Rural Connectivity

Reading DEFRA's Rural Statement 2012 (produced in September), I was interested to learn that the government has made a commitment to ensuring that the UK has the most efficient superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 and that DEFRA will work to make sure that this will include rural areas. To this end they have introduced three investment programmes

• The Rural Broadband Programme - £530m dedicated to delivering 2Mbp broadband to all rural premises and superfast broadband in 90% of cases.
• The Rural Community Broadband Fund - A £20m fund to help 'hard to reach' communities receive the same services. This fund works by financing 50% of the cost of local initiatives to develop broadband in an area.
• The Mobile Infrastructure Project - £150m in capital expenditure to improve mobile phone coverage (welcome news - we have to hang out of a window or climb up the back garden to hold a mobile conversation!)

There is also support for Local Enterprise Partnerships in the form of research and 
information to help them in their development of local intiatives to get more businesses connected to superfast broadband. There is an organisation called Go On UK working to improve digital skills across the rural population.

All this got me thinking about churches. We still have three churches that do not have electricity in this archdeaconry and several that do not have water. We all know how difficult that makes it to use and maintain the building, romantic candle-lit carol services apart. We are the generation that needs to make sure that our churches don't end up with the same scenario as reagrds broadband. In twenty years time (probably a lot sooner) public buildings which are not connected to broadband will become limited in their potential usefulness and attractiveness as places to gather for community and arts events, worship, education, even for meetings.

The Go ON UK website has information about getting involved and making a difference locally - click on 'Act Now' and go to Organisations. It also tells you how to become a 'Digital Champion' in order to use your skills to help others. I've lifted the UK Digital Skills Charter from their site.

'In 2012, an estimated 16 million adults still do not have the Basic Online Skills to fully benefit from the internet - including 4.6 million people in the workforce. At Go ON UK, we believe that:

• Everyone in the UK should have the Basic Online Skills to enjoy the full benefits of the web
• Everyone deserves world-class digital services that meet their needs and are useable by all
• Communities that don't have the skills to fully enjoy the benefits of the internet should not be left behind
• Every organisation - in the private, public and voluntary sector - has a role to play in building our nation's digital capability.'

This is something that, with our track record of educational opportunity for all and, most importantly, our understanding of God as a God who communicates through word and interpretation, the churches can and should be engaging in. I'd like to see churches encouraging members to become involved in projects to bring broadband and digital skills to the homes and businesses of their area, in using social media themselves as a primary means of communication (among others), and in working to make sure church buildings are included in the communty's plans for broadband.

For more information go to http://www.go-on.co.uk or http://rdpenetwork.defra.gov.uk/funding-sources/rural-community  and click on 'site map' then ' Rural Community Broadband Funding.'

All we like sheep...: Yorkshire Diocesan Reorganisation: a view from th...

All we like sheep...: Yorkshire Diocesan Reorganisation: a view from th...: A reorganisation based on community and mission. Or is it? Three Dioceses are to be merged,  but   how will this look from the rural...

Churches - Radical or Reactionary?

I have been disturbed, as I think any Christian leader ought to be, by the number of articles I've read lately about the decline in church attendance. There has been quite a bit of moaning and groaning about churches (and especially church leaders) being too ostrich-like and burying their heads in the sand rather than facing up to the visible facts and the statistics that show that the mainstream denominations will shrink to an alarming degree by 2050 or thereabouts. The Revd Dr Patrick Richmond recently informed the Church of England's General Synod that the average age of a member is now 61. Figures put together for the Church Commissioners suggest that the number of Sunday worshippers will fall from 1.2m in 2007 to 125,000 by 2057.  The Research and Statistics Department of the Church of England has challenged these figures but, however you do the research and the interpretation, it does seem you cannot avoid the conclusion that fewer people attend services on Sundays and fewer people are involved in the life of the mainstream denominations in traditionally recognised ways. So, goes the rhetoric, churches should be trying out radically new ways of doing things - or stopping doing things altogether to concentrate on new kinds of relationship with Christ and with one another. All this is very understanable but sounds just a little bit reactive and panicky to me. A cooler-headed approach may be needed to get the statistics right in the first place, then to interpret them against the very complex backgrounds of social change and internal church politics which are exerting their influence on the shape of the twenty first century Western church. 

Firstly, then; the right kind of stats. If you look at a lot of the research, it shows the
Sunday attendance of people who could be said in some way to have identified themselves as 'core' members. In the C of E we don't even measure all the weekday services (and I don't mean weddings and funerals but times throughout the week when people get together to pray, worship, celebrate or gather round some identifyably Christian activity.) We also don't measure all the times when the community meets the church - the special services, lectures and events that lots of non-regular attenders come to. We are setting up a Church Observatory in our diocese and one of the first questions we have asked all our parishes is, 'What do you think we should be measuring?' Until we know what the important, life-giving contacts with the community are, we can't begin to resource them and plan for them properly. We need to start looking at all the after-school services, cafe church meetings, cell groups, tea-and-worship events for the elderly and so many other things that churches are doing, but not on Sundays.

Secondly, not all the evidence does show decline. David Goodhew, who is on the staff at Cranmer Hall in Durham, has edited Church Growth in Britain 1980 - Present (published as part of the Ashgate Contemporary Ecclesiology Series.) This volume paints a somewhat wider and different picture in which diversity appears to be one key to church growth. David and his colleagues' work has been endorsed by a range of theologians and leaders from across the denominations and it shows that there has been substantial church growth in the UK since 1980. The growth pattern is complex, multi-ethnic and can be seen across many different social and geographical contexts. It provides an experiential critique of the media and academy-driven notion that secularisation has effectively killed off all but the dregs of Christianity. The book powerfully demonstrates that, while there is decline in some parts of the church, this is balanced by the vitality of other parts. Undertsnading this requires a radical change in our way of assessing Christianity in the UK. I have to say this entirely backs up my own impression of what is happening which is earthed in 25 years' ministry in inner city, suburban and rural parishes. I have seen really ordinary churches change and grow, I have seen Christians from some of the newer and some of the ethnic minority churches become the catalyst for Christian growth in an area and I have seen churches 'revived'  by the most unlikely people from the young man with Downs Syndrome to the deeply faithful elderly lady who surprises everyone by 'doing change' better than people half her age. God's rainbow people!

