Clergy and the eight day working week!

Am I the only person to have noticed the C of E's growing trend for clergy vacancies to have eight day working weeks and more church congregations under their charge than fingers on their hands?

Being an issue that amuses, confuses and, more often as a Missioner, confounds. I started a bit of an informal league table with regard to the number of 'exciting' and 'wonderfully attractive' churches on offer and the top of the table position is occupied by an advert' offering eleven congregations. This is (dare I say 'obviously'?) a rural setting and having been told of it by a friend who also vacancy watches for the. Interesting, strange and extremely odd, I have to say that it was a very pretty setting indeed.

The problem is that thinking of the workload of some of my rural colleagues acros the country I find them doing about the same as me but spread across a number of churches. Each and every one tells me how stretched they are and how they depend daily upon the goodwill of parishioners and the help of retired clergy and willing laity to supplement any other clergy provision in their patch (if other clergy provision there be!).

Many of my colleagues are struggling with conflict because they have churches that are not sustainable and yet are surrounded by communities who are unwilling to see them close, but are unwilling to be part of them outside of the Christmas Carol service and their children's weddings and/or baptisms. Yet the rural setting, if done 'right', is a place of close communion and growth but are hampered by the inability (unwillingness) of those who plan and lead our diocesan structures to staff such opportunities.

We are surrounded by words of growth and encouragement and yet, generally, reside within a reality that is managing decline.

The other challenge that seems to be more and more prevalent is the inability to understand what a full working week looks like for the clergy. Now, being someone who is often told to 'do less' and  to remember that my working week is Sunday plus five days (I didn't tell that to the dying person I sat beside on my last supposed day off and the days either side of it: 'Can you get on with it, tomorrow's my day off!' doesn't seem to give the right impression or match my own attitudes and beliefs!). But if a full-time post is Sundy plus five working days; each working day being split into three where one of them is my time.  The six 0.17 days (I've generously rounded up) result in a whole. The problem is that I have of late seen 0.5 posts which speak of a Sunday and three days, which is four times 0.17, which is 0.68 of a full-time post.

I asked one of the people who have advertised a post with the above timings and how they had calculated it as a 0.5 post. Their response was that three days amounted to 0.5 of a clergy working week (yep: 3 x 0.17 = 0.51). 'But what about the 'extra' day that is Sunday?' I asked. 'Well, they'd be expected to do that because they are ordained clergy so we don't include it!'

'O my!' I thought (see I am getting holier!!) rather incredulously. Sunday is not a working day but a day when, as I'd be in a church services somewhere (I am a Christian first and foremost), it is fair game for it to be regarded as something other than work because it is my own personal act of worship, does this mean that I can pop off to another church to enjoy a visiting preacher or to be blessed and communicated? Nah, of course not!

I tried to explain this to the person in the line but they merely got a little exasperated and started blustering about goodwill and being willing to contribute and the need to get more bang for our buck (my term, theirs was much more drawn out and irrational).

I countered that with the fact that they were billing four days as 0.5 of the normal clergy working week and so doubling that gave a full-time working week of eight day which, when a day off was added meant that somehow in the diocese of Goodwill, the working week had somehow extended to become nine days. I also pointed out that zero point anything meant a zero point anything contribution to pension funds and so any point something job was a goodwill gift from the minister that just kept on not giving in the shape of a pension when retirement came.

The combined result of less than a whole cleric and more than enough churches to shepherd is, for me, a missional nightmare. I struggle with those who talk of opportunities for the laity when what they mean is 'not paid for' help! We should always have been collegial and engaging in all-member ministry, the problem is that some are embracing this as a financially necessary move whilst others are struggling to take up the roles being passed over to them (even though, ironically, many of them have for years they've said they could do better than the Vicar)!

Is it any wonder that I am confused - look at the reality and tell me its not the product of a warped imagination!

