Last Sunday I shared that due to pending pastoral reorganisation from the 1st of January I will no longer be the vicar of St Paul’s, Sarisbury Green. Due to Christmas our leaving service will be later in January. I know this came as a great shock, especially with the very short notice and there were many questions left unanswered. I will try to answer some of them here.

Firstly, whilst the timing and incredibly short notice is absolutely not of my choosing, in discussions with Portsmouth Diocese I agreed to leave sooner than what would have normally be my retirement age. This has been made possible by the pending pastoral reorganisation which is likely to include St Paul’s. As I have been saying for the past two years my post has been due to reduce to a half time post when I leave and the reorganisation process instigated by the diocese was highly likely to see this happen. That is partly why our PCC and the PCC of St John’s Locks Heath both agreed to explore joining together as a Team Ministry with a full time Team Rector at St John’s and a half time Team Vicar at St Paul’s.

For myself and Bella, we will continue to live at the vicarage until July 2022 as our own house is at present let to tenants and we are unable to move until the tenancy comes to an end. I will be taking a break from ministry to allow space and time for healing from my stress and depression that has been with me ever since my time off in 2019.

So what next for St Paul’s? The church will now enter a time without a vicar which is often referred to as a vacancy. The responsibility for running the parish is primarily in the hands of our churchwarden Janet who will be supported by our PCC, by Gary and Lorraine Snape and by Phil Rutt. Please pray especially for Janet who was not expecting this to happen! They will also be supported by our Area Dean and Archdeacon.

I have already discussed our Sunday morning services with Phil, Gary and Lorraine and they are happy to support the church community by leading most, if not all, of these services.

Our Multi-Generational service, More at 4, has been led by Gavin and Hazel Foster for the past term. They are now reviewing how this term has gone and the resources they have to keep it up. Please pray for them as we consider the best way forward.

Will St Paul’s get a new vicar? The answer is yes, however the average vacancy time in Portsmouth Diocese at present is well over 12 months. It is also almost certain that whoever becomes the next vicar of St Paul’s will not be full time.

The PCC will be meeting next week to discuss a range of areas relating to the vacancy and the transition from my time as vicar. There are lots of things I will be handing over and I’m sure there will be lots I’ve forgotten to mention due to the very shore notice. I have however reassured Janet that if there are practical questions I can help with I’m happy to do so in the early part of the New Year, however I will have no input or influence on things as they go forward and following my leaving service I will not attend any services or events at St Paul’s.

I’m aware that for many of the people associated with St Paul’s this is a new experience. I have been the vicar for 18 years and my predecessor Roger Mosely was here for 23 years. The total vacancy time between Roger and myself was only 7 months which would be unheard of today! This is all very different to the average time most vicars are in post which is 5-7 years. St Paul’s simply isn’t used to not having a vicar!

One of the things I was immensely grateful to Roger and Val Mosely for was that St Paul’s was an easy church to pick up the leadership of, there were no real problems and nothing that I had to spend time sorting out. I can clearly remember at my interview being told by a PCC member that the church knew that change was needed and they were looking for someone to help them with that change. I pray and hope that my successor will find the same. A church that is in good heart, that continues to be loving, caring and supportive. And a church community willing to change and adapt to fulfil the Great Commission that every child and adult within our parish should have the opportunity to meet Jesus for themselves.

When the Church of England released their updated guidance for Churches to coincide with Step 4 of the governments roadmap they very clearly said who had the responsibility for how individual churches might proceed: “The responsibility for making decisions about how to proceed lies with the incumbent.” This was the first time this had been clearly stated and is an immense burden on all Incumbents. At St Paul’s I work closely with our PCC and together we agreed the following:

For our 10.30am service we would continue to require people to wear facemarks unless they are exempt and we would also resume congregational singing. We ask people to respect the social distance from others remembering whilst you may be quite happy to hug, others are incredibly nervous now about others being too close. We also decided not to restart serving refreshments at this service. To enable a flow of air, as good ventilation is really important in preventing Covid being passed on, the main West door needs to remain open during and after the service.These Covid restrictions were agreed again at our PCC meeting in September.