Thirdly, I think the shape of churches is changing. A higher percentage of those who do get involved in church life are active and take on responsibility than was the case 30 years ago. There are far more cell groups, study groups and groups meeting for prayer and discussion. The concept that some of these groups hold themselves accountable to one another in quite a deep way over their Christian discipleship is growing - this was not something you heard much about in my parents' generation. Movements like third order oblates, the Northumbrian Community, Cursillo and the Rejesus - 'back to basics' movement are having a significant impact alongside the large Christian festivals like New Wine and many others I could mention. In this area of Yorkshire, I see signs that Christians are reconnecting with the deep roots of British Christian spirituality. At grass roots level, we have moved perhaps not so much beyond as around the divisions that stemmed from the Reformation in the sense that we no longer see them as 'life-giving' to the different denominations but more as historical stories which are signs of how deeply people once cared and still do care about their faith and its expression.  The communion of saints who have gone before us and the places that were significant to them are increasingly giving inspiration to today's pilgrims and we are beginning to dig the history out more creatively.

Fourthly, I do think we should be very, very concerned about two groups within the church. Young people need to be respected, listened to, given their voice and also discipled - taught the Christian story and encouraged to 'try living it out' for themselves. The Church of South India decided to allocate 30% of its resources to work with people under 30 and this has apparently changed the demography of the church beyond recognition (is that what we are afraid of?) I do think that the statistics (and the attitudes found in some churches) indicate that we are seriously failing the next generation - but even there, there is plenty of work going on on the periphery of church life and sometimes in the centre that is bearing fruit. How do we re-prioritize exploring the faith with young people? We identify those usually, but not always, younger Christians who can inspire younger people and we support them, encourage them, join in where we can. Or put more simply, we take at face value what Jesus said - that the key to the Kingdom of Heaven is a child-like disposition (see 'Children and God's Kingdom' blogpost 30th September.) Perhaps we should also require all clergy to get involved in supporting work with young people - no excuses! With training,  we can all learn to help, be it as background supporters (Trustees etc) or frontline youth and children's leaders.  And also, we need to have a good look at how we are supporting ministry among older people who, all the research shows, are at that stage of life where spirituality and ultimate questions about life and meaning make it much more likely that they will want to discover more about what it means to live through faith.

Fifthly, if you think about it, you have to be pretty radical to be a committed Christian of any kind in the UK today. You have to be strong enough to withstand the onslaughts from secularisation, materialism and 'own goals' like the disgraceful behaviour revealed in the Chichester report and the endless vacillation over women bishops. Frankly, belonging to a small church, faithfully worshipping and carrying out the tasks needed to make the church 'live' and serving your community and your colleagues because you believe that Christ is asking you to do this is not exactly mainstream behaviour in our society and often calls for sacrificial decisions. To keep doing it over many years takes a deep, personal faith, persistance, discipline and humility of a counter-cultural sort. Yes, Christians are radical people - or at least they follow a radical Saviour into demanding places. To be a Christian is countercultural and wise church leaders recognise the cost of this in everyday life before berating people who find it hard to change; churches should be, and often are, places of mutual support and it is usually through God's grace experienced in fellowship with one another that we grow in spiritual depth and the church grows in numbers.  

Lastly, I have kept to the very end my observations about structures and formulas. They have some responsibility for not always being helpful but they are not, in my opinion, the main reason for decline. Clinging on to outdated structures is a symptom of a community in decline, not the cause. We, in the Church of England need to simplify our ways of relating and working and some of our legal and synodical processes, and we need to do this quite urgently and quite quickly. However, we need to do it on the basis of the actual evidence about what it happening across the country, not on the basis of anecodtal evidence, not on the basis of saying that 'because a thing is happening here, it will automatically happen there' and not on the basis of assuming that the structures are the answer. I very much hope that the opportunity to create a new diocese in West and North Yorkshire will allow us to ensure that we have people with expertise and ways of working that will support what the churches actually need.

New Minster for Leeds

 

The Revd Canon Tony Bundock, Rector of Leeds

welcomes representatives of the city, the diocese and Yorkshire

 

 

 

The Leeds Waits, Director Alan Radford

 

 

 

Mr Richard Strudwick reads the proclamation

 

 

 

The church of St Peter at Leeds stands on a site where Christian worship has been offered for over 1200 years. A Saxon Minster pre-dated the mediaeval church which was demolished in 1838 when the present church was built at the instigation of Dean Hook. This church was consecrated in 1841 in the presence of a congregation that included Florence Nightingale. On Sunday 2nd September 2012, the parish church was re-dedicated as Leeds Minster and the congregation, led by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the staff and PCC of St Peter's renewed their commitment to serve the city of Leeds.

 

 

 

Minster-making

 

 

 

Candles from Dewsbury, Beverley, Halifax, Ripon and York Minsters are lit and the Leeds Minster candle is presented

 

 

 

The flames representing all the Minsters of Yorkshire are united

 

 

 

Leeds Minster Choir and St Peter's Singers, director Dr Simon Lindley

 

Read more at http://www.riponleeds.anglican.org/news-485.html

Ambition for Mission

The Diocese of Ripon and Leeds has taken a good look at the degree to which we are 'fit for growth' and the things we need to do to sustain parishes and other places where mission and ministry are happening.  You can read all about this on the Diocesan website and also download a pdf document 'Preparing the Way With Prayer' that has some really good suggestions for how your parish or group can pray about mission and how your meetings can become more focused on mission, growth and realisitc sustainability. 

http://www.riponleeds.anglican.org/a4m-1.html

 

 

One of the main things to come out of the work was the suggestion that EVERY PCC sould have a MISSION ACTION PLAN. I wrote about these in my Visitation letter, earlier this year. 'I am encouraging every PCC to review the way in which planning happens and to ensure that they have a Mission Action Plan. This is a short document which sets out the PCC's vision and aims and includes a brief plan stating its priorities and identifying what the PCC is going to focus on and achieve over the coming year. For some PCCs a 3-5 year period will be more appropriate. There is great advantage in a PCC setting aside time to pray and take a good look at its vision and ways of working. What is God calling you to be and do? What resources do you need? An awayday or an evening to consider these questions will help a PCC to prioritize, draw up a plan of action and identify what it needs in terms of people, buildings, finance and outside expertise.'  Adrian Alker, our Director of Mission Resourcing, has compiled a leaflet explaining how to go about this for PCCs who would like to undertake this sort of planning for the first time. e amil me if you would like a copy or if you would like one of the diocesan or bishop's team to come and work with you on preparing a Mission Action Plan janeth@riponleeds-diocese.org.uk  



During the Ambition for Mission process, three working parties came up with the following recommendations which I quote from the Diocesan website.

'Financial sustainability

The consequences of the economic downturn are being felt in communities across the diocese. The impact of job losses, service cuts, VAT increases and other economic factors mean that finances will remain tight over the coming few years. We need to look together within the church, and other sectors, to sustainable solutions. Four objectives were identified:
Objective 1
A diagnostic tool- a viability toolkit - will be developed to better understand the viability and long term sustainability of individual parishes.
Objective 2
To consider alternative or complementary models for share management.
Objective 3
To examine the best fundraisers and identify best practice in stewardship and fundraising, seeing how this can be effectively communicated across the Diocese.
Objective 4
To review our strategic approach to housing management.

