The Diocese Looks Ahead

by Michael O'Connor

This' booklet, issued by the Diocesan Pastoral Committee, is now being studied by over 5,000 people in the diocese. Deanery reports are beginning to come in, and one of the first to do so contains these paragraphs:

'There will be members of the Church who can see no reason for change; others who will accept change if only because they can see no alternative in the present circumstances; and lastly those who, whilst agreeing that some change is necesary, yet believe that the Holy Spirit is calling us to advance and not, as they see it, to retreat. It is, however, our belief that this scheme of reorganisation will give the Church in the Deanery a positive way of meeting the needs of our times, of fitting herself for the future and making herself a more effective weapon in the hand of God.

'There will, as we see it, be new opportunities for clergy and laity alike to respond to a new challenge which is being presented to the laos—the People of God.'

The ecclesiastical structure we have today we have inherited from medieval England, yet most of the presuppositions on which the parish system was built are now fundamentally altered. Society is no longer predominantly rural, predominantly settled, nor even uniformly Church of England. Over the last few years a number of pressures have combined to compel the church to join the twentieth century At last. These pressures have now reached the point where we have either got to change or else face the f act that we shall be f orced out of business in a very short while indeed.

There are those who say that such a statement indicates a rather tasteless lack of faith, there are others who maintain that God is working his purpose out and that the Church must try to do his will with the tools which he actually puts at our disposal rather than the tools which we would like him to make available to us, i.e. one is not arguing change for change's sake, nor even change for survival's sake-but change for the Gospel's sake.

These pressures can be crudely stated as a critical shortage of finance and a critical decline in clerical manpower.

First, finance. The sixth Report on Needs and Resources calculated, on the basis of inflation running at five per cent, that if present commitments remain the laity will have to find in 1975 half as much cash again as they did in 1970. In the present time of wage restraint the diocese was unable to increase the minimum stipend even by the amount permitted under Phase ll,'and it would cost £140,000 a year to give the increase permitted under Phase 111.

The scandal of the poor pay of the clergy, and its falling value, is not lessened when one considers the other major item of church expenditure, namely buildings. In 1970 the laity contributed some £17m. to the maintenance of church buildings-and a mere £4.7m. to the stipends bill. The Advisers on Needs and Resources comment, 'When the total annual cost of keeping the Church's buildings going represents such a high fraction of annual parochial expenditure (42 per cent) there would seem to be every reason to scrutinise the use made of these buildings and resolutely to shed those that are redundant'.

The second crisis is one of decline of clerical manpower. In common with other denominations we face a serious falling-off in the number of ordinations. Over half the clergy in the diocese are over the age of 55, and simple arithmetic indicates that by 1980 there will be about two-thirds the present number of parish clergy.

There is also the increasing need for specialised ministers. But every single appointment outside the parish system limits still further the number of men able to serve that system and the amount of money available to pay them.

Moreover, such clergy as we have are at the moment deployed in a haphazard manner which gives rise to considerable inequity And inhibits the mission of the Church. As new towns and new areas are developed this imbalance is going to increase.

New areas need men to serve them but they cannot be conjured out of the air. They have to be redeployed from somewhere else. Of course totting heads is not the only way to work, and there are other criteria, such as geography and numbers of buildings, which affect the issue. But there is rank injustice here which needs attention irrespective of the other storm signals which are up.

It would just about be possible to solve our problems with a policy of 'cut and snip'. But merely to pick at the problem would be either to say that it was not very serious, or else to be so pessimistic as to say that it was not capable of being solved. The problem is serious, but we should not throw in the towel forthwith.

The purpose of pastoral reorganisation is to equip the Church for advance. In any exercise if you want to advance you must do three things: you must be clear about your aim; you must have a correct asessment of your resources: and you must use your resources to the best advantage.

If the Church were a commercial company we should be taken over in a flash not because we have no assets, but because we have great assets improperly used. Take for example our parsonages, many of which are far too big, expensive to run, expensive to maintain, and tie up vast amounts of capital.

There are four aspects of redeployment of resources which will increasingly become a feature of Church life. The first is a greater use of the laity-our greatest 'frozen' asset. Rather than the present situation where the laity are sometimes seen as fodder for the clergy—it was said recently that congregations exist to serve the needs of the clergyin time we shall surely see that the role of the clergy is to enable the laity to get on with the job of being the Church.

A second development is what is known as the Auxiliary Pastoral Ministry. By this we mean that men who are already in full-time secular employment will be ordained, and remain in their full-time secular employment. The Archbishop of Canterbury has prophesied the day when such a ministry will be the norm.

A third feature will be that the fulltime clergy will work together mainly in groups and teams. In this way much of the present reduplication of work will be cut down, and with increasing specialisation we shall be able to deploy our limited clerical resources with greater effectiveness and to greater purpose.

Fourthly, we must have a really hard, critical look at our church buildings. We must prune those which we do not need, and we must see that those we have really are fully used. We really cannot allow bricks and mortar to dictate how we use our other limited resources. We cannot be put in the position of having to have a man in an area simply because there are x number of churches to look after. Our buildings must serve us and and not the other way round.

The responsibility for pastoral reorganisation, the final responsibility for weighing needs against resources, rests with the diocese. The initiative, however, must come from closer to the ground.

This is where the Deanery Synod comes in. The Synod is well informed about the local situation, and yet is able to bring a certain perspective to bear. For this reason Deanery Synods are being asked to prepare plans for their own reorganisation. The only caveat is that these plans cannot be more than advisory since the diocese must reserve the right to vary the advice which is given to it, or even on occasions to reject it. But whether the plan offered be perfect, imperfect or even hopeless, it is right that the deanery, in full consultation with the parishes, should take the initiative.

In asking deaneries and parishes to study 'The Diocese Looks Ahead' the Pastoral Committee has sought to do two things: first to make people aware of the problems we face: and secondly to ask them to think about the basic principles involved. It is of the greatest importance that the very first of the questions in this document is, 'What is the mission of the Church in the particular situation of this Deanery?' Only the Church in the deanery can know the details of its situation, and Reading is bound to differ from Mursley as Chipping Norton will differ from Amersham. Only the Church in the deanery can say what is its peculiar mission, and only the Church in the deanery can say what structure is needed to enable it to fulfil that mission.
For far too long we have accepted the given structure, which was designed to serve a situation long since gone, and ,we have done what we could with that structure to serve the needs of the present. The crises we face mean that we have got to reshape the structure in some way. This is to our great advantage since we have the opportunity therefore to be positive and creative. We have the opportunity to design the Church structure we need rather than the one we happen to be lumbered with.

Some months ago the Bishop of St. Albans wrote this:

'There is a financial crisis and a manpower crisis impending, but we shall not meet them and master them, as others have done before, unless we engage also in the renewal of our confidence that the Christian enterprise is entering a new and exciting phase.

'Facts should not depress us. Attitudes, I confess, do sometimes get me down. In place of blaming, fearing or deploring, we need an acceptance of responsibility, a realistic hopefulness, and a steady encouragement of each other.'