Subsequently More at 4 started and, as the Incumbent, I needed to make the decisions as to what Covid restrictions I felt were necessary. As this is a far younger age group with less people who might be considered as vulnerable I decided, in conjunction with Gavin and Hazel Foster who lead the service, that we would not require everyone to we are facemarks but ask them to respect those who decide to do so. Refreshments are also served at this service and the Covid guidelines are that anyone serving refreshments needs to wear a facemark and any cakes need to be served rather than people helping themselves. As with our 10.30am service the main West door needs to be open to enable a flow of air through the building. We were unable to do this at the first service but have now found the stairgate which prevents the younger members of the congregation leaving on their own!

Also in September the Cafe restarted on Thursdays and I discussed Covid guidelines with Clare. For this I asked that everyone serving refreshments or in the kitchen should be masked as they would be breathing over crockery that others would use and that cakes etc. should be served rather then people helping themselves. The top windows need to be open and the outside doors also need to be open, but not fully, to allow a flow of air through the room. The same Covid restrictions are needed for Encompass as well.

Sadly the number of Covid cases in the UK are significantly and stubbornly high. However the good news is that the link between case numbers and hospitalisations and deaths has been reduced, but it has not be eliminated. This means we still need to be careful and take appropriate precautions. Covid has not gone away yet, even the double vaccinated can still catch it and for some this may be extremely serious.

The principle that I work with is to assume that someone attending a service or event has Covid but doesn’t know it. What reasonable precautions can we take to minimise the possibility of them passing it on to others?

Good ventilation is really important to prevent the spread of Covid and other viruses like Flu. One of our local schools now has CO2 monitors in each classroom and the children have quickly learnt that when the monitor goes red the ventilation in their room need to be improved! We have also purchased a CO2 monitor that we have used over the past few weeks. For clarity a CO2 monitor in no way indicates the presence of Covid or any other virus in the air. It does however give a good indication of different measures we might take to improve ventilation and therefore seek to prevent the spread of Covid if someone is present who has it, but doesn’t know they have it.

What we have learnt so far is that opening the back West door of our church building makes a marked difference to the levels of CO2 and therefore opening the door improves ventilation. With the West door open the CO2 level at our 10.30am service rises during the service but doesn’t reach a concerning level. However the level at More at 4 is markedly higher. One reason is the CO2 level doesn’t have the opportunity to return to background levels between the 10.30am service and More at 4. So last Sunday we experimented with leaving the church open between the services to allow more ventilation and this showed a clear improvement. We will continue to use the CO2 monitor to help inform our decisions on ventilation as we move into the winter months.

Here are some graphs of the levels of CO2 over past weeks:

In December 2010 we decided to invite the families who attended our Under 5s Carer and Toddler group to a simple Christmas Service specifically for them. We called it Carols and Cupcakes. That day it snowed and we didn’t think anyone would come, but they did and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Following that we started an occasional and then a monthly service at 4pm on a Sunday. It consisted of 30mins of a variety of crafts, then 30mins of worship including singing, an interactive bible story and interactive prayer, all followed by a bring and share tea. We called it The Tea Service. This went really well, attracted a good number of families and was appreciated by everyone who attended. For us this was an outreach event.

Then in September 2014 we took a big step and mored to having our Tea Service twice a month. This was a big change both for us running the service and for this attending. The first thing we noticed was that families that would come occasionally to our 10.30am morning service stopped coming to that service altogether and only attended the 4pm Tea Service. We didn’t anticipate that happening but the result ever since is that we only rarely have children at our morning service. The next change happened over a few months as the Tea Service became a community. Friendships grew and developed beyond the service itself. The Tea Service was no longer an outreach but a Christian community and congregation. In recognition of this we taught giving and generosity as regularly as we do in our morning service and we occasionally celebrated communion and also included christenings for families who were part of that service.