Mission innovation and development

The second set of proposals aim at reversing downward trends which suggest that by the middle of this century worshipping Christian communities in large areas will have disappeared altogether. The report proposes prayer, strategic planning and a creative focusing of resources to stop that happening.
The following objectives were identified:

1. A programme of prayer for the overall goals across the Diocese, led by the Bishops.
2. A strategic, mission-focused assessment model for mission.
3. Encouragement of Mission Action Planning across the Diocese. MAP skills should be developed in each deanery.
4. The diocese should recognize, affirm and resource the significant gifts of lay people in the Diocese.
5. Further resource and accelerate the Leading Your Church into Growth programme across the Diocese with the opportunity to share in the Growing Healthy Churches process.
6. There should be joined-up, well planned strategic thinking about church planting, Fresh Expressions and ‘missional ‘communities in the Diocese.
7. Resource and accelerate the Interns Programme across the Diocese.
8. Encourage each local church to have an annual nurture course.
9. A Mission Innovation Fund should be piloted for two years in areas of social justice, eco and social action projects in parishes to grow new and refresh existing discipleship.
10. Train, resource and exploit new technology and new innovation in communication.

Clergy and Lay Development and Employment.

The third area looked at as that of decisions about deployment and appointments of clergy, idenitfying and supporting leaders and fostering a vision among church leaders for spiritual and numerical growth. Again, four main objecties were identified:
Objective 1
To review current appointment practices in order to prioritise spiritual and numerical growth.
Objective 2
To look at the strategic deployment of laity and clergy for spiritual and numerical growth.
Objective 3
To look at how we can identify and train leaders who can support spiritual and numerical growth.
Objective 4
To investigate how the Diocese might increasingly foster a vision for spiritual and numerical growth, developing deanery plans that have mission as their main driver.'

Church in Wales Review Sketches Future Directions

The Church in Wales recently commissioned a review of mission and ministry and the structures which will support the church of the future. The report of the review group was published in July and you can read it (45 pages) here

http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/structure/
 

The group visited every diocese in Wales and spoke to around 1,000 people who attended open meetings. "The overwhelming impression we have received from these meetings and submissions is an awareness of the need for change, a desire to change, and a commitment to change." I think the report has resonances for dioceses and regions like ours. Having grown up in rural mid Wales, I can see parallels between how our most rural areas relate to their ministry areas - there are similar complexities. 

The report contains 50 recommendations which have been acclaimed as quite radical.  Perhaps they are radical if you read them from a church perspective, but they strike me as much less so if you read them from a 'change-in-organisations' perspective, from which angle they border on common sense and cumulative learning-from-experience. My impression on reading the report was that we are doing or talking about quite a number of these recommendations already except for those that require substantial legal or structural change. (For example creating new ministry areas and teams and reviewing buildings for their sustainability and community use, both of which we have begun to talk about but are only doing in a rather half-hearted way, hoping that real change will not be necessary, in my opinion!) The most notable recommendations from the report include 

• Replace parishes with larger ministry areas, containing around 25 parishes, which would, where possible be aligned to the catchment areas of secondary schools. These ministry areas will be served by a team of clergy and lay people. Small parishes in groups of 8 or 10 are no long sustainable; one priest alone cannot serve as many as 10 parishes, bearing the burden of all the extra attendance at meetings and administration which this kind of multiple of small units necessitates.
• Train lay people to play a more active part in church leadership.
• Engage with young people by working more closely with all schools, not just church schools. Train clergy and lay people to do this.
• Use social media as a norm of communication and, again, train people in the church for this.
• Develop new forms of worship to reach out to those unfamiliar with church services; hold them at times other than Sunday morning, and, where appropriate, in other buildings such as schools and village halls.
• Adapt some church buildings for use by the whole community; close other church buildings that are not needed.
• Sell parsonages so that clergy can buy or rent their own homes.
• Work more closely with other denominations.
• Make it a priority to nurture Welsh-speaking ordinands in the church.

I've left in the recommendation about Welsh speaking ordinands for two reasons. Firstly, to remind anyone who reads the report to read it carefully - the Church of England is not the Church in Wales and is rather differently placed in the social structures of community life. The Welsh church has a very different history in respect of its relationship to other denominations, to schools, to government and civic life and you cannot jump directly from the Welsh situation to the English. Secondly, it reminds us that to stay alive, every church, in every kind of cultural setting, should be producing indigenous ministry, lay and ordained. Without this the future is precarious. I also like very much the recommendation about schools. I have always thought (and tried to put into practice) that a parish church should be relating to every school in its area, not just the church schools!

 

 

There is a lot of food for thought in this report. It may not be directly applicable to our situation but there is certainly enough similarity in the questions we should be asking about how the future is going to be sustainable and how we work toward change in places where there is resistance or a 'let's bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best' approach. This makes it a worthwhole read. The members of the review group were prominent thinkers with a blend of experience in dealing with matters ecclesiastical and organisational: Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the former Bishop of Oxford; Professor Charles Handy, the eminent writer and adviser on business and organisational theory (and son of a Church of Ireland archdeacon); and Professor Patricia Peattie, former Convenor of the Scottish Episcopal Church’s Standing Committee and the first chairwoman of the Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The questions the review group were asked to address are good ones for every diocese

1) Are the resources available being deployed efficiently and effectively to enable the mission of the Church?

2) Is the organisation of the Church in Wales one which enables the Church to be effective

in addressing the nation of Wales?

3) How should the organisation be adapted to enable the Church to live more fully into a
model of Church life which is theologically and missionally coherent and sustainable in the long term?

All Change!

Saturday Heritage Days

I have been sent information on what promise to be three a really interesting days to help you explore ways to understand how local heritage impacts on the here and now of our communities. Try as I might I could not convert this into a format that is easy to read. Click on the image and it will enlarge so you can get the information you need to book into one of the workshops in Barnsley (26th May), Oldham  (16th June) or Huddersfield (30th June). Or contact

r.f.light@hud.ac.uk tel. 01484 478408

Archdeacon's Charge 2012

In this year of the Olympic Games, I thought it would be appropriate to take St Paul's thoughts on 'running the race' (1 Corinthians 9. 19 - end) for our theme. As one of the hymns we sing puts it, 'run the straight race through God's good grace.' St Paul was writing to the church in Corinth and he was probably thinking of the Isthmian Games which were held there - second in fame in the ancient world only to the Olympic Games themselves. He takes the process the athlete puts him or herself through as a metaphor for Christian service.

