Chapter One - Context and Challenges

What is God saying to us?

1. This has been the central question behind our work. We have been conscious of being engaged in a process of discernment - which does not end with the publication of this report. A vital part of our task has been consultation with many people who currently exercise ministry in the diocese. But the conversation and consultation must continue, not just in the formal structures, such as synods, but in all places and communities where people exercise ministry in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
   
2. This report makes a number of recommendations that need to be tested and further developed. Fundamental to our thinking has been the basic conviction that ministry is exercised together as the collective responsibility of the People of God. Although some are called to exercise specific functions, offices and leadership and to offer their gifts in particular ways, ministry is not fundamentally something that some Christians do to others, the 'active' towards the 'passive', but the work of God in which all his people are called to share. We hope that this report will make an important contribution to encouraging us all to consider and re-consider together the ministry that is exercised in our locality and through our local worshipping communities. This exploration will itself be of immense value as part of the continuing process of local discernment which we hope to encourage.
   

Children meet Maximus Mouse at Ely Cathedral

3. This is not the first time Ministry Strategy has been explored by a working group in this diocese. We have been encouraged by the Ministry Strategy Report of 1995, and wish to endorse much of what was then written. However, we have been made very aware that the process foundered significantly at the point of implementation, to which insufficient attention was then paid. Drawing on the luxury of this hindsight, we want to say from the outset that what follows will only have value if it becomes a staging post on a continuing journey. This report is not a 'grand design'. We hope that we have listened well and made best use of the experiences of others, in and beyond the diocese. We obviously hope that the main recommendations we make will be positively received. But it is the adoption of the principles we espouse, in a sustained way and across every diocesan body, that will make the most important difference.
   
4. There are in what follows no radical new discoveries which have not occurred to somebody somewhere else before and we hope to have built on existing good practice wherever possible. Nevertheless our message is one of change. The resources we have for ministry are not the same as they were even twenty years ago. As we shall see, in many ways they are far from less, but they are different. Also the context in which ministry is undertaken is not the same. The history of the Church is a story of continual adaptation to changing circumstances . We will need to do the same in the Diocese of Ely in the times ahead.
   
5. This first chapter seeks to offer, in broad brush strokes, some indication of the circumstances in which the church in this region now finds itself and to indicate how they present opportunities as well as challenges as we seek to discern a strategy for ministry ahead.

What is the context for our ministry here?

6. Our diocese is often described as predominantly rural and compared to many dioceses that remains a fair description. But there is also enormous diversity. Cambridge and Peterborough¹ with their very different histories are our most concentrated urban centres. The universities and high-tech industry of Cambridge makes it a ‘world city’. St Neots is now the third largest settlement in the diocese and much of its housing is new. As well as Cambridgeshire, the diocese includes 42 parishes in West Norfolk, with the growing town of Downham Market as a focal point. Significant new housing is a factor in many of our towns - especially those with easy access to the two main railway corridors that run through the diocese - the East Coast mainline and the Fen line. At Cambourne and Hampton entirely new settlements are developing. Cambridgeshire is described as having the most rapidly growing population of any English county. Cambridge and some of the villages in the south of the diocese now contain some of the most expensive housing in the United Kingdom and the shortage of affordable housing increases the distance between home and work for many people.
   
7. For centuries a parish system has been the backbone of the Church of England. Behind it lay the assumption that people were born, lived and died in the same locality and that home and work were nearby. Industrialisation and the separation of people from the land have for a long time challenged that assumption. Increased mobility and the fact of commuting have more recently changed the face of many residential communities. Work, education, leisure and home are separated for many people as never before. Ministry that touches people only in ‘home’ mode may be seriously limited. We need to develop local ministry strategy across wider localities and to recognise and support more explicitly the ministry of Christian people (not all of them in authorised ministry) in work, education and leisure.

8. Many of our small towns and villages are very long established communities where there are extended family networks across several generations. Many of our churches - both as buildings and worshipping congregations - symbolise to the people of the area continuity and stability. In the countryside there has been a steady withdrawal of facilities over many years - schools, shops, post-offices, pubs, buses - and sometimes the church remains as the single public building and its worship the only regular gathering. The Church of England has always been characterised by the importance it attaches to local presence for every community. The diocese is richly blessed by very many churches of great beauty and historic resonance which continue to speak powerfully to those who know them. Ministry strategy needs to take realistic account of the church buildings of the locality and, wherever possible, promote their accessibility and practicality.
   