For a few years things went really well, but the children who were coming along were getting older and the pre-school crafts and worship weren’t as appropriate for some of these older children. The result was that some families stopped coming, however we regularly saw new families so our numbers remained fairly consistent. We started to attempt to adapt the crafts but really struggled to do that.

Then cam Covid and the Tea Service stopped altogether. Even when our morning service returned to in person services the Tea Service didn’t because of the far higher level of interaction and the greater risk of spreading Covid. Also during this time some key members of the team decided to step back from being involved. That meant that the format of our Tea Service as we had done it for years was no longer possible.

At the same time my mental health as the Vicar of the parish had continue to suffer. I had six months off due to stress, depression and anxiety before Covid and during the pandemic my mental health hadn’t improved, if anything it had deteriorated. That meant that I know I wasn’t in a position to lead and resource a family orientated service with a new format.

With that in mind I dropped Gavin and Hazel Foster an email asking if they would like to meet up for a coffee to chat about the possible future of the Tea Service. Gavin was the Vicar of my neighbouring parish, St John’s Locks Heath, until in September 2020 he had resigned to take up a post with a solicitors firm as an Ecclesiastical Lawyer. Unbeknown to me that had independently been praying and talking about the possibility of starting a brand new service on Sunday afternoons.

Amazingly and incredibly God put us together and Gavin and Hazel agreed to take on the leadership of a new service twice a month at St Paul’s at 4pm on Sunday afternoons. It retained the multi generational value that had been really important to us and also the community building over tea and refreshments. So far we have met twice and both have been really encouraging. It has been great to see our families returning and also to see adults from both St Paul’s and other churches engage with the service. At a point where I had no idea how to take things forward God stepped in and we look forward to seeing how he grows his church in the months and years to come.

In a conversation I had recently a friend mentioned an illustration that they used recently that I felt describes incredibly well what I, and I’m sure many others, have experienced over the past 18 months. During that time our whole world has been shaken by something no one expected or predicted. It has impacted every person in every nation across the whole world. The result is that our lives have been changed in multiple ways on multiple levels.

For me it has had a real impact on my mental health. I was already suffering from depression before Covid struck and the impact of Covid has only deepened and broadened that depression. But the pandemic has impacted us in many different ways. Our relationships have changed, for many of us we went months without seeing our children or parents. Some of us have missed out on the early years of our grandchildren. For this with school aged children the pandemic has severely impacted their education. Many have lost jobs or had their income significantly reduced. Where once we would have been happy in mixing with others fairly freely, even in crowded spaces, now we may be nervous and avoid such contact if at all possible. Many of us experienced online grocery shopping for the first time in our lives and still prefer to do so, not because it is better than going to the supermarket but because it minimised the possibility of catching covid.

The illustration comes from the world of geology. During earthquakes the ground can on occasions be so shaken that it loses it’s solid properties and becomes like a liquid. It is called liquefaction. I’m not a geologist or a scientist but this appears to be a real phenomena which you can google and even find a few YouTube videos showing the effects.

That is exactly what some of us have experienced over the past 18 months. The solid ground of things we relied on and trusted, the things we grown up with and haven learn’t to rely on, have all of a sudden trend to jelly or melted away. This is true in our relationships, our work settings and the church.

I can clearly remember a question that was asked of our acting Archdeacon at a zoom meeting of local clergy and churchwardens in early May this year. The opening question was simply ‘Why Teams?’ Why did the senior leadership of our diocese believe that Team Ministry was the model for parish organisation that was the best to produce future growth?

A short, and important, diversion about language and the use of technical terms. We all work in teams, whether that is our PCC, ministry team, worship team etc. etc. All clergy today are used to working in teams and for virtually all it is welcomed and the norm for ministry today. However whenever you see the word ‘team’ in any document that Portsmouth Diocese releases today they mean something very specific. A Church of England Team Ministry is where two or more parishes have combined to become a single parish. Clergy are no longer the vicar of a particular church or parish, they are now either the Team Rector (the visionary leader of the team) or they are Team Vicars (licensed to the entire team covering all churches in the new parish).

