THE pressure of the parish share can cause anxiety, shame, and embarrassment among the clergy, according to the latest report from the ten-year Living Ministry study.
Trust That God Will Work His Purposes Out: Wellbeing and change management in ordained ministry, a qualitative study, builds on an earlier quantitative report, Holding Things Together: Church of England clergy in changing times (News, 23 February 2024). It is the latest report from the study, launched by the national Ministry Team in 2017, which is following four cohorts over ten years: clergy ordained in 2006, 2011, and 2015, and those who entered training in 2016. Its aim is to gather evidence about “what enables ministers to flourish in ministry”.
Drawing on focus groups and interviews with 55 clerics, it highlights the extent to which the Church’s wider challenges, from financial deficits to division over the Living in Love and Faith process, affect clergy well-being.
The report speaks of “the extremely difficult financial situation of many parishes” — described by one participant as “hugely, hugely horrible” — and the “high awareness of stipendiary ministers of the relationship between their stipend and parish finances, via the parish share”. This is, it says, “often emphasised to local churches by dioceses to incentivise them to pay their parish share in full, and, amid the current economic challenges, some participants report that their dioceses are reviewing the viability of parishes that do not do so.”
For stipendiary clergy, this could provoke concern for their parish. One participant reported the thought: “If we don’t pay our common fund, then when I move, then are they going to say, ‘Well, you can’t have a vicar any more?’ And I feel the responsibility for that.”
For some, the question of the parish share could “provoke a sense of shame within the diocese”. One commented that, when the diocese set out the cost of a stipendiary priest in a parish-share request, they were “made to feel really expensive”. There was an assumption that the priest was the recipient of the cost (£70,000).
The report also explores the impact of the LLF process on clergy relationships. Collegial relationships at deanery and diocesan levels are the most discussed. Some spoke of “polarised” deaneries. One area dean commented: “People tend to be going into camps that aren’t deanery-based. It’s kind of the little huddles. . . there is a danger of tribalism at the moment, and trying to keep those lines of communication open is quite tricky.” In some instances, however, clergy were “attempting to work through their differences together”.
In interviews conducted two years after the end of the last national lockdown, participants spoke of the lasting effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. At least 11 of the 28 incumbents already established in post by autumn 2021 spoke of an impact on their well-being, largely because of exhaustion. Two had already retired earlier than planned, while another had brought their intended retirement date forward. One had left parish parish ministry, another was considering leaving, and another was “recovering in another role”.
Across the Living Ministry study, the most discussed issue affecting mental health has been workload. Participants continue to report heavy administrative burdens. One full-time incumbent with two churches, who is considering leaving ministry, commented: “I’ve become increasingly convinced that much of the way the job is structured is set up to make you feel like you’re not [doing a good job], because there’s always a million things that you feel like you could and should be doing.”
When it comes to congregations post-Covid, the report says that, in many parishes, “reduced levels of participation remain.” One incumbent commented: “Certainly post-Covid, people’s commitment to hanging on to do anything just seems to have withered away.” Another commented: “People have prioritised their lives differently because of Covid. They’ve seen that what they invested time in before is not necessarily what they want to invest time in now.”
The second half of the report is devoted to change management: clergy were asked to discuss an example of a ministry-related change in which they had been or still were involved. It provides illustrations of the challenges of bringing about change, from PCCs questioning or refusing to endorse the proposed actions to low levels of lay involvement (“I have people on the PCC who hardly ever come to church”) and declining numbers of people able to volunteer.
The report concludes by discussing the importance of trust, which “enables people to be open to embracing or initiating new things without being held back by fear of failure, loss or betrayal. This is as much the case for clergy being inhibited from leading change by the need to self-protect from diocesan or parochial recrimination, as for parishioners resisting change that they fear may lead to loss of identity or security.”
The report is here.