9. Gathering ever more parishes together into a single group or benefice may appear sensible in terms of evening out the ratio of population to ministers in each pastoral unit. However, distance, buildings and administration can become dominating factors that seriously reduce time for effective ministry with people and so reduce morale and the number of ministers wanting to work in such circumstances. In some places fewer church buildings better used and equipped, may be a positive step towards the provision of ministry that is effective and vibrant. It may now be important in some places, where there is a local desire, to look positively on ideas to reduce the number of churches in use in order to set people free from what can feel like a perpetual uphill struggle. This should not be done in a way that appears to indicate a desire to discontinue Christian ministry or community.
   
10. Levels of prosperity vary across the diocese. Whilst perceived as generally prosperous, Cambridge contains also wards of significant deprivation. Other areas - such as Oxmoor in Huntingdon, Orton Goldhay and north Wisbech share many characteristics of urban priority areas in other larger cities. Nor is poverty an exclusively urban phenomenon in our diocese. Some villages and small rural towns, especially in fenland, contain areas of acute need, often exacerbated by geographical isolation. Cultural deprivation is significant in several places. It is an established principle in the allocation of resources for ministry that the strong should support the weak. Need rather than ability to pay must continue to be the main criterion. However, it may be possible to further develop bonds of communion between different parts of the diocese so that the sense of mutual belonging is strengthened.

11. There is comparatively little ethnic and cultural diversity in the diocese except in Peterborough and Cambridge. Travellers comprise the single largest minority group in the diocese. Asylum seekers at Oakington, migrant crop-pickers in fenland and American service people and their families add to the diversity. Sustained awareness of the world beyond and its cultural richness is less developed here than in many other areas. Nevertheless, churches can like schools, be places of encounter and friendship and relatively small numbers should not be used as an excuse for unawareness or indifference. Promoting social justice and the values of the Kingdom of God is fundamental to the vocation of every Christian community and parish church.
    
12. We are fortunate in our provision of church schools in the diocese. Although there is only one secondary school, St Bede's, in Cambridge, the 81 primary schools are very evenly distributed across the diocese. Work with schools, whether or not they are church schools, is of course an important part of the ministry in every parish. We welcome especially the current five-year project in the diocese to further develop links between local churches and secondary schools. But church schools have particular characteristics that make them important in our consideration of ministry strategy. They are part of our church's family. They are places where daily Christian worship takes place and of natural contact between the churches and the young families of the community. More children attend Church of England primary schools in the diocese than the number of people in our churches each Sunday. It therefore makes sense that our ministry strategy should take serious account of them and the opportunities they provide.
    
13. In other ways the Diocese is as much a part of the wider culture as anywhere else. This report is not the place to debate the nature of secularisation or whether ours is now a post-Christian or post-modern society. "Half-believing" may be a more generous description². The natural place of the church at the centre of recent public mourning in Soham and the fact that today only 10% of funerals nationally take place without a religious functionary may be pertinent indicators. Cultural tides can ebb and flow over time. It has been remarked that it is now easier to engage in serious spiritual discussion with the 18-30 age group than with the 40+ age group. It may be that our greatest challenge in evangelistic ministry is to convince this younger age group that the Christian church is able to satisfy the spiritual longing they articulate or that it is serious enough about spirituality.

What does God want our ministry to be for?

14. Scripture reminds us that "God so loved the world that He gave his only Son" (John Chapter 3 v 16). It is the whole world which is the object of God's love in creation, redemption and saving activity. Jürgen Moltmann (a 20th century theologian) sums it up when he says "a theology for all people - lay and ordained - will be directed not only towards divine service in the Church but also towards divine service in the every day life of the world".
    
15. It follows that our strategy for ministry should have a mission focus. The link between ministry and mission cannot be overemphasised. David Bosch, a 20th century theologian of mission, wrote, "All ministry must empower mission". Mission is a word used regularly in the Church of England's since the 18th century when missionary societies were first formed. Their purpose was specific - to bring the life of the gospel to those in error and darkness (invariably in foreign lands!). In the 20th century we came to see that mission was also needed at home - hence the development of the 'Parish Mission' and the popularity of evangelists like Billy Graham. Since the 1950s almost every diocese has appointed a Diocesan Missioner or Adviser in Mission. The aim of these developments was always growth in the life of the Church. In other words the pattern of initiative moved from God to the Church to the world.
    
16. But over the past half century, through the work of Bosch and many others (like the Church of England's Robert Warren), we are coming to understand mission from a different angle. As Robert Warren reminds us in his book ‘Building Missionary Congregations’, all mission begins with God. It is his mission and not the Church's. Its context is the world. The Church is then called to share in God's mission. Theologians around the world have worked hard at this new understanding and they use a Latin phrase to identify it - Missio Dei. In the Missio Dei the pattern of initiative starts with God as before but now moves to the world and then finally to the Church.
    