It is this technical context that the question ‘Why Teams?’ was asked. The question wasn’t answered, instead the response was ‘Why are we still asking that question, I thought we’d moved beyond that because we’ve been discussing this for the past year.’ The reality is that the leadership of our diocese may have been discussing legal Team Ministry for over a year but for the vast majority of clergy, churchwardens, PCCs and laity the conversations were only just starting.

That question ‘Why Teams?’ has never been answered despite multiple opportunities to do so. The question remains, where is the research and evidence that legal Team Ministry is the very best structure for future growth in depth, impact and numbers into the future?

It has been suggested that the new legal Team Ministries in North and South Gosport could be a pattern to be reflected in other parts of our diocese. On the surface this sounds great, and I hope and pray that both of these new Team Ministries grows and prospers and brings many to a living faith in Christ. However there are a number of problems with using this model for other parts of our diocese.

Firstly the parishes and churches that have been combined into these two new Team Ministries weren’t strong thriving parishes. You can’t take a model of church amalgamations where churches that have experienced decline and are struggling and apply that same model to churches that are strong, may be growing and have paid their parish share in full even in the teeth of the pandemic.

It is notable that there has been no overall reduction in stipendiary clergy posts in these two new Team Ministries. We understand that will not be the case elsewhere where there will need to be a reduction in clergy stipends in order to balance the diocesan budget.

It is also notable that in the Gosport Deanery there are two large, effective and strong churches that are not part of these new Team Ministries. Both these churches continue to be led by full time stipendiary ministers. This is interesting against a statement from the diocese that all churches in the diocese would be expected to become part of new legal Team Ministries with only one or two exceptions. Are both those exceptions in Gosport?

If we are embark on the largest change in the structure of Portsmouth Diocese in living memory with almost all churches becoming part of legal Team Ministries we need to see evidence that in other places this has led to sustained growth in depth, impact and numbers over 5-10 years. We also need to see evidence that this growth has continued through periods where there has been a change in both the Team Rector and the Team Vicars. North and South Gosport, the benefice of Newport Minster, St John and Carisbrooke and the Isle of Wight Deanery feasibility study are all too new to provide such evidence for many years to come.

Having had ample opportunities to provide evidence and persuade clergy, churchwardens and PCCs that legal Team Ministry is the way to go, and having very sadly failed to produce such evidence, it was rather galling to read in the latest paper from Portsmouth Diocese that amendments to the model of legal Team Ministries might be considered ‘based on evidence.’ We can only hope that any evidence to support the model proposed by the diocese is shared in the coming weeks and months before any decisions are made. Without this any changes are massive experiments that put at risk the livelihood and ministries of individual clergy and the mission of the churches they serve for many years to come.

A job for life is something of a bygone era. Many in our society today know the pain and anguish that can come from redundancy. Sadly more paid clergy are discovering that same pain within the Church of England today. Back in October 2020 Portsmouth Diocese started a process that will lead to changes in way that many of the churches in the diocese are led. There are good reasons behind this process that we understand and accept.

• There is a need to reassess how churches are best structured and led to address a steady and prolonged decline in numbers with many of our churches.
• We are also well aware of the impact of Covid on our own church finances and the knock on impact on the finances of our diocese as a whole.

Sadly the way this has happened has resulted in many clergy spending the last nine months not knowing whether they would lose their jobs through this process or not? And if their present role is to go will they be offered a new role in the revised structure or not, and what would that role be?

It is really important to bear in mind that when a stipendiary clergy person loses their job it has far more impact than others in our society being made redundant. Yes our job and role will be lost, our whole lives, the entire focus of our time and energy are invested in the parish we serve. We will lose our homes as we are legally required to live in the vicarage. Some of us are fortunate to have our own home to move to, but by no means all clergy have this option. We are also expected to cut all ties and relationships within the parish that we will be asked to leave. For some this will mean leaving and moving away from their entire friendship network.

