February 12th, 2026
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video.
I’m at Lambeth Palace following Bishop Fiona’s episcopal ordination at Southwark Cathedral earlier today. It was a joyous occasion, tinged with sadness for us, of course, but rejoicing in her vocation and what she will bring to the Diocese of Bath and Wells in the future.
I was reminded of my first sense of call to ministry at the New Wine conference in 1990. I had never remotely considered the possibility before. I was quite happy at the time getting paid lots of money to go for walks in the country whilst having pleasant chats with my farmer clients about all things agronomic. I remember the speaker saying something like, “some of you will be called to exercise your discipleship in work, community and family, others on the mission field and others in full time ministry”. The last phrase poleaxed me. The rest is history, despite my best efforts initially to ignore it and hope it would go away. There have been times when its been difficult, but I don’t regret eventually saying yes to God for a minute. I am mildly reassured that some of the great heroes of faith were similarly resistant. Moses famously said, and I paraphrase, “here am I, send someone else”!
What the speaker stressed back in 1990 was that there are various callings or vocations that need fulfilling in the church. We need evangelists whose gift is bringing people to faith. We need deacons, priests and bishops to teach the faith and shepherd the people of God. But all these gifts, and others that might be described as ministerial, are simply manifestations of the fundamental call on all Christians to be faithful disciples. One of the historical problems in the Church of England, especially as an established church emerging from Christendom is the loss of that understanding. This was facilitated by a high number of clergy in the past who could do the spiritual stuff for us. Francis Kilvert when he was a curate in Clyro in the 19th century, shared the cure of 217 souls with his incumbent! This attitude is still widespread and often comes out in consultations for the person and gift profile the vacant benefice is seeking in their new vicar. The primary focus is often on the care of the existing congregation. Mission is about bringing new, preferably younger people into the Church, not so much because we are hungry to see all generations encounter Jesus Christ but because we need help to keep the show on the road! I say this in no sense to diminish the sacrificial generosity and sheer hard work that so many put into preserving their local churches. I know the distress people feel when they see their church struggling and can’t see a viable future. I get very cross indeed when that precious ministry of presence is dismissed by the national church funding bodies as ‘subsidising decline’, which is why I am fronting a campaign to get more money from the Commissioners to support local ministry.
However, the reality is we are not in Kansas anymore. If we’re honest with ourselves, we know the current model of clerical provision and ministry is groaning at the seams, if not completely