17. This will mean that a church effectively engaged in mission will widen its focus from the life of the local church to a concern for the world and its needs, its joys and its struggles. A mission-centred church will be about equipping its members to live out their humanity within the home, the workplace, the school and the leisure centre. A mission-focused parish will give priority to enable its members to live out their discipleship in the world, and will foster an appropriate spirituality. A mission-centred diocese will make sure that all its activities are world-facing. Jürgen Moltmann said "It is not the Church that has a mission of salvation to fulfil in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the Church".

What are the challenges?

18. We have glimpsed some facets of the wider context for which our ministry strategy in this diocese should take account. We affirm that the strategy should be rooted in God's mission to the world. It should enable Christian people to collaborate with God and with each other in participating in the divine calling. It is now appropriate to describe some of the church's own context and the challenges that must be faced in shaping and developing ministry.
    
19. This is a report addressed to the Church of England in the Diocese of Ely. But we are not alone in our Christian mission and ministry. Wherever practical and appropriate it will be important for local ministry strategy to have an ecumenical dimension. The diocese has several examples of different formal models of partnership such as the ministries at Bar Hill, Cambourne, Orton Goldhay, Whittlesford, the inter-church schools in Cambridge and March, and Whitemoor and Littlehey Prisons. In different localities our formal partners include the Baptist, Methodist, Roman Catholic, United Reformed churches and the Salvation Army. But ecumenical partnership can also operate effectively in less formal ways - indeed formal projects often arise after a significant period of less formal collaboration. There is no single pattern or blueprint for ecumenical partnership and it is right that the local dimension is uppermost. However we can here affirm the principle of working as closely as possible with our partners. In 1990 twenty churches formally signed the Basis of Commitment of Churches Together in England and committed themselves “to fulfil their mission to proclaim the Gospel by common witness and service in the world”. We are encouraged by present national ecumenical discussions. We hope that resources will be used in complementary ways rather than in the duplication of effort and assets. We wish to see an ecumenical dimension in the formation of local ministry strategy, rather than it being an 'add on' after Anglican planning is already advanced.
    
20. The most precious asset of any church is its people. Measured in a number of ways, such as financial giving, active participation in worship, voluntary service, activity, and ministry, it would seem that never before have so many of our people been as committed to their churches as today. Numbers in ordained, stipendiary (paid, full-time) ministry may be fewer, but numbers in ministry are not.
    
21. Across the Church of England there are well over 2000 fewer stipendiary clergy than there were just twenty years ago in 1983. Then there were 10,800 stipendiary men; now there are 8,400 men and women. By 2012 the forecast is that there will be around 7,000 priests in stipendiary ministry.
    
22. Over the same period there has been a significant rise in the number of those offering themselves for voluntary (non-stipendiary - unpaid) ministry of the Church. In 1983 the Diocese of Ely had just 13 non-stipendiary priests; today it has 54. In 1983 we had 67 Licensed Readers; today we have over 200. Thus the balance of paid and voluntary ministry is altering significantly. If we trace the numbers back, we shall see that the balance between paid and unpaid ministry has been slowly altering since 1900 but the proportions are now such that we can no longer ignore the shift. In the future the majority of our accredited ministers - ordained and non-ordained - will be unpaid volunteers.
    
23. As well as those in accredited ministry there are also many people who exercise other ministries. Some, such as the Bishop's School Visitors are authorised to work on behalf of the diocese. Others have a more local parish focus. Some, like Churchwardens, hold a formal and ancient legal office. Others such as Children's and Youth Workers and Parish Visitors exercise their ministry through a parish commissioning or a less formal arrangement. It is important that all who exercise a ministry know themselves appropriately prepared, supported and authorised. Many other Christian, voluntary and charitable organisations in our society have relied heavily on volunteers from their beginning. They know, as our church is discovering, that an effective voluntary organisation needs to devote considerable energy and resources to the equipping, support and management of volunteers. Volunteer ministry is not 'second class' ministry 'on the cheap'. Our strategy must be one of investing in people, joyfully and generously, and with a thoroughly biblical confidence that through God's grace, seeds well tended will yield abundant harvest.
    
