Synod’s Motion on Same Sex Blessings: Clergy, Wardens and Treasurer’s Note’. I assume that ‘inappropriate’ action illuminates the claim of failure to follow ‘church rules’. Another person raised the point that PCC minutes were not accessible at the same time to all PCC members, meaning some knew about ‘the e-mail vote to pause the Parish Share while others didn’t’.

    An e-mail vote? Perfectly valid between PCC meetings, but conveniently this protects those who don’t want others to see how they are voting. And what were the figures in this vote? We don’t know. There are questions raised by this voting which apply more widely; returning to the Ephesian Fund, the stories they share on their website involve a PCC deciding to pay parish share to the Fund after consulting the congregation, and a PCC deciding and then informing the congregation. Whose church is it? Where do the PCC, the Annual Meeting, the electoral roll and the congregation as a whole fit in?

    Someone else at the Great Chesham APCM offered the thought that ‘Whilst it is acceptable for Clergy not to undertake Same Sex Marriage Blessings this should not result in Parish Share payments being withheld and non-engagement with the Bishop.’ So, those present were certainly not unanimous: and I couldn’t have put this point better myself.

    The specific view of one of the seven churches, Emmanuel, was also presented at that APCM: that ‘In 1 Cor 6: 9 -10 Paul teaches about those who will not inherit the kingdom of God 6 (unrepentant sin); it is difficult to endorse a Church teaching which is endangering people’s eternal fate’, so we should not ‘partner’ with those who are doing this. Their vicar Edward Millais announced that ‘if it became necessary, [he would] be willing to stop his salary and move from his house’. Emmanuel is linked to CEEC and also to ReNew. ReNew operates under the 2008 Jerusalem Declaration with these relevant points: ‘matrimony is the lifelong union between one man and one woman, and sexual relations outside that context are sinful in God’s eyes’ and adds that no ‘eldership/oversight’ roles are possible for women. ReNew writes of ‘a readiness to stand their ground in the face of opposition’. As I write this, Emmanuel are currently advertising for a ministry trainee, their ad clarifying not just that the applicant needs to be an evangelical, but that they must be in ‘wholehearted agreement with our Christian ethos, doctrines and beliefs which include the Church of England Evangelical Council’s Declaration of Faith and Additional Declarations, as well as the PCC’s 2015 resolution affirming a traditional biblical understanding of marriage (Hebrews 13:4,7)’. Emmanuel does not put DCC minutes on the website, and nor does the wider group of Great Chesham publish its PCC minutes, so the impetus for, and content of, this resolution must remain unclear.

    Also represented in the response of those present to the ‘Rector’s Thoughts’ was the deanery perspective – that Great Chesham withholding money would cause other churches in the deanery to suffer. Indeed. One of those present proposed a motion that the PCC should ‘rescind its vote to pause payment of the Parish Share until the work of the Finance Review Group is completed in July’. This was defeated: 20 voted for the motion, 45 against with 6 abstentions (if there were only 55 parishioners and the rector present, this doesn’t add up, so I assume that 55 excluded the various clergy?).

    So what happened in that review work and what decision was made in July? I don’t know. But on the accounts for 2023 the treasurer stated that ‘We overcame the great uncertainty surrounding our relations with the Diocese on our Parish Share’ meaning that ‘We are well resourced financially to weather any continued uncertainty surrounding the Church of England’.

    Well, that’s lovely for Great Chesham. But the shortfall has to be made up by other parishes, and it may be rather less lovely for them.

    Those churches who want to stay pure by not funding ‘sinful’ churches – defining ‘sinful’ purely in terms of how they treat those in same-sex relationships – seem to be content to serve on local and national church bodies alongside the members of such churches; to have their vicarages maintained and their clergy’s pensions paid with money which has come from such churches; and to receive funding from the national church without asking questions about its origins. Like some in their congregations, I would simply acknowledge that there is a diversity of belief and practice in the Church of England, on this and on much else, and that the current situation – nobody has to use the Prayers of Love and Faith unless they want to do so – already provides enough protection for consciences.

     

  • The Sexism Women Continue to Face in the Church of England

    by Rev Martine Oborne, Chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), a group that works for gender equality in the Church of England

    At Christmas parties this year, the chances are that someone will start talking to you about the dire national census results for the Church of England, which show that less than 50% of people in the UK now identify as Christians. If, like me, you are ‘in the Church’ in some capacity – perhaps a minister or a Churchwarden – they’ll want your take on it. Why don’t people go to Church anymore? How can people sit down to turkey and all the trimmings without first spending an hour in a chilly ancient building singing ‘O Come all ye faithful’?

    These are good questions. And there are many possible answers. On the positive side, perhaps our Christian values have become so embedded in our culture that we no longer need to be stirred up from the pulpit. Or, on the negative side, perhaps we are put off by a Church that can’t seem to make up its mind about gay marriage. Quite often, however, there’ll be one person at the party who starts going on about the female vicar of their local village church and how everything has gone downhill since she arrived.