But the change doesn’t just impact on clergy, it also has a massive impact on their families. Not only will clergy lose their homes and friends but wives and children are massively impacted as well. Some, or maybe many, clergy spouses today work. What will happen to their jobs? How far will they have to move and can they still retain their existing jobs? Children may have to move schools as well as moving homes, so their friendship network will be radically changed.

But there are more reasons why clergy are upset, stressed and angry.

One of the most significant areas of upset is that churches, clergy and laity together, were hoodwinked into thinking that the changes would be locally rooted and plans would be developed from the bottom up. We spent many, many hours in meetings and conversations, some of which were not easy. Through this we started to make progress towards planning for the future shape of churches within our deaneries. We bought in to these plans because we were deeply involved in producing them. However in March this year it emerged that the senior leadership of our diocese had different ideas. They had done their work and research in the background without our involvement, they had also paid an unspecified amount to a consultancy firm to help with their research and planning. The result was a strong recommendation, if not a directive, that, with only one or two exceptions across the whole diocese, all churches are to be reorganised into groups within what the Church of England calls Team Ministries. Now none of us have a problem with teams, indeed many of us are already leading teams. But legal Team Ministries are a different thing altogether and an option that many clergy are strongly opposed to either because they have been part of legal Team Ministries elsewhere that have been dysfunctional, haven’t worked or have led to decline rather than growth. Or they know friends or colleagues who have these experiences.

Whilst there is indeed a general and overall decline in church membership this isn’t true in every church. But the present approach from Portsmouth Diocese is talking about this narrative of decline, even in settings where there is growth, and tarring every church with the same brush of decline. The official statistics that the Church of England produces would show that the church that I lead is in decline because they are based on our main morning service. But these statistics don’t show the growth in our ministry to families which, pre-pandemic, was leading us into overall growth. Churches with visionary leaders, who are bucking the trend will, at present, be expected to undergo significant structural change that may well negatively impact on their future capacity to grow.

Some weeks ago I was a signatory to an open letter addressed to our Commissary Bishop and others in the leadership team in Portsmouth Diocese. This was signed by fourteen people, both clergy and laity. There are many more who would have signed the letter had they not feared for the impact that step might have on their future prospects. It is a really sad situation where Bishops hold such sway over clergy that they cannot speak openly and honestly for fear of the repercussions.

Sadly today Portsmouth Diocese is not a positive place to live and minister as a stipendiary clergy person. My local church community is great, however the wider context is incredibly stressful. Remember that all of this is in the context of one of the most stressful times to be a church leader in living memory.

On a personal basis I have accepted that my role will disappear through this reorganisation process. It hasn’t been easy to accept that likely outcome but I am almost certain it will happen. One of the real stresses for me now is not knowing when. Will I still be the Vicar of St Paul’s Sarisbury Green in six months, twelve months or eighteen months time? I don’t know and the not knowing is really stressful and difficult.

Back in the autumn of 2020 Portsmouth Diocese embarked on a process of consultations that will eventually lead to the restructuring of many parish churches across the diocese. This started with the diocese asking every deanery to compile a plan for how the churches within the deanery could best be structured to thrive and grow for the future. The background to the plan also included an awareness of financial difficulties in the diocese caused by the pandemic which will mean a reduction in the number of stipendiary clergy in Portsmouth Diocese. Considerable time, effort and energy was expended in collating and drawing up a plan for our deanery.

All the deanery plans were submitted to the Bishop’s Council in March this year, (this is the diocesan committee who have oversight of our diocese). The senior leadership for our diocese then made a presentation to Diocesan Synod. This presentation we were told at the time was an amalgamation of all the deanery plans into an overall plan for the diocese. The main strand of this diocesan plan was to create groupings of amalgamated parishes in legal Team Ministries. This was a surprise to many as it slowly emerged that this was not a main thread of the deanery plans, indeed some had specifically said this was not their preferred structure. It was included in a minority of the deanery plans and only in specific settings where it was felt that this was the best option.

