Diocese of Worcester “Open Conversations” about the future

admin 18/02/2020

Published in the Bridge Magazine, 1 Feb 2020

In January, the Diocese of Worcester began a series of “open conversations” about the future of our church. So far, they’ve been both uncomfortable and yet encouraging.

Uncomfortable, because they set out the financial challenges the Diocese of Worcester (and therefore its churches) face, but encouraging because there’s a growing recognition among diocesan staff, clergy and congregations, that carrying on as we have been doing for the last fifty years is a recipe for closure.

The detailed plan for the future is still to be revealed, but it’s driven by four hard facts: that with certain exceptions, attendance at our churches is declining; we’re all getting older (46% of church members are over the age of 70); the Diocese needs to cut its annual expenditure by £1.67 million by 2024, and 60% of our church buildings are now classified as “difficult to sustain.”

And if that’s all there was to it, we’re probably better off giving the whole thing up as a bad job. But the truth is, church was never about buildings and money, it’s about our loving God and his people. Or as my wife likes to put it,

Church is what’s left after the building burns down.”

Though please don’t take this as an encouragement to arson.

So what’s going to need to change if the Church of England is to have a future in Worcestershire? For starters, the old model of one priest, one parish, one church, is gone. I’m already responsible for eight church buildings, and five parishes, and it’s entirely possible I’ll get more before the changes are complete.

But it’s also possible I’ll have fewer of each, because some of our church buildings may need to close, and some of our parishes will merge. There’s no “hit list”, but it’s very hard to justify sustaining buildings or parishes where the congregations won’t take legal responsibility for the administration of the parish and the building and don’t contribute sufficiently towards the cost of the clergy. Clearly, heritage buildings cannot be demolished, but some could close, or be sold, or more likely given over to charitable, or community trusts. Whilst others may remain open, but with significantly fewer services.

The face of the person leading the service will change too. The diocesan vision is to ensure that every church that does not have a vicar of its own will have a “focal minister” – a volunteer who leads mission and ministry locally. They’ll be overseen by clergy, and supported by a new training scheme.

There’s also a growing recognition that much church administration and bureaucracy is needlessly complex. UK Charity Law is partly to blame for this, and I doubt there’s much that can be done to change that. But our structures and governance can be simplified, and the number of parochial church councils (PCCs) reduced, so that we all spend less time in meetings, and more time helping people.

As well as trying to fix some of the brokenness of the parish system, the Diocese is keen to do some new things. You deal with the problem of an ageing, declining congregation, by reaching out to younger people and families. And to help with this there’s a vision to create two brand new churches by 2025 in areas where population changes merit it. The Diocese will also continue to invest in two larger “Resourcing Churches” (in Worcester and Dudley) to be centres of excellence, resourcing and enabling their surrounding parishes.

As more details of the plans for the future become available, I’ll keep you informed. But if you’d like to join the conversation now, it’s not too late to read about the plans online and offer feedback electronically through the diocesan website here..

Diocese of Worcester faces financial difficulties

admin 28/08/2019

The Diocese of Worcester’s spent around £1 million more than it received in income during 2018, and is heading for a similar deficit in 2019, a situation which cannot be sustained using reserves for more than another year or two.

Earlier this summer the Bishop of Worcester wrote to all clergy explaining what his team are planning to do to resolve the problem. Further information was revealed at the Diocesan Synod in July.

The gist of the plan is a series of changes across the diocese which should result in a saving of around £1.67 million over the next three to five years, with savings coming from two main areas:

The number of clergy in the diocese (currently 163 spread across 190 parishes) will be reduced by up to 15 full-time posts.
Cost cutting in the diocesan bureaucracy in Worcester. This cost-cutting will trim something like £550,000 from the diocesan budget through a combination of:

Budget savings (£127,500) in our spend on everything from our support to church schools, to diocesan training courses, mobile phones and closing the Old Palace’s loss-making cafe (which currently loses around £10,000 a year);
Redundancies at the diocesan office (£181,000) – the equivalent of 5.3 full-time posts; and
Moving the diocesan office out of the Old Palace in the centre of Worcester into some less impressive, and less expensive, offices elsewhere in the diocese. Due to the rent plus repairs deal the diocese currently has with the Cathedral (the owners of the Old Palace) this is expect to save some £160,000 per year. It will however create a considerable problem for the cathedral , which will have to come up with a plan for what to do with the Old Palace. Many consider it would make a fine boutique hotel: the magnificent view over the river and of Worcester’s Cricket Ground would certainly be popular with cricket fans!

Inevitably moving the diocesan offices out of the Old Palace will be a controversial decision. The Old Palace is a beautiful grade 1 listed building, and has been in religious use since the 12^th century. However while acknowledging that many people feel a strong sentimental attachment to the building, the Bishop’s Council feel it is hard to justify cutting the number of vicars even further to maintain an office building where only 22% of the floor space is actually useable for office accommodation.

In addition to cost savings, the diocese has committed to reviewing the Parish Share system. Parish Share is the contribution each parish makes to the cost of its clergy. A lot of people imagine that the Church of England gets money from the government, however this is not the case. In fact the cost of clergy, all of our church buildings and local administration, as well as the cost of things like the Old Palace, comes from individual parishioners giving to their local churches. To put that in its local context, the eight churches and five parishes for which I’m responsible contributed some £68,000 to the Diocese of Worcester in 2018, which is roughly equivalent to the cost of one clergy post (the salary itself is only just over £26,000, the rest covers the cost of national insurance, housing, pension, initial and ongoing training and central costs). It is hoped that by reviewing how Parish Share costs are allocated between parishes, a better way forward can be found for 2021.

The Bishop of Worcester has asked for all who are associated with our churches to be made aware of the challenges ahead, and how the diocese is planning to address this. He asks us to go on being generous in our giving – and to give more to our local church if we can. In particular, he asks us to pray for those who will be made redundant as a result of this situation.

Barry Unwin 14 July 2019

Bishop Confirms Five at Upton Parish Church

admin 28/08/2019

On 23 June we were delighted to welcome Bishop Anthony Priddis, former Bishop of Hereford to Upton Parish Church for a confirmation service.

Being confirmed that day were five candidates from Upton, along with two candidates from elsewhere in the Diocese.

In a video shown during the service, the candidates spoke movingly about their faith journeys and of what Jesus meant to them. And afterwards Bishop Anthony enjoyed meeting all the candidates over a special meal of lasagne and cake!

The candidates from Upton were Lois Unwin, Martin Joliffe, Georgia and Katrina Raynor-Smith and Victoria Taylor. All of them are involved in our Deep End youth group, which has been a great chance for our younger people to explore the Christian Faith in greater depth, whilst also having loads of fun, sweets, and occasionally getting to wear a very odd mask!

The Deep End term ended last week with a fabulous trip to the Aztec Aquaventure at Upton Warren, but will be back in September. For more details of the Deep End, click here.