What does St Paul tell us? That athletes have discipline and self control; that they put aside anything that might distract them from their purpose of winning the race and achieving their goal. Discipline and a common, well defined goal sound like good things for church wardens to have! Certainly to be striving for the same things that your PCC and clergy are working towards. But what about this? St Paul says, 'Though I am free, I make myself a slave to all.' That sounds like a church warden's lot to me! Instead of being free to dip in and out of church life, to decide when you worship, to choose how to use your free time, you have taken on the task of serving this community which is Christ's body. St Paul (who has done the same) finds himself having to be 'all things to all people'. I'm sure there will be times when you will feel that to be true for you! You need the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job and the tact of all the saints put together to be all the things your community and church ask of you. Yet St Paul had one firm principle that kept him going through thick and thin. He does not just drift around agreeing with the last person he speaks to. Christ is at the heart of all that he does. His relationship with Christ comes first and last. He serves Christ in all his efforts and he does everything so that he may share Christ with others and persuade others to join the same race he himself is engaged in. St Paul's discipline and self sacrifice, his perseverance and determination not to quit until he has won all flow from a desire to show Christ's love, Christ's saving power in the world.

Perhaps the metaphor of a race is especially helpful in this time of change. We may feel we stand on shifting sands. Many of us, and our people, face economic uncertainty and uncertain employment propsects.  The hard financial facts are fluctuating around us, creating insecurity. And then, in this dioscese, the Dioceses Commission is generating uncertainty about our future together as church. Will we be in a diocese on our own or part of a bigger diocese with Bradford and Wakefield by 2015? Our Diocesan Synod and Bradford's have voted largely in favour of the changes; Wakefield's synod has not. We won't know what the future holds until the Commission's Final Scheme is published in the autumn. then there there will be a further period of uncertainty while the synods vote.
Shoule PCCs or other groups want more information about these propsals I am happy to come and explain them more fully. 

In situations of great uncertainty, St Paul kept his focus on the race he had committed himself to run, eyes firmly on the prize - which was relationship with Christ. And that, I would suggest, is what you and I need to do over the next few years. Focus on the race that is before us, 'Christ is that path and Christ the prize.'

So what can we do? Well, I've got three M's for you! 

• Ensure that morale remains high; encourage others with whom we share the race in their devotion to Christ so that, together, we can withstand the challenges and difficultes without losing faith.
• Ensure mutuality; see that we support and encourage one another across benefices and deaneries. We must share time and resources and work together.
• Safeguard ministry by working to promote vocations. Do you know that if each parish produced one person with a vocation every 5 years, we would have more ministry than we could support or train? We'd find a way - it would change the whole future of the church! Have you ever spotted and encouraged someone to think of giving themselves to ministry? A discreet 'have you ever thought of offering yourself for ministry?' from the Church Warden or Vicar is often the start of a journey into ministry. God calls, but the church also plays its part in that calling. Or, here's a question, have you thought about it for yourself?

So, three M's.  Morale - focus on Christ, don't lose sight of your relationship with Him.  Mutuality - support for one another, for all God's people near and far. No one has to 'go it alone'. Ministry - calling ministers for the future.

To do all this, then, we need to eqip ourselves, just as the athlete would have his running shoes and shorts, his linament for his muscles and his water bottle. I want, now, to say something about the resources that are available to you all.

Firstly, Ambition for Mission
During the last year, 3 groups from across the diocese have been working to develop a better understanding of what growth can mean in our parishes and how we can work to support growth. The three task groups have looked at mission, financial sustainability and the deployment of clergy and lay people. One of the key recommendations that they have made is that churches should work on  Mission Action Plans. The idea is that every parish should seek a clearer vision of who and what God is calling them to be and, following on from that, should draw up a simple plan that says, 'these are the things we are going to be concentrating on over the next year..or three years..or five years.' Some parishes already have something like this.

When I became Vicar of my last parish, they didn't have anything like a Mission Action Plan. 'Oh, we all know what we're doing!' they said. But they also said 'The trouble is, we don't have enough people to do it all..there are so few of us!' (How many times a week do I hear that?!) Eventually, I persuaded them to have a day when the PCC prayed and discussed our common vision as a church. What was God really asking of us? What was most important? Could we resource and finance it? Then we drew up a plan for how we would do the things that were priorities.  The great thing was that, because there was a coherent plan and because it was published in the magazine and leaflets were distributed in church and in public places round the parish, people knew what we were doing. More and more people began to catch the vision, from the teenager who went home and made 12 toys bags because one of our aims was to welcome children, to the business man who came to me and said, 'I'm retiring and I'll give you a year to oversee the renovation of the church hall,' to the artist who designed and distributed prayer cards to local businesses.

During 2012 and 13, we are encouraging every parish or benefice to do some in-depth planning and thinking about resources. Begin by listening to God, thinking and discussing. There's more about this in my letter in Archdeacon's News. The bishops. archdeacons and Mission resourcing Team will be happy to assist with ideas or evenings or awaydays to help. We all need to listen to God, to clarify our vision, to communicate our plans. (Plans aren't much good if they are exclusively in the Church Warden or the Vicar's head. Often, if that's the only place there are, that's where they stay!)

Secondly, there is a group of lay people who, following the lay conference last year, are working on a multi-media resource for parishes called Agents for Change. As its title suggests, it's aimed to help churches and communities that are facing a lot of change. We all know how difficult that can be in churches, whether it's altering the times of services or closing a church or getting used to new ways of working with a new vicar or in a bigger benefice. This is what you need to help!

Thirdly, there is a team of people who can assist you - our Mission Resourcing Team, headed up by Adrain Alker.
Buildings Officer - Alice Ullathorne - advice on buildings projects, funding, community use of buildings and heritage matters. Keep abreast of useful information about issues like VAT for buildings projects and courses about buildings maintenance on Alice's blog http://church-community-building.blogspot.co.uk  
Environmental Officer -  Jemima Parker - advice on sustainable living and energy sources. Measures that every member of the congegration can get involved with to make a difference. (If you look at the Diocesan website, there's also a news article on St Marks' Harrogate's newly installed solar panels. If your church is thinking about solar panels, do contact them for advice or go and see the panels at St Mark's.)
Youth and Children's Team - St Mary's Richmond has just started a new service for families and children. They had 40 adults, 42 children and 4 sheep at the second one. If you need help to get a project going contact Graham Richards or Nic Sheppard.
Rural Officer - Andy Rylands. Advice on rural support networks and rural issues and he's just started a blog. http://ruralriponandleeds.blogspot.co.uk
Ministry with deaf people and people with learning difficulties - Rachel Wilson and Sue Pearce.
Stewardship Adviser  - Paul Winstanley. We have, in 2011, maintained our 94% share collection rate and that is a remarkable achievement. Well done to you all - and a big thank you for all your persistance, hard work and generosity.
IT - please do use my blog to advertise events (just e mail the information to me). If you need help to think about a church website or facebook page, there is plenty of expertise around. Do contact me or one of the communications team - John Carter, David Brighton.