    So I want to give a big shout out for that female vicar, and all the other female vicars and leaders in our Church. Do you have any idea how hard they work, how often they feel unvalued and what they have to put up with?

    Usually, the said female vicar has made some kind of change which is, of course, what all new vicars do. Maybe she has asked the Choir to occasionally sing a hymn that was written less than a hundred years ago. Maybe she has introduced an all-age service on the first Sunday of the month – for the two or three children who hardly ever come. She might even have succeeded in growing a congregation of families who now annoy ‘the regulars’ because they don’t sit still and make too much noise. The reason she is doing these things, of course, is a desperate attempt to build a wider congregation than the handful of septuagenarians and octogenarians she has inherited. A male vicar who did this would also be annoying to the indigenous congregation, but a female vicar gets it in the neck because she is a woman. Somehow, it’s simply because she is a woman that she is doing these things. Which is, of course, pure sexism – or unconscious bias, at the very least.

    But sexism is still sadly par for the course in the Church of England. In 2014, with great fanfare, women were finally allowed to be bishops as well as priests. But, in almost complete silence, provisions were then made so that parishes who didn’t accept female vicars and bishops could avoid their ministry. And this situation remains.

    So our vicar, who simply happens to be a woman, just has to put up with this. If she was ordained since 2014 she will have had to sign on the dotted line to say that she accepts that the Church both recognises her as a priest, but also recognises that some, including her colleagues and maybe even her bishop, don’t recognise she is a priest – and that is how the Church intends things to be indefinitely. This means that there may be a church in the next village where she could not cover a Sunday service because that church’s bishop isn’t confident she can consecrate the sacraments validly. And there may be a church in the nearby town, where she could not lead a service because that parish believes that women should not preach to mixed congregations.

    Our woman vicar will be working six days a week, sometimes looking after about six or seven churches and often not being paid a penny. More women are ordained later in life than men and they tend to get directed towards leading small churches or groups of small churches – often without a salary. Men tend to get ordained earlier and end up in paid posts leading bigger churches in more urban environments. One clergy colleague once explained to me why this made sense by saying, ‘Men are generally more dynamic than women and should therefore lead the bigger churches.’ Again, pure sexism.

    Earlier this month, Rev Rob Munro was appointed Bishop of Ebbsfleet to provide episcopal ministry to churches who do not accept female vicars and female bishops, although this purpose was cloaked in church jargon so that any ordinary person might have struggled to understand. The Church said that Munro ‘will have a special national ministry to parishes of a complementarian evangelical theology across England… [who] are unable to receive the priestly or episcopal ministry of women,’ which is fairly clear. But Munro, in his interview with The Church Times, simply talked about his ministry being for ‘resolution churches.’ Neither explained what complementarian theology is – the understanding that God created men to lead and women to submit in the Church and in marriage. Even the word ‘complementarian,’ which is now being used to replace what was previously referred to as ‘male headship,’ is misleading because it suggests equal balance and fairness, rather than one sex having authority and control over the other.

    Of course, neither I nor most of my colleagues in the Church of England agree with this theology but we feel under great pressure not to debate the matter, certainly not publicly. As Chair of Women and the Church (WATCH), a national campaign group for gender equality in the Church, I want to help us lift the lid on the ongoing sexism and discrimination that women, both ordained and lay, experience in the Church and help to change the culture. One of the things that we are asking for is that every church should have a statement in clear English about any limits it puts on women’s ministry in a logical and visible place on its website. This way, ordinary churchgoers can easily be aware of this matter. Munro says he doesn’t believe this should be required – he says it’s up to churches to say whatever they think is important on their websites. But, despite claiming that their theology on women’s ministry is so important they need a special bishop to look after them, churches who limit women’s ministry are mostly saying nothing on their websites or saying something in incomprehensible language on a page deeply buried within it.

    This isn’t about naming and shaming, it’s about being honest on a matter that ordinary Anglicans care about deeply. We have all worked hard to bring discrimination to an end in the secular world but, thanks to exemptions that the Church has under The Equality Act 2010, it can go on discriminating legally. Many people want to be members of churches who say no to this and feel angry when they find out, sometimes after years of support including financial donations, that their church limits women’s ministry. Furthermore, it’s not just a theological matter – these beliefs result in practices that impact women’s opportunities in the Church and their well-being.

    The Student Christian Movement recently launched a campaign called #honestchurch seeking churches to be clear on their websites regarding their theology about LGBTQ+ people. Their CEO, Naomi Nixon, was featured last week on Via Media. And we join with SCM in seeking equal clarity about women.

    So, when you go to Church this Christmas, and I hope you will, please spare a thought for your hardworking vicar. And, if that vicar is female, please tell her she’s doing a great job, a job she has every right to do. If you are ‘in the Church,’ please make sure you know where your Church stands on all this and who your bishop is and what their position is. Not to be a nuisance, but for the long-term good of our Church.