24. We do not in any way want to give the impression that ordained ministry - especially that of the stipendiary ordained minister is less important than it was - or that those who are ordained are marginal to the strategy. Quite the reverse. People in full-time ministry offer their entire working energy directly to the mission of the Church. It may well be that the major investment should be made in reasserting the dignity and value of local ministry, and particularly that of the clergy, at a time when it is counter-cultural to be part of a profession that has no career ladder, deplores hierarchical ambition, and cannot offer competitive reimbursement. The sacrifices made by many full-time ministers, especially in 'living above the shop', enable the church to continue to have a resident professional in localities where otherwise there would be none and to ensure that ministry is publicly available throughout the week. Ordained stipendiary ministers have, in addition to their formal sacramental functions, a vital role to play in being a very public focus and embodiment of God's love for the world. Nothing is this strategy is intended to undermine this role.
    
25. Nevertheless many ministers labour under unrealistic expectations and unhealthy pressures. There will always be more work to be done than time or resources available. The more we can minimize unhealthy pressures associated with 'keeping the show on the road' or by the performance of duties and tasks that can just as effectively be shared more widely, the more our ministers will be able to give of themselves creatively. This will not happen automatically. Many will need support and preparation in order to develop new patterns. Some will have to learn new skills in enabling and supporting volunteers rather than doing everything themselves. Others may have to lead their community from a culture of people of good will 'helping the vicar' to one of a developed vision of teamwork in ministry. This will mean that we should not simply deploy all we can to scattered localities, thereby hoping to spread the 'jam' of full-time stipendiary ministry a bit further. People engaged in developing new patterns of ministry need help and professional encouragement and to know that they are not working in isolation. Our strategy will stand or fall on the quality of resources offered to make it work.
    
26. The wide variety of authorised ministries, lay and ordained, that already exist in our church does not suggest that any simple 'one size' fits all strategic pattern or deployment would be either desirable or practical. There are varieties of gifts, contexts, offices and patterns of teamwork, legally constituted and less formal. For some the context of their ministry is predominantly the local worshipping community. For others it is a wider community, yet retaining a clear link with the local church on behalf of which they minister. A few people exercise ministry across an area such as the diocese itself, supporting and enabling local ministry and providing specialist expertise. The context for others is the workplace or an institution such as college, school, hospital or prison. It is necessary to recognise and affirm this variety and to guard against elevating any one context or type of ministry as more important than the others.
    
27. Parish ministry continues to be the norm and is the main structural and cultural method of the Church of England. But a diocese is not just a loose association of semi-autonomous parishes any more than it is a single high street brand with identical branches in every locality. In an episcopal church like ours, the area of jurisdiction of the bishop - the diocese - is a fundamental entity.
    
28. There are important factors that must be taken account of in proposing any diocesan ministry strategy. The rights of parishes to make their own decisions have been enhanced rather than reduced in recent decades (for example over the appointment of an incumbent). Vicars and Rectors continue to have the 'freehold'. Simple deployment or organisation strategies cannot be imposed from the centre as in a commercial organisation - they must be developed locally and on the basis of consent within the framework of a commitment to shared mission.
    
29. The financial challenge is presently acutely felt. Important decisions have to be made over what can be afforded on a diocesan basis over the next few years. But resources are needed to support developing voluntary ministry and supporting and equipping ministers. Retrenchment in these areas is likely to have considerable consequences for our ability to make such provision. As one volunteer pithily stated "If you cut back on that, you remove us."
    
30. There is less friction caused by differences in churchmanship and theological perspective in this diocese than in some. But it would be foolish to assume that all parishes and all ministers are always able to work together co-operatively and harmoniously. As with any organisation, personality as well conviction and tradition play a part. The strategy we propose therefore seeks to strongly encourage rather than cajole and to suggest rather than compel. Of course sometimes there will be decisions to make over the allocation of limited resources. We would expect such decisions to favour ministry in accordance with the agreed diocesan strategy. Fundamental to the philosophy we espouse is that people and communities strengthen their co-operation and communion for the sake of God's ministry to the world in their locality.

Harlton Parish

1. It is that part of the city south of the river that falls within our diocese
2. For a recent discussion of the secularisation debate see Grace Davie Europe the Exceptional Case (DLT 2002), especially Chapter One and p.19.

Contents

• Foreword by the Bishop of Ely
• Introduction by the former Bishop of Huntingdon
• Chapter One Context and Challenges
• Chapter Two Licensed and Authorised Ministry
• Chapter Three Local Ministry Teams
• Chapter Four Resourcing Ministry
• Chapter Five Structures
• Recommendations
• Bibliography
• Appendix

Downloads

• Report in PDF Format
• Report in Word Format