Fourthly, about Security and, in particular, lead roofs. Ecclesiastical have generously paid for two churches in the diocese to have roof alarms installed. They are very discreet and not visible from the ground. Only those two chuches PCCs and I know who they are. The idea is that we do not publish the location. However, all churches will shortly be sent notices saying, 'Thieves Beware! Churches in this Area have Roof Alarms.' Thieves will not know which churches have them and which don't and this will hopefully be a deterrent. If your church really needs to consider its own alarm, contact me and I will put you in touch with one of the alarmed churches so you can see how it works for yourselves.

http://www.ecclesiastical.com/ChurchMatters/churchguidance/churchsecurity/roof-alarms/index.aspx

Finally, celebrations. In connection with the Olympics, you will have among your handouts a Traidcraft Churches Event Kit with lots of ideas about how to mark the Olympics. The brochure also gives the dates that the olympic torch will be passing through your area. http://www.traidcraft.co.uk/2012games
 The Diamond Jubilee - I'm sure that we will all want to celebrate Her Majesty's inspirational example of service and devotion to duty. Do have parties and services, bell peals and concerts. However, some of you will have heard about the idea of having beacons on church towers. The Chancellor and I are not keen on this idea due to the  possible significant dangers. Beacons are usually on high pieces of ground, not on buildings. There is an article in Archdeacon's News. You'll see there that you must apply for a faculty if you are thinking of having a church tower beacon.

And finally, please do watch my blog for training opportunities for church wardens, on finance and for treasurers over the summer and autumn. If you need help with anything, ask and we will try to find it!

Alive to the Word!

Announcing A Festival of Preaching

Saturday 19th May

Ripon Cathedral

To book, contact gail.matthewman@riponleeds-diocese.org.uk

Proclaim the Faith Afresh in Each Generation

Every time the bishop welcomes a new priest and gives them a license to minister, we hear those words, ''to proclaim the faith afresh to this generation'. Here is a book that argues that 'fresh expressions of church' (ie. doing things differently yet in ways that resonate with the traditions of Christianity) are a normal part of the church's DNA. There have always been new shapes of church emerging. What makes them authentic? And what makes them different from the shapes we already have? This newly published book, written by two of the staff of Cranmer Hall theological college in Durham and the Director of Training for the national Fresh Expressions Team, is an introduction to fresh expressions of church and pioneer ministry in today's society. It is written as a study guide for churches who might be thinking about doing something differently.  It also explodes some myths and misunderstandings about what constitutes a 'fresh expression'. The final chapter tackles the thorny question of how a fresh expression becomes part of the ongoing life of the church without becoming a stale or  directionless expression!  The book is conceived as a boat to take you on a voyage. David Goodhew provides the rudder - a look at how fresh expressions are central to the Christian tradition - part of the life blood of the body of Christ - and he gives a rationale for their appropriateness in 'such a time as this'. (Interesting that this should come from Durham where I recently heard Mark Bryant, the suffragan bishop, preach an eloquent sermon on the need for the church in the north east to recapture the understanding of 'fresh expressions' which it so clearly and enthusiastically showed in the nineteenth century under the challenge to respond to the new urbanisation of the country.) Andrew Roberts builds the hull, looking at the issue of what so-called fresh expressions are and what they aren't and examining some examples of good practice. Michalel Volland hoists the sails with a chapter on God's call to pioneer ministry and a look at what the long haul means. The book provides scholarly analysis while also drawing on practical experience and is well worth a read if you are thinking about new directions in your own living out of your faith, particularly  if you are doing this with others and feel a call to something new.

There will be a book launch at Cranmer Hall (Tristram Room) on Tuesday 25th April at 5.45pm. You can go along and meet the authors. Or contact them at  

enquiries@cranmerhall.com

http://www.durham.ac.uk/cranmerhall/ 

History that Helps

As every priest knows, you ignore the history of a parish at your peril! Each community has its historical narrative - parts of it repeated over and over in not altogether identical versions, other parts half-remembered and implicit in the things that are held to be important in the community (and woe betide you if you ignore these underlying stories which point you to the things that have taken on the power of symbols in your particular neighbourhood!) The distinct narrative of any community forms the context for contemporary mission and ministry and in fact contains many clues as to how your community reacts to change.

I was grateful to Bishop James for pointing me towards the Building on History Project that has been running in the London Diocese.

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/building-on-history-project/index.html

This project, which has been run by Kings College London, the Open University, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Diocese of London, is aimed at getting churches to look at their own history as a tool for helping them to be the church of the present in their own locality more effectively. It helps parishes to ask the question, 'What can we, the contemporary church, facing similar challenges, learn from our church's response to past challenges in their historical context?' By looking at the religious and social history of an area and understanding how the churches have coped with demographic and theological developments in the past, the project helps churches to gain confidence in facing the changes that confront us now. If you think about the ways in which museums and schools work to help us appreciate local history today and the contribution this makes to our sense of local identity, you can see that for a church to dig deep into its own historical treasures - both artefacts and oral history - will enable its members to make better-informed decisions and will provide practical wisdom about how the community might react to change. Historical awareness contributes inspiration, challenges wrong assumptions and helps us to a better sense of proportion and perspective. As Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London puts it, 'The person who has a sense of history and no sense of destiny is doubtless very tedious. But the person or community with a sense of destiny and no sense of history is very wasteful and even dangerous.' Rowan Williams, in a project podcast, says, 'We often take for granted that things have always been like this. But, actually, of course, to understand the past is to understand how things change.' 

If you go to the website above, it gives you guidelines for writing a church and parish history, gives ideas for how you can use history to inform contemporary mission and ministry and tells you how to conduct a 'history audit' of your congregation. It also helps you prepare a Statement of Significance for your church - a vital document if you are applying for faculties or funding.