    After all I can’t believe that, if we brought an end to discrimination in the Church of England, this would not have something of an impact on those dire statistics.

  • Gatecrashing God’s Party: Parish Ministry Today

    by Jo Stobart, a parish priest in South Somerset. Along with fellow parish priest Claire Lording, she is standing as a ‘pair’ for election to the Crown Nominations Commission

     

    I was recently asked, ‘What has changed about your calling since you embarked on exploring a vocation to ordained ministry?’ It’s a question I found myself reflecting on again as I sat in Taunton Minster last weekend, watching our benefice’s curate being ordained priest. It’s almost five years since I made those vows myself. Although in ministerial terms that’s a blink of an eye, now seems a significant moment to pause and ponder the answer I gave to my original questioner.

    My first response was that I could never have predicted just how much I would love this role. If Buechner’s oft-quoted ‘The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet’ is true, then I am blessed to find myself at that sweet spot of intersection. I serve as Vicar in places that, alongside Fr Alex Frost’s parish, do a pretty good job of representing the breadth of the Church of England. Ilminster is a small market town in South Somerset and Whitelackington an outlying village.

    The Minster sits right at the heart of the town and generations of families are connected to the building by baptisms, weddings and funerals. The church still has a recognised place in the life of the town. Most of the children attend the Church of England First School and civic events regularly find expression through a church service. I’m often greeted in the main street with ‘Morning Vicar’. Parish ministry here looks remarkably ‘traditional’.

    But traditions change too. On the list of vicars in our Lady Chapel, dating back to the Norman Conquest, I’m the first woman incumbent. I’m still asked tentative questions about how I should be addressed (‘Jo? But Vicar’s fine too.’). People here would instinctively tick a ‘Church of England’ box on a form, but this connection now usually relies on the regular attendance of a parent or, more often, a grandparent. The story of Christianity is one that’s remembered as an echo through the generations.

    What this means is that doing the work of a parish priest doesn’t need to be ground-breaking to be innovative or ‘fresh’. Each day brings the opportunity to share our faith, potentially for the first time with that person, and Mary Lennox-like to open together the overgrown door of The Secret Garden. As well as sharing faith in traditional ways, as so many parishes up and down the country are doing so faithfully, we are blessed to have pioneers working on the margins. There are voices calling us to work alongside those of good will in the community on green issues, or the refugee crisis. Our churches, alongside other Christian communities here, run the town’s food bank.

    And at the heart of it all there’s the worship we offer to God. Sunday by Sunday we celebrate the Eucharist – when the mystery of God’s love in Christ is made present to us – and listen to Scripture – discerning words of hope that are for all people.

    I love being a parish priest.

    But my answer to that original question contained a second part, which on the face of it was more ambivalent. I said, ‘I’m less patient.’ While five years ago I had some sense of the way in which the Church of England might need to change, I didn’t feel the same urgency I do now. I’m not from a Christian family but as a child the Church of England nurtured my faith and, for all its flaws, is my home. I have worshipped across the breadth of our denomination and, whilst some of that breadth I find personally challenging, I remain committed to finding a way for our whole church to flourish. As one we should be sharing the joy of the Good News.

    Given half a chance, I’d spend all day reading a novel because stories give me life. So it won’t come as a surprise that my faith is profoundly shaped by the stories we encounter in Scripture – especially the parables that Jesus told. In those parables two themes particularly shape my life as a follower of Christ, and then as a priest.

    First, the faithfulness that God requires of us. The sowing of the seed with no sense of what the return will be. And second, the generosity and hospitality of the God we worship – a God who bids us welcome. It’s a picture of abundance, but in my day-to-day life too often I’m forced to see things through a lens of scarcity. Post-pandemic, the volunteers we don’t have, the funds we can’t find, the stipendiary ministry roles we need to reduce, the scale of the need we are facing in our community and the struggle to keep pace with that. Sometimes it’s hard to remember we’re serving a God who invites us to a party.

    I long for our church to recapture that vision of a party so good you want to bring all your friends along as well, the festival you’d climb the fences to get into. And perhaps that last Glastonbury-based allusion is the root cause of my impatience. We’ve been invited to the best headline act ever and yet we’ve built high fences all round it to keep others out. Whereas God goes out on to the streets to welcome everyone in, we’ve too often been a church that serves only the people who look and think like ‘us’.

    My sense is that those of us who might describe ourselves as either ‘Inclusive’ or ‘liberal’ can sometimes be perceived as lukewarm in our longing to make Christ known. Of course this isn’t true, but I think those of us who hold those perspectives need to tell in a compelling way the story of a God whose arms are open wide to all. A God whose invitations to the party are surprising and unsettling to the older brothers of the world. A God who delights in and loves each and every one of us.

    Five years on from ordination to the priesthood, I’m impatient for a church that tells that amazing story with one voice.