Collaborative Church - All about PEERS

'Needs must as the money drives,' and with those words those around me smiled, laughed, nodded or rolled their eyes as they saw fit at the wisdom of the speaker before them, who continued to impart their own particular brand of wisdom with, 'After all, if we can't pay for ministry we will have to find ways of getting it done without paying won't we.'

Now I have to say that for me one of the most confusing things around me is the issue of collaborative church and what it really means and why we should be doing it.

Confusing because I, perhaps naively, thought it was what we were supposed to do. 

Confusing because I am meeting a number of people who are effectively preaching anticlerical tosh and rallying the laity to 'take ministry back from the clergy' to do Church as it was. After all, the early Church didn't have paid clergy did they?

Confusing because I am hearing clergy complain about workload and seeing more multiple beneficed, multiple roles, point something jobs. What's worse is that I come across more people being expected to do the bulk of the work in places whilst those who collaborate with them (AKA the laity) predominantly sit and watch them 'do their job'.

I recently met a cleric who had taken on a 'point something' role and after their first Christmas in the place had decided to chuck it all in and effectively retire from all ministry for good. This was a decision made (officially) because their other half had decided to take an early retirement which provided them with a good excuse to walk away without sour grapes or fingers being pointed in bitter rancorous rantings (either way). Yet the reality was that their three day a week ministry role had immediately been extended to Sunday and 'nine other days a week' (their comment, not mine - but it was adorably bittersweet humour) because of the expectations of the (previously whole time parish) church members.

The problem is that wherever we maintain any level of clerical input (and Eucharist makes this 'everywhere') there is an expectation from many who attend (for which read 'the fewer who attend') to have their dog collar on deck whenever they assume that it is meet, right and their entitlement for the cleric so to do. 

But the reality is that Church is a game for ALL the Church family - each of us has a calling, a baptismal calling, to find out what they are supposed to be doing and to get on and do it - and the role of the clergy and the wardens and the congregation is to help people do it. And we do it by:

Permitting     -    Giving permission to others to explore and try stuff. This can be:
                            Preaching, Teaching, Leading, Missional stuff, Making Music
                            Sharing, Caring (we call it 'Pastoral'), Kid's Work, Visiting ....

Encouraging  -  Cheering when they try it - win, lose or draw - and keeping on cheering

Equipping      -  Giving the basic skills and enhancing them as they progress (or fail)
                           to get the job done better and people doing it stronger.

Releasing      -   Realising that once they are doing the stuff that we need to get out of the 
                           way and let them do it. This doesn't mean we don't correct and advise but
                           We don't interfere for the sake of doing it - this is what collaborative means! 

Supporting   -   Being appreciative without being being fawning, condescending or 
                          disengaged. One of the worst things is to let others try by over managing or
                          'leaving them to it'. Collaborative means we works as PEERS and family.

And it so blinking simple - it's what Church is meant to be - it's what Church always has been - that I don't understand why people make it out to be something clever or innovative or anything else.

Regardless of who you are you are always, if you are Church, laos, then the business of being and doing Church, (and that means active, engaged, worshipping and missional Church) is yours. Adding diakonos or presbyteros (or anything else) to that does not remove the laos label.

I you are one of those who thinks it does then you are one of the people who make me very much the confused cleric that I find myself projecting all too often - and so a final word to those who make me confused - STOP IT!

Clergy Wanted: Must be ...

Under forty with twenty-five years ministry experience!

Recently I got engaged in conversation with a few dog collars and for once we didn't get round to funerals but the conversation turned towards finding a new posts Hence the previous post on the process being like 'playing away from home!').

On of the interesting comments came from someone who had seen a place that took their fancy and so, as per the advert', they rang one of the churchwardens to discuss the post before they requested the application form and profile. Apparently the conversation went something like this (the would be applicant is in italics):

Good morning, I'm rather interested in your vacancy, could you tell me a little more about it please?

Certainly, how old are you?

I'm nn.*

Aaah, we're looking for someone younger than that.

So can you tell me a bit about the post anyway?

Yes, we have n churches and need a new Vicar.