Over 10 years ago the previous deanery plan had included St Paul’s reducing to a half time clergy post. With this in mind our PCC initially indicated our willingness to consider amalgamating with one other parish with a single PCC giving oversight to both churches and with a resource of one and a half stipendiary clergy posts. At our meeting in May this year our PCC passed the following resolution: ‘The PCC of St Paul’s Sarisbury Green affirm our commitment to increasing collaborative working with other churches in the Western Wards of Fareham.  We also affirm our previous agreement to explore further a legal Team Ministry with St John’s Locks Heath. However, we do not believe that a further expansion of that legal Team Ministry would be in the best interest of mission and ministry in the Western Wards.’

What would this mean for St Paul’s? Firstly it does not mean St Paul’s will close, indeed if this plan is accepted it gives the best opportunity for St Paul’s to grow and flourish with a reduction of stipendiary clergy resources. St Paul’s and St John’s would work closely together with a sharing of ministry and other resources between the two churches. I believe this is a good fit for St Paul’s. Both churches serve very similar communities. Both have a similar approach to our style of worship and both have an emphasis on ministry to families as a primary focus for mission and growth. There is a lot of synergy between our church congregations and our parishes. We would also work closely with our neighbouring parishes of Warsash and Titchfield. This could include shared Alpha Courses, Lent courses and other similar opportunities. We could explore sharing of the administration of funerals as well as sharing resources and expertise in other areas of administration. Those who work with families could meet together and again share resources, expertise and ideas. Collaboration could also include ministry to the retired, schools ministry and pastoral care.

But this structure differs from the preferred diocesan model which would amalgamate Locks Heath, Warsash, Titchfield and Sarisbury Green into one single mega-parish with a combined population of over 45,000, a combined average weekly attendance of nearly 500 and a combined parish share of over £300,000. Personally I think this would be a bad option for St Paul’s and more likely to lead to decline in the coming years. What are the reasons for my reticence to consider the diocesan preferred option?

• Previous diocesan reorganisation plans were in areas with failing parishes. None of our four local parishes are failing. 
• Whilst there is a lot of synergy between St Paul’s and St John’s this is far less the case with the churches in Warsash and Titchfield. These are are far more village churches with a lot less in common with St Paul’s in the areas of style and ethos.
• In this mega-parish St Paul’s would be the smallest church and therefore stands the possibility of being squeezed out.
• To amalgamate the four parishes would take a considerable amount of time, effort and energy. Whilst this could be achieved it will severely detract us from our focus on mission for a significant time.
• The diocese believes this structure will free clergy from governance and administration, however I believe it will do exactly the opposite with additional levels of governance and meetings being required.
• There are no examples in Portsmouth Diocese of any legal Team Ministries that have led to sustained growth, indeed the pattern in this diocese is of decline.
• I personally know of three examples from colleagues who have been involved in legal Team Ministries that have resulted in decline and the eventual breaking up of those Team Ministries back into individual parish churches. Personally I don’t know of any colleagues who have been part of successful legal Team Ministries that have led to sustained growth.
• There is nothing that I’m aware of within the structure of a legal Team Ministry that cannot equally be achieved within a group pf individual parishes who willingly collaborate together.

The process of planning the restructuring of parishes and churches across the diocese started as a bottom up process where plans were to be locally rooted and based on the extensive local knowledge of clergy, churchwardens and PCCs. Amongst the clergy there is also a wealth of previous experience from many parts of the Church of England of differing church structures. This local knowledge and experience is a vital part of any restructuring at a time when the senior leadership of the diocese has undergone significant changes of personnel who now know little of the local contexts. Sadly, at present, the process appears to have switched to a top down process where local churches will have little say in the primary ways in which churches are restructured and only an input on how this is implemented locally.