Rise in Church Attendance

Ripon Cathedral Watchnight Service 2011
from the Cathedral Facebook Wall

Some good news! An article by Peter Oborne in the Telegraph, today, seems to support the impression one has from taking Christmas services - a creeping up of the number of people coming to worship at Christmas and over the New Year. Certainly, at Ripon Cathedral there were 400+ for midnight Communion at Christmas, 1,300 for the Boxing Day pilgrimage and over 600 for the Watchnight service on New Year's Eve, followed by a pretty decent number on Sunday morning when people were obviously not just sleeping off hang-overs and late nights. There has been a steady, gradual increase over the past few years. This seems encouraging in a fairly sparsely populated area (200,000+) where there have also been good attendances at many parish churches over the Christmas period. Of course, there are also lots of services where many churches simply don't count heads over Christmas - all the carol services, Christingle and school services, for example. We should keep records that include these, too, instead of just recording numbers at services of Holy Communion. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8970031/The-return-to-religion.html

Oborne (whose wife is a priest at a London church) is writing from the London perspective where church attendances are growing more rapidly that in other areas of the country, but my own view is that certain kinds of worship are engaging more people in worship and these can vary a great deal from place to place. Cathedrals and churches with choral traditions are increasing their numbers; so are churches which have a number of smaller, shorter services for different kinds of worshippers; churches that are experimenting with non-traditional times and days seem to be drawing new worshippers in - Saturday and Sunday late afternoon, for example; 'cafe church' is very popular in a number of our town and rural churches. Oborne suggests that it is easier to grow your congregation where there is 'one church, one vicar'. While that may be superficially true, in fact I think it is the warmth of welcome and the quality of the care taken over worship that count - it may be easier to ensure these things happen where there is a single priest, but that isn't necessarily so. Well organised multi-parish benefices where there is a committed, sometimes quite small team of people involved can achieve these things, too!

Dioceses Commission Draft Scheme

For Yorkshire readers, the Dioceses Commission published their second report at the start of last week. It accompanies a Draft Scheme for the reorganisation of the three dioceses of Bradford, Ripon and Leeds and Wakefield into one large diocese with 5 episcopal areas. There are no great shocks in the report. The main new recommendations are that the Diocesan Bishop will be in Leeds (not Wakefield), the diocese will be called 'Leeds to be known informally as the Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales.' The three cathedrals (Bradford, Ripon and Wakefield) will be retained with equal status, three Chapters and one College of Canons.

If you look on my Dioceses Commission Page, you can read about it in more detail, including the recommendations made about individual parishes. 

The report says this about the Archdeaconry of Richmond,
4.8 We propose that the Archdeadonry of Richmond should be renamed the Archdeaconry of Richmond and Craven and expanded to include those parishes in the Archdeaconry of Craven which are not transferred to another diocese and also four parishes in the Bradford Archdeaconry that are in the Harrogate District. Some of the responses we have received have questioned whether, given the distances involved and the nature of the roads this area is capable of being looked after by a single archdeacon - even if, as we propose, that archdeacon had no other duties. We recognise that such considerations might make it necessary for the archdeacon to live at a location which would offer easier access to the whole archdeaconry. Whether the distances would be manageable and the workload tolerable - or, alternatively, whether the two archdeaconries into which the rural episcopal area might be split would include sufficient numbers of parishes and clergy to justify having an archdeacon for each - cannot finally be determined until the precise boundaries of the diocese are definitively established. At this point, we are not convinced that retaining two archdeacons would be justified. We have therefore included in the draft reorganisation scheme the proposal to extend the Archdeaconry of Richmond to include all those parishes in the Archdeaconry of Craven not transferred elsewhere.

Such an archdeaconry would have a population of 270,000, an area of 1,569 sq. miles, 139 parishes distributed across 72 benefices, and 94 licensed clergy of whom 67 are stipendiary. (To give a comparison, Leeds would have a population of 767,000, an area of 184sq. miles, 77 parishes in 71 benefices and 105 clergy of whom 84 are stipendiary.)

The proposed Archdeaconry of Richmond and Craven will be in the Ripon Episcopal Area, one of the five Episcopal Areas in the new diocese (Ripon, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield and Huddersfield) each with their own bishop and archdeacon under the overall authority of the diocesan bishop and supported by a joint diocesan team. 

Do I see any advantages in the Scheme as a whole?

Well, it will certainly enable the Church of England to be more effective in Leeds by getting the whole of the city into one diocese and one area of that diocese. This will improve relationships with civic authorities and also between the parishes of Leeds who will be able to work together, for the first time, for effective mission their city. It will also enable Richmond and Craven (everywhere north of Skipton and Ripon) to pull together and focus on rural affairs without being dominated by the large urban conurbations but, also, without losing contact with them altogther. It may be possible to have a full time rural officer. In such a huge archdeaconry a lot will depend on really good access for the parishes to the central departments - DAC, finance, mission resourcing, training - and on excellent communications. A larger diocese is likely to attract more interest from clergy applying for posts; clergy often move within a limited geaographical area once they have settled in a diocese and the new arrangement will give greater scope for moving within the diocese. (60% of clergy spend all their ministry in one diocese - attracting them here in the first place is important!) The cathedrals will be able to develop focused, distinctive ministries - Ripon would clearly be well advised to develop a ministry that supports rural life and the life of the Dales; Bradford might concentrate on interfaith and business issues; Wakefield might be the civic focus for West Yorkshire. The three dioceses have very different strengths, interests and ways of working but we will be able to learn from one another's expertise and we do already have some experience of joint working in areas such as education and training, ministry with the deaf, evangelism and the MSM course, and through sharing ecological knowhow. The most important aspects of the Scheme seem to me to be twofold. Firstly, the tidying up of boundaries so that we can work better with civic partners. We cannot underestimate the difficulty of trying to work across different districts and authorities and replicating effort over and over again in order to do so. Secondly, the episcopal areas will allow area bishops to lead mission in a way that is closer to the interests and needs of their particular area while retaining relationships with the wider diocese especially where sharing vision and resources makes that sensible. So yes, I do see advantages. The financial report that accompanies the Scheme seems to suggest that one diocese will cost around £0.8 million per anum less to run after the initial set up costs. I guess it will be like installing solar panels - over 10 years you reap the benefits though there is an initial outlay. Our finance teams are looking at this and also talking to the Commission about the spread of costs to include a proportion borne by the national church. No doubt there will be much more to say about this in due course. You can read the detail of the estimated financial effects of the proposals in document YDCR4 on the Dioceses Commission website (see Dioceses Commission page for the link to the site.)

Count People Because People Count

I sort of know this post is going to get me into trouble! In the church, we put so much emphasis on the importance of each individual that we are sometimes very suspicious of research that asks 'how many?' We perhaps fear the consequence of discovering 'not many'. Yet there is plenty of evidence that large numbers of people use open churches during the day for prayer, peace and quiet and as places to visit as pilgrims and tourists. At the last tourism group, we were discussing the importance of churches being open and ways of knowing just how many people come into them during the day. In larger or very historic churches with several focal points of interest, it would also be important to know which parts of the church inspire people and why they come. Now don't get me wrong, I am not into counting heads for the sake of it or so we can boast about how many people we see. But it does seem sensible to know how many people use a church. When I was a parish priest we used to count the number of people who attended all services, not just Holy Communion services, and these figures were often the basis for suprising 
conclusions about which services were actually growing and, therefore, for decisions about how to develop the worshipping life of the church. Our church warden used to say 'Count people because people count!'