And that being about it the conversation tailed off - leaving the would be incumbent fuming as the call ended.

Now, I'd like to say that I thought this was a work of fiction or perhaps an isolated misunderstanding or encounter with someone who had the wrong end of the stick at one end of the telephone line or the other. Yet it appears that what this represents is a slightly less polished delivery of what can only be regarded as ageism.

Now considering the fact that many of those I chat to are looking to continue in ministry until their late sixties (and beyond with PTOs) and with the changes in lifestyles and fitness and the like - and the fact that some of those in their forties are much older than some in their sixties - it really should be that ability and, most important of all, calling should be what we are looking at.

Now I don't want this to become some sort of crusade or campaign on my part but I am aware that there is something going wrong here and that it might be something not only institutional but something the church will not do well from should it be true.

I'd be interested to hear the experiences of those who consider themselves to have been on the wrong end of ageism and would love to hear from those who might have realised that they have engaged with it from the 'need a Vicar' side of the fence.

If we are really ageist then I am not just confused but and also saddened and disappointed.

* You can insert whatever age you fancy here - suffice to say that they were somewhere between fifty and sixty

Lent - Not Biblical

This was the upshot of a conversation I had with a keen Pastor from another church regarding Ash Wednesday and the journey that begins then and ends on Easter Sunday. They pointed out that nowhere was Lent mentioned in the Bible and so it is, 'Merely something religious and therefore wrong!'

In fact they said that they were trying to encourage people to consider putting the observation aside as something outmoded and outdated; after all, they said, 'it's not something the whole Church does, is it?'

And, with Ash Wednesday just a few days away makes for a really interesting, and potentially confusing, situation for those both within and outside the Church. after all. Apparently the keeping of Lent is, for some, nothing more than being religious: It is a meaningless imposition of dirt followed by giving stuff up and submitting to external pressures from the clergy.

Yet what I see is a time of reflection and, rather than giving stuff up, is a time of taking stuff on. A time to be thinking about the journey to the cross and preparation of the spiritual room that is ourselves for the coming of Jesus the risen Christ. This is what the two purple periods of the church are all about - self examination and clearing out the remnants, silencing the echoes of things, that impede our Christian walk. It is something of value rather than something imposed and religious. It is the very essence of being authentically Christian rather than submitting to something hollow and worthless.

As for not being Biblical - having pointed out that the word 'Trinity' was not to be found in the Bible and so, perhaps, might also attract the same 'religious' label as assigned to Lent - I received short shrift. In fact I think that my conversant was starting to think I was yet another member of an outmoded and repressive denomination caught up in mere religious observance rather than a quick and lively faith.

And that's the sadness because in Lent I actually find something of great spiritual value - a call to a self-discipline that opens my mind and heart and takes me onto the road that leads to the Cross - and it is in this that Easter becomes something personal and eschews everything that could be considered religious.

Oddly, those who effectively ignore the journey to the cross - choosing merely to celebrate the victory of Easter without contemplating the journey that leads to it, the awfulness of betrayal and separation from God that was crucifixion - it is them who are in their triumphalism being religious. It is they who in celebrating the victory without the cost, are making something less than it is of Easter and along with those who tell me that you cannot 'out Grace' are merely celebrating a God who become a celestial do gooding piggy bank where forgiveness without the cost of commitment and discipline are on offer.

And that is why my Lenten journey is so important - not because I am engaging in a moment of self- flagellatory denial or some self-imposed meaningless observation of an unbiblical practice - but an taking the time to consider the cost of the cross and in so doing take up my own cross and seek to follow Jesus, the Christ, in right living and thinking. Something I try to do every day but made all the more challenging as I celebrate the reward made possible by the journey of the incarnate God for me.

Not mere religion - to think that is to be truly confused.

'Too Old' - Ageism and the Church of England (1)

Having recently found myself in a conversation with someone who, in their mid-fifties, found themselves on the end of a 'too old' conversation when they made an approach for a clergy post I guess I should not be shocked by the clerical vacancy which proudly proclaimed that they wanted 'maturity not ancient!'.