Thankfully the breakneck speed of this process has recently been slowed to allow greater time for conversations and for plans to be developed. However the need for change has not gone away and any outcome is almost certain to include significant change for our church community and for me personally. 

Questions and comments are welcomed. Please either comment here or send me an email at sandy@spsg.org.uk

Over the past decades the Church of England has divested itself already of all of the easy downsizing options. As I look around our area none of the churches are on their last legs (yet). All have active congregations and all are engaging in some ways with mission and outreach. And there comes the rub, some, if not many, of these churches will lose their stipendiary leadership in the near future.

We may need to close some churches entirely! We may need to close some churches as they exist today with the congregations encouraged to move to other local churches. That would then allow the buildings to be used as resources for fresh mission, outreach and evangelism.

As we move into the next season of church life we must be willing to change, because whether we like it or not change is going to happen, and to be honest it needs to happen. If we carry on as we are the church as we know it will cease to exist in the next 10 to 20 years.

That will be painful.

Let me paint an entirely hypothetical scenario.

In the coming reorganisation a large parish of the churches in the Western Wards of Fareham is created. This encompasses St John’s Locks Heath, St Mary’s Warsash, St Paul’s Sarisbury Green and Whiteley Church. Each church no longer has it’s own PCC but each has representation on a joint, new PCC for the new mega parish.

Across that parish there will be two full time stipendiary priests and one half time. The compares with the present situation of two full time, one half time and one three quarter time (yes I know it’s odd the way the CofE has done things!). One of the full time posts will be mainly focussed on growing a new church community in Whiteley. This might be supported by another church in the diocese helping to provide a strong foundation for future growth.

That leaves one full time person and one half time person to support ministry in Locks Heath, Warsash and Sarisbury. Sunday ministry will look different. There is no longer a morning service at St Paul’s on any Sunday. Morning services at St John’s and Warsash have also been reorganised with a more traditional form of worship at Warsash each Sunday and a more contemporary form of worship at St John’s.

In Sarisbury the focus is on children and families. There is now a service every Sunday afternoon. This alternates between one focussing on younger children and their families which is similar to our present Tea Service and one that focusses on older children and their families.

So much for Sunday mornings, what about the rest of the week. Across the church communities there is now a joint Open The Book team that leads Collective Worship in all the Church Primary schools on a regular basis. One of the clergy focuses on this ministry and on building links, relationships and connections with all the schools.

There is also a combined ministry for those who are retired. This has a regular lunchtime session at St Mary’s every week which combines a social time over lunch with short times of worship, a thought for the day and sometimes guest speakers on a variety of subjects.

Administration is a headache for all clergy, however as there is only one PCC this burden is significantly lessened. St John’s is the administration centre for the whole mega parish. All baptism, wedding and funeral enquires are funnelled to the admin team at St John’s. There is a pastoral team which works across the whole area which has responsibility for baptism preparation and bereavement visiting. This team also covers many of the pastoral needs across the area.

Finances are now centralised so there is now one treasurer and one set of accounts. There is a clear budget set and each person with responsibility for an area of ministry has an allocated budget to work within.

However these changes have had an impact on the giving across the new parish. Before the changes their joint income was nearly half a million pounds of which a quarter of a million pound was given to the Diocese in Parish Share. Income has dropped by 20% and the new joint parish is no longer able to contribute it’s full parish share each year. It is however hopeful that the new congregations started will within the next 5 years start to give more and help the parish to return to positive balances.

There has also been a reduction in the overall numbers of people attending services. For some the change was simply too much and they have stopped attending any church. For others the time during the pandemic has meant they have developed new patters of life and habit and again no longer attend. Still others are now attending other local churches and for some whilst they do attend it is less often.