Of course, when it comes to pilgrimage and tourism it is vital to know how many people are attracted to your church and what they come to see - this influences all sorts of decisions such as what to put in the guide book and on the website, where to put places for prayer, what hours of the day and seasons of the year to open. Apparently, Exeter Cathedral has recently installed a 'people counter'. Andy Rylands, our rural officer, did some research and discovered that you can obtain a small, smart digital counter for as little as £150. It would need an archdeacon's license to install and, over a period of time, it could be moved around to different parts of the church if you want to find out what people go to see while they are in the building. I suppose it could also record your Sunday attendance more accurately, or at least more easily, than a sidesperson can. You can find details of one version of counter on

www.Total-Count.com/uk.html  

Spirituality, pilgrimage and worship are not primarily about numbers, but it sure does help to know when people come and where they linger, especially if you are making decisions about encouraging more and about how to prepare the best welcome when they do come.  

Church Wardens and Night Clubs...

Who says that training for Church Wardens is a modern invention? Canon Peter Midwood drew my attention to a gem of a book called Directions to Church Wardens for the Faithful Discharge of the Office published in 1723. It was written by Humphrey Prideaux D.D., Dean of Norwich and Archdeacon of Suffolk (so dual role posts for clergy are not something invented in recent years, either!) His introduction begins

'My Worthy Brethren,

The ignorance of the church wardens as to the duties of their office which they have been sworn to, making visitations, in a manner, ineffectual, and also frequently causing great differences and disturbances at home among their neighbours, through the errors and mistakes which they run into, about the repairs of your churches and the levying of rates for the same; I have thought it necessary to draw up these directions for the preventing of like mischiefs and inconveniences for the future...'

He goes on to ask the clergy to make sure that they instruct their wardens, 'that they may better know their duty both in preventing such things as are amiss in your respective parishes and also repairing your churches; I would then hope that Sin might be more effectually corrected.'

There follow 110 short chapters on such subjects as presentments, calumny and slander, absenters from church, Lord's Day observance, public houses, swearing in of wardens, tithes and glebe land, monuments, who sits where in church, fees, accounts, terriers, registers, sequestration, diocesan synods and civil government. Nothing much changes it would seem! You can see why the Church of England is so very wedded to some of its odd customs (such as sitting in the same pew in church every week!) So much of what we do and what we react against is rooted in generations of instruction to do things in a certain way. I have to say that Dean Prideaux's Directions are pretty short on theology or  pastoral care and seem to be largely to do with keeping order and the level of fines which wardens can charge offenders! Some passages read quite like the book of Leviticus!

I like the advice on pubs - 'and if they find any tippling in Alehouses or mispending the Sabbath in idleness or looseness in the Taverns or other public places of debauchery, they are to make them pay three shillings and fourpence, and the owner of the house ten shillings for entertaining them; and if it be the time of divine service, they may make every one of them pay also a shilling for being absent from church.' When I was growing up in Wales, our county was still one of three 'dry' counties where the pubs could not open on a Sunday. I wonder what Dean Prideaux would make of our newly appointed Minister to the Night Time Economy in Leeds, Beth Tash, whose ministry is with those who frequent the bars and night clubs of the city?! You can read all about her exciting new ministry here http://www.riponleeds.anglican.org/news-400.html and, by the way, she gave a really excellent interview on Woman's Hour this morning. For more information go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-14835209

But back to wardens. I just wanted to say that I think I have much less trouble with our wardens than poor old Dean Prideaux. This afternoon I have been visiting a churchyard with someone who wanted to find a grave; the warden had given hours of her time and care to make sure the person was helped to set their mind at rest. I was also speaking recently to a DAC secretary who said that, despite all the worry over finance and red tape, he thinks our parish churches are better cared for then they have been at any point in history.

So tonight, folks, as you relax, raise your glasses to our dedicated band of church wardens (only don't let me see you doing it on Sunday!)

British Religion in Numbers Report

YouGov-Cambridge carried out a survey earlier this year which has been published by British Religion in Numbers. The group surveyed were 'representative British adults'. 55% said they were Christian though there was a marked difference between age groups. 38% of the 18-34 year olds said they were Christian while 53% were 'not religious'. Contrast this with the over 55 age group of whom 70% said they were Christian and 26% reported that they were 'not religious'. The survey shows a slow decline in affiliation to all the major religions but, interestingly, the older age group were more nominal, and the younger age group more actively involved in their allegiance to their religion if you go on factors such the percentages reporting that they pray at least once a month.

Read the figures for youself on
http://www.yougov.polis.cam.ac.uk/sites/yougov.polis.cam.ac.uk/files/Religion.pdf  
For the BRIN  commentary, see
http://www.brin.ac.uk/

Localism Bill Ushers in Neighbourhood Plans

Churches ought to be aware of the new Localism Bill which is currently working its way through the House of Lords and will become law before the end of the year. One of the most important features of the bill is the provision made to allow communities to come together to develop a Neighbourhood Plan which will set some parameters for development in their area. The plan will have to meet certain criteria in order to do this. It would be worth all PCCs (parochial church councils - the 'governing body' of each church) finding out whether such a move is afoot in their neightbourhood and making sure that they are part of it. It might be that, in some places, it would be appropriate for the PCC to take the lead in setting up such a process or campaigning to get one going. 

The idea of Neighbourhood Plans is that they ensure that local communities are able to take an active part in developing their own area in the light of the concerns and priorities of residents. The needs and aspirations of the local community will be key drivers - for example planning for new housing, relevant types of housing, 'joined up' transport services, conservation and ecological issues, bridal and cycle ways and footpaths, development of community space and policies regarding the kind of development allowed in the area can all become part of the Plan. Communities who have Neighbourhood Plans will have some access to funding such as the New Homes Bouns and the Community Infrastructure Levy and this will help to finance local activity. To quote the Newsletter of Rural Action Yorkshire, 'Used positively, the neighbourhood planning  process could give you significant leverage to ensure local authority co-operation in your neighbourhood's prefered development priorities. Rural Action Yorkshire is working in co-operation with the Prince's Foundation and other bodies to make sure that rural communities in Yorkshire are able to access the new government-funded support for neighbourhood planning.'