I guess I should merely shrug and take as read the General Synod's document (GS 1979) on
Resourcing Ministerial Education in the Church of England and  proposal 8:

Candidates over 50

Candidates who will be under 50 at ordination will continue to attend a BAP, to ensure national commonality of standards. 

Candidates over the age of 50 at ordination will be selected locally by the bishop. 

Candidates over 50 at ordination will not receive the standard pooled grant: the cost of their training will fall directly to the diocese.

Now what does this mean in practice I wonder? Let me offer the view I see from the place in which I currently hide:

First and foremost this means that anyone who begins the journey to ordination and looking to being ordained at Petertide (June) will need to be 47 (and something) when they begin their three years of training (if two years full-time deduct a year). Now taking into account the average time that those I have dealt with take to progress through the discernment process this means that those who feel a calling to ordaining ministry will really need to be no more than forty-five and a half to ensure that they qualify for the under 50 at ordination situation.

'So what's the problem?' I hear you ask.

The reply to which is the reality that already I am hearing of where some who are already training and paying for the training themselves because of their age; their diocese being unable to afford to pay from their own pool of money. This is what 'the cost of their training will fall directly to the diocese' really means. There's no money from central funds to cover the cost of those who will most likely bring 20+ years of stipendiary or non-stipendiary ministry and with the reality that there's less money in the diocese to pay for day-to-day operational costs.

When I asked someone in the vocations business they mumbled about 'cost-effectiveness' (meaning number of years in ministry divided by cost of training) and 'effective ministry' (meaning the complete cobblers that we can only effectively minister to those ±10years either side of our age!). It seems that the baseline by which we seek to support is moving towards the situation where calling is tempered by age rather than a clear and obvious sense of (confirmed by others and testing) vocation.

At one level I can understand the thinking behind this as we see contraction of training as it withdraws into something that seems to set aside the diversity of training that schemes and colleges provided and reconnects with the more common ordination examination approach of old. The good old CofE is trying to cut its coat according to its cloth.

On a different level we are seeing the CofE look to restriction of training and opportunity and, more serious to the good functioning of our denomination I fear, engaging in something ageist. Our hope is not in God's calling but the age of the clergy - and I have to say that having met some excellent young clergy I can understand their hope, but like the Curate's egg, not all of them are good and age is not the Philosophers' Stone that turns some of the young would be clerics to gold!

When this comes before Synod I can but hope and pray common sense (and a lack of ageist tosh) prevails!


You may now turn over your papers and discuss

'It's a bit like adultery'

I wonder if you've ever stopped to think about the process by which clergy move on?

It's an interesting process, one which quite accurately (I assume) is, as the title of the entry has it, 'A bit like adultery!' The reason for this is that being in a clerical post is a bit like being married and so , whilst still in that relationship, one starts to look around for a new partner - and as much as people mock those who find themselves seeking mail order brides - this is the reality for clergy.  Except that instead of a glossy magazine the Church Times is the medium of choice.

The problem is that regardless of the situation, it is just not done to put out the general notice that you fancy a change - it doesn't go down well with the other half! You might tell your friends and perhaps use one of them to get an introduction to someone you fancy but generally it's all done by stealth. After all, the majority of those who have seen their partner vanish with a new love are usually totally surprised by it all - the never saw it coming, or thought of the other half leaving.

The stress of knowing that a colleague has decided to leave and is in the process of courting a new partner coupled with the pressure of continuing to talk to those in their current church as if they will be in the relationship for ever is something awful. The need to portray that which will never be as if it will be to enable the 'leavee' to seek, interview and set up their move is absolute and yet, much like supporting those who are engaged in something adulterous, uncomfortable.

When I worked in the world of supporting the long-term unemployed I would encourage those seeking a new post to network and to put their intent 'out there'. You use your contacts, acquaintances and friends to open the doors for you and whilst this sometimes works as a cleric but generally it's down to church organisations, the clerical press, the various vacancy lists and a cloak of secrecy.