Other things have gone. None of the churches produces a church magazine any more. None of the clergy are now ex-officio governors at our schools, that role has been taken by lay people. Whilst each congregation has a clear leader, that person is no longer necessarily ordained. There are significantly less communion services than there were before. Music is now organised across the whole of the area with one choir who has become a festival choir. There are now three music groups who rehearse together and support the services across the different centres.

I could go on …….

This is entirely hypothetical. But how would you react if something like this happened? Would you stay connected? Would you stop attending entirely? Does this excite you with new opportunities and possibilities?

From time to time I’m sure we’ve all felt we didn’t want to be doing what we were doing, whether that was looking after children, being in a church service or going to work. We all have the times the we feel we’d rather be at the beach, or doing something entirely different. I certainly admit to that on occasional Sunday mornings over the years.

There’s a story of someone saying to their spouse ‘I don’t want to go to church this morning’ and the response comes back ‘You have to. You’re the Vicar!!!’ I can clearly remember the Sunday when I felt I don’t what to be here. Not just as a preference and I’d like to be somewhere else more enjoyable, but I’d rather be anywhere else than here. It happened one Sunday and happened regularly over a period of months before I had my breakdown. There were occasions when I felt like walking out of the back door of the church during a service!

What does a vicar do when they feel like that? You can’t be totally open and tell everyone! I told a very few close friends, some of whom have no connection with St Paul’s. Most were very understanding, supportive and helpful. But I was also told to man up and get over it as we all feel like that at times.

The reality is that most people in our church community never knew what was going on inside me. I still led services and preached. I still celebrated communion. I still was a part of our Open The Book team each week and took services in the community. I still took our Remembrance, Christingle, Christmas and other big services as usual. I was still a governor at two local schools. etc. etc.

There were one or two however who did notice – thank you so much, it really means a lot to me that you knew and you cared.

What would I say to other church leaders who experience the feeling that they’d rather be anywhere else than leading their church service? Get help now. Don’t wait. I waited far too long.

The difficulty is it’s very difficult to get help in the midst of ministry. What I needed was a break and professional counselling but that was only available after I was signed off work due to stress!

Why and I writing about this? I hope it will help in three ways. Firstly I hope it will be cathartic to me personally. As an introvert I don’t often share or show what is going on within me. I hope by sharing It will help me. Secondly I hope it may help others locally who are themselves experiencing stress and depression. When you experience it you suddenly start to recognise and understand better what others may be going through. Some may find it helpful to know they’re not on their own. Thirdly I hope it may help some colleagues, as ministers we often don’t share our weaknesses. To know that someone else is experiencing stress and depression in ministry my be helpful.

At the end of May last year I went to see my GP. I was shocked that he signed me off for a month due to work related stress, depression and anxiety. I simply wasn’t expecting that as I didn’t think I was that bad. Looking back I was experiencing a breakdown and I really, really needed that time out. I ended being off for 6 months with the added addition of a cancer scare that was eventually found to be benign.

What happened to lead me to my breakdown? Early on I looked back over the past 5 years and recognised that I had been on a downward spiral for a period of years. I had experienced a number of stressful church issues over these years. Each on their own was difficult but not insurmountable but together they mounted up. Over those years I also experienced a number of stresses that many families face. The cumulative effect on my mental health was entirely different, and to me, unexpected.

Reflecting back I think the most difficult thing was the inability to share openly and the loneliness of leadership. Because of confidentiality and safeguarding there are things that a minister simply cannot share with others within the local church. This can often lead to misunderstanding which is difficult for ministers to handle. Others can sound off to friends and house groups etc. The minister simply cannot do this and rarely can say what is they actually feel and think. There was a sense that others can say what they like but the minister cannot defend themselves. That is possibly the most stressful area of ministry.

I’ve always thought I was fairly broad shouldered and could cope with pretty much anything without buckling. The last year has shown me how wrong I am. If only I’d noticed some of the signs earlier!

One of the biggest stress point was on the Sunday when for the first time I felt ‘I don’t want to be here!’ More on that in my next blog.