All sounds a bit dry? Or maybe you are sceptical? On the other hand, it could be just the opportunity your community needs to get something done, to reverse a trend or to bring people together to find mutually beneficial ways forward. It's too early to know how the bill will work in practice and whether it will deliver even part of what it claims, but churches should be aware of what is being proposed and should, I would suggest, be contributing in places where communities decide to create Neighbourhood plans.

For more information go to

http://www.ruralyorkshire.org.uk/

and click on 'Community-led Planning'.    

What Do We Expect of Our Priests?

Evelyn Underhill, an Anglican mystic and spiritual director of the early twentieth century, once said something to the effect (I can't remember her exact words), 'One thing I require of a priest above all else is that he(sic) has time.'

Today I had one of the several-times-a-week conversations that I have with people who are concerned about falling numbers in the church. The conversation went something like this;
'I don't know what the clergy do all day but they are not bringing people into church.'
'Do you think that is responsibility of just the clergy?'
'Well all I know is that if you were in business, you wouldn't be getting paid unless you were producing results.'

 It's hard to know where to go with this other than to listen and try to learn. I would be the first to admit that I have witnessed situations where clergy seem to have operated in ways that clearly put people off the church and do not inspire faith. I wouldn't exempt myself at all from the charge of having made mistakes in my ministry in terms of drawing boundaries too tightly and making wrong assumptions. As an archdeacon I am dealing with one parish where a recent stewardship campaign revealed the fact that villagers were very supportive of the desire to have a thriving local church but massively sceptical about whether they were in fact welcome in their village church. The last priest but one had refused to allow people who were not confirmed access to the sacraments but failed to run any confirmation classes while the last priest had refused to baptise their children on the grounds that the parents did not practise the faith! Put all this together with the increasing secularism of society and the lack of Sunday availablity and it begins to seem a miracle that churches in villages like this still have reasonable congregations and are active alongside their current priest. Yes, sometimes we clergy need to be held to account and helped to understand the results of our actions so that we can change and improve our ways.

However, I am increasingly concerned about this 'results in terms of numbers' approach to appraising clergy. While it is understandable, it is also harmful as it creates a consumerist understanding of what faith, never mind ministry, is all about. The body of Christ is not called to productivity but to faithfulness. Now faithfulness does give rise to the need to get things done and to communicate effectively but the 'measurement' of the church's mission is faithfulness to God's ways and the visible fruit of this faithfulness in the lives of every member of the church. This is somewhat different from a business or resource-
management approach to growth and employee appraisal. 

Congregations today often put clergy (and many of our most active laity such as readers, wardens and youth leaders) under great pressure to be busy all the while, thus decreasing the time (Evelyn Underhill's criterion for a good priest) available for prayer, in particular, and for study, thought and preparation, of which true spiritual wisdom is born. Where people detect deep wisdom in priests, leaders and congregations, there is usually a committed following of disciples. Where people detect a lack of depth and spiritual insight, then however 'busy' that group of people might be, people tend to fall away, disillusioned, as time goes by. 

Clergy I speak to often profess themselves to be under-trained in practical matters such as administration (usually top of the list), project management, employment law, financial planning and team building, sometimes also in the skills required for good chairing of meetings. So, many clergy either spend time learning these things after they become incumbents or they never learn them and therefore expend a great deal of energy struggling with things they feel they do not do very well. Sometimes they bring these skills with them from careers outside the church but discover a bewildering lack of resources available to them once ordained.

My point is this; we cannot go on expecting clergy to do more and more and at the same time expect them to be able to maintain and deepen their spiritual life in ways that lead to and renew wisdom. Over the centuries, clergy have been seen as theologians, custodians of the sacraments, quasi legal clerks (mediaeval church), teachers (reformation church), social workers (nineteenth century), counsellors and managers (twentieth century). Down time, more and more roles have accrued to them without any of these roles being removed. Many clergy also lead teams who manage buildings or they manage buildings themselves because no teams exist. They are also expected to provide vision and leadership. It is little wonder, then, that most parish priests today feel and probably are, to some extent, jacks-of-all-trades. Quality is sacrificed to quantity. There may be some lazy clergy, but the overwhelming majority of clergy I know work very hard, often putting in a three-session day, six days a week, and they keep this up for the whole of their working lives.

Where is the time Evelyn Underhill spoke of to become and to be people of prayer and spiritual depth? To be steeped in the scriptures and in the traditions of Christianity? To  think about how the deep truths of the Christian tradition can best be communicated in the particular contexts where we minister and to practise doing this? To inspire faith and nuture it? Contrast other professions and vocations. Even when they are mature and experienced in their chosen area, musicians, sports people, artists, poets, scientists spend long hours practising their chosen discipline and learning how to communicate through it in order to be effective; we might expect the same of our priests. Then there is the question of availability. Clergy struggle constantly to weigh the need to be available to the person who calls round unexpectedly or gets talking with them about something very serious, against the need to do routine pastoral visiting, against the need to do the admin. they have no secretary to help them with, against the need to be properly steeped in the prayer and preparation that fits them to be worship leaders and teachers, usually in a number of very different contexts with a great range of ages. In cities they are ministering across much larger swathes of population than even their immediate predecessors were, and in rural areas they are ministering to many more communities. 

In order for clergy to be effective spiritual leaders we do not simply need to apply management techniques for producing growth; it is much more complex than that. I am not against proper reasearch and appraisal. These are useful tools. However, there is something about the way the Kingdom of God grows which is deeply antithetical towards a consumerist success ethic. Growth happens because of long-term depth of faith and depth of dependence on God. These are very unfashionable concepts, especially 'dependence' in our self-reliant society. God's kingdom grows from tiny, well-planted seeds, from the work of labourers who turn up for the last hour of the day, from the sacrificial giving of the poor, from the willingness of people who cannot normally be expected to get on with each other to work together, from early mornings and late nights spent in prayer on the mountain, from the frustratingly unpredictable work of the Holy Spirit producing change and metanoia and reconciliation in people's lives. 

All Christians and especially priests need to be people with a certain spaciousness of time; time to be present to God in prayer, in study, thought, devotion and service. If we have to start measuring things, these are the places to look, along with some questions about how the church can train priests in more of the skills they need so that they can be confident in areas they are currently anxious about. We need to free people up to give more energy to the core aspects of priesthood which produce spiritual fruit and attract people to God's kingdom and to the life of the church. If we simply make everyone busier and measure and assess more and more, the churches will get emptier. 

So I was grateful to my friend who wanted to apply more rigorous appraisal to the clergy for making me think, but I could not give him a quick, neat answer. Neither could I agree with his approach to church growth, though I could take away the point that clergy may lack some of the skills and resources needed to carry out their ministry effectively and that we should be doing something about that.