Of course, in the bad old days, you'd get a call from your bishop who would 'suggest' a move and would effectively manage, or at least assist, your ministerial journey. Now, if the various experiences of clergy I have chatted too are anything to go by, the bishops are generally useless line managers with regard to moves and often less helpful that a chocolate fire blanket! a colleague in a diocese down South upon mentioning that they felt the time was right for a move was told of a couple of good jobs (which would have been 'just right') which had been filled in the past months!

Now that leaves me despairing and more than a little confused!

ps. My colleague was so depressed by the experience and the woeful quality of care and support from their pointyhat that they binned them, the diocese and Cofe ministry. another reason the Green report has some merit Methinks.

The 'point something' Vacancy

I am really struggling with the raft of 'point something' (PS) vacancies that are appearing at the moment.

A recent 'point something' (PS) job advert highlighted the benefits of the post in a most positive manner as it took a multiple role post and then extolled the fact that the 'extra' time off could be used to spend more time with the family!

The PS trend appears to be an increasingly bitter topic for consideration when clergy are gathered. The old adage of 'too much work for one - too little income for two' is now joined by 'too few hours for what is expected' as adverts for PS posts increase.

Recent scans of the vacancies bring varying ideas of what a PS role actually demands:

 .25 post (Sunday plus two days)

.2 post (Sunday plus two days)

.5 post (Sunday plus three days)

.8 post (Sunday plus three days)

It all gets a bit confusing so I decided to ring someone in London and ask what 0.2 represented and was told that it was one working day (if there wasn't a Sunday involved) but the situation was a little confused because generally a 'whole time' post is regarded as Sunday plus five days (which makes a day something around .17 of a week*) so what a 0.2 ended up being was Sunday Services and a day (which is different from my 0.34)!

Working on 0.17 = a day a general guide to the PS world is:

.17 Sunday Only
.34 Sunday + 1 days
.51 Sunday + 2 days
.68 Sunday + 3 days
.85 Sunday + 4 days
1.0 Sunday + 5 days

I have found adverts for 0.2 posts (which oddly asked for Sunday services and one day) and the pinnacle of the PS art has to be the advert for seven churches where the job was broken down into five 0.2 packets. I rang and asked why this was and was told that two of the churches were earmarked for redundancy and so eventually the post would be five 0.2 posts!

I have also recently come across a situation where the advertised position was split into three discrete elements: 0.4, 0.4 and 0.2. I telephoned and asked why this was and was told that one of the elements was subject to a time-limited funding source and so, when this time was reached, the position would revert to a 0.6 post.

It is interesting to note that the 0.2 and the 'revert to 0.6' posts were not filled.

Recalling Bob Jackson's rule:

A cleric with one church will see growth.
A cleric with two churches will see something static.
A cleric with three or more churches will see decline!

The problem is that we are engaged in mathematical exercises when we look to fill vacancies. One senior cleric I knew used to mutter the mantra, 'Can't pay - Can't have!' and herein lies the rub for some of the most needy and effective ministry areas have little ability to pay and so are at a disadvantage.

Now I am old enough to know that if you haven't got the money then you have a bit of a problem and understand that bills need to be paid but it seems to me that we are in danger of contracting sessional clergy and engaging in PS posts which satisfy the accounting but leave the cleric and the congregations at a disadvantage  - a disadvantage that will see an increase in decline in terms of congregations and clergy.

Time to be a little more creative - and this doesn't mean looking to Ordained lay ministry as a means of making end meet - we should be releasing the laity because we should be releasing the laity, not because the finances demand!

The problem is that those who have the purse strings and those who shape the ministry in our denominations are woefully poor. An area where the Green report's intentions would benefit the Church - pity implementation might come just a little too late!

Is it any wonder when I'm as confused as the people who are interegnum?


* Of course it's actually 0.166 (0.17)  but this is all approximate stuff and so 'rounding up' is legitimate for the purpose of examples.