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Originally posted by John Holding:
No Prophet, please don't over-generalise from the situation in your diocese to what happens everywhere in the ACC.

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Originally posted by no prophet:

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Originally posted by John Holding:
No Prophet, please don't over-generalise from the situation in your diocese to what happens everywhere in the ACC.

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I'd like to see how many dioceses pay centrally and how many pay congregationally. Does central pay exist beyond eastern Canada or Ontario?

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Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
The idea of CofE parishes becoming self supporting doesn't work with the continued desire/insistence of a CofE church in every community. Until the church institutional gets away from that idea any chance of self support would be dragged down by the crippling costs of maintaining too many buildings.

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Originally posted by Darllenwr:
Exclamation Mark, I am uneasy about your suggestion that parishes should be self-funding, if by that you mean what I think you mean - that parishes should pay their minister themselves. I know this is the Baptist way, and I have seen what can be the outcome more than once. I have seen Baptist congregations starve their minister out of office by refusing to pay him. In either case, the Minister in question had started to preach a (perfectly Biblical) line of thought that his congregation didn't want to hear. When the Ministers refused to stop preaching that particular line, the congregation stopped paying the stipend and the Minister had to depart. Both of the congregations in question are now moribund.

At least the way that the Church of England operates means that this particular tactic cannot be used. Were this not the case, my own Vicar would have been forced out of office in the last 18 months for precisely the same reason - preaching a line that we didn't want to hear. That the line in question is the truth is neither here nor there. After all, why spoil a good story with truth?

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... but I'm not entirely convinced that Anglicans automatically assume that everyone in the country is a Christian unless they have consciously opted out or else are members of another faith community.

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Originally posted by ExclamationMark:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... but I'm not entirely convinced that Anglicans automatically assume that everyone in the country is a Christian unless they have consciously opted out or else are members of another faith community.

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Not every but many. The installation service for new incumbents implies it in the sense of a calling to the (note not "a") cure of souls for the parish.

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L'Organist, dare I ask what your parish has/hasn't done to the diocese?! Or is this treatment entirely without cause?

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• quota always met in full and paid on time
• quinquennial report recommendations vis-a-vis the fabric always acted on
• number on electoral roll have shown an increase - despite an increase in the number of second homes in the parish
• number of children attending Sunday School good (may be skewed by Church secondary school but its the parish that raises that concern, not the diocese
• average Sunday attendance (all services) 45-50% of electoral roll,
• attendance roughly 7.5% of the village population
• confirmation candidates every year - adults as well as children (see note on Sunday School)
• parish giving to charity worth roughly 30% of quota amount
• all administrative returns, etc, completed on time
• in the wider community: we run a lunch club (no age restriction); minibus to-from local town, hospital, supermarkets, etc 5 days a week; mother & toddler group; free babysitting for couples to attend baptism preparation; free practice facilities for village children learning an instrument; regular concerts from 15th century instrumental groups to jazz
• village (i.e. non-churchgoers) always involved in special services at Harvest, Christmas, Remembrance, Easter, Rogation, Plough Sunday
• churchyard well-kept - received a Green Award!
• we maintain parish links with communities in India, Malawi, Romania, PNG and Uganda

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In the meantime, this morning a request was received for an EGM to discuss not paying our full quota - and the motion (signed by 3 ex-Wardens) is likely to be well-supported.

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Originally posted by BroJames:
[QUOTE]
1. Rightly understood this should be missional as well as pastoral, and is not based on an assumption that the 'souls' are all Christian. It is part of the 'spiritualities' of the ministry into which someone is inducted. The bishop (or someone on the bishop's behalf) shares that aspect of the ministry, the archdeacon (or someone on the archdeacon's behalf commits the 'temporalities' into the new minister's care (use of the vicarage/rectory, and a share of responsibility for the church building and churchyard).

2. Although I am aware that some CofE clergy have well overstepped the mark in relation to ecumenical colleagues with regard what they think is implied by having "the cure of souls" it would be as linguistically odd IMHO to speak about "a cure of souls" as it would be to speak about "a preaching of the Gospel", or to pray for the minister to be diligent in "a study of [God's] Holy Word" (rather than "the preaching/ study…" etc.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Where are these people who don't? Introduce me to them. Where are they?

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Originally posted by L'organist:
The parish where I work is self-supporting.

The Archdeacon refused to find us a PP when the last one left - and he was only half-time, shared with a chaplaincy.

We were told we had to find our own and the stipulations on that made it perfectly clear they wanted us to fail: we were not allowed to advertise, either locally or nationally; it had to be someone under national retirement age; they had to be in receipt of, or entitled to, a CofE pension; they must already PTO in the diocese; they could only be appointed as part-time. Notwithstanding all of that we found our house-fot-duty priest, and the Archdeacon made it clear he was very unhappy with the situation.

The Parsonages Board undertook a survey of the house, had a dilapidations report written and then refused to fund two-thirds of the external work and all of the internal. So the parish carried out the works recommended in full at our own expense, partly through members of the congregation with the practical skills undertaking the work themselves, partly with people who were having work done on their homes adding in something to do with the Rectory.

Since our PinC has deferred his pension the parish makes his contributions to the CofE scheme - all of them. The parish, NOT the diocese, pays the Council Tax, contribution towards heat & light, etc, etc, etc. This priest is entirely funded by the Parish.

The response from the diocese?

1. They still insist that all fee income from weddings and funerals is sent to the diocese.
2. They have upped our parish quota by double the average amount for the diocese.

What do we get from the diocese? Precisely nothing beyond the one visit by the Archdeacon for the Licensing - and their insistence that for any building work (we are trying to get an annexe built) we use one of the very expensive, and not very good, diocesan-approved architects despite the fact that we have 3 on the electoral roll who would do the work for free.

We are not a rich parish but we have a large number of parishioners who see it as a point of honour to meet our quota in full; patience is now stretched so thin that this is unlikely to continue for many (possibly any) more years.

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Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
...that was accompanied in the most recent case by off the cuff comments by the Bishop and Archdeacon emphasising the CofE's church's unique and singular role.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Sounds like the diocese wants to cut back on the number of priests it has so that it can increase the number of archdeacons...

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Originally posted by Albertus:

1. Any CofE incumbent who thinks that that can be done with no reference to other churches is a bloody fool,

2...but the CofE is there because omnipresence is an important part of its ecclesiology. The CofE could I suppose change its mind about that, but that unique place is enshrined in law, too, with specific statutory and common law duties to the parishioners, notably about marriage and burial.

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Originally posted by Magersfontein Lugg:
. . . One of the problems is they seem to trip over each other, or over the feet of archdeacons. Its not clear who does what and it seems to vary from diocese to diocese.

One of the troubles I think in the C of E is that Bishops are seen as managers, and because they're nice chaps they work hard at producing initiatives, mission plans, schemes etc which just give parishes and clergy a lot more work, and seem to produce very little.

If only we had fewer and if those we had spent time on leadership in prayer and preaching I suspect the church would be more vibrant and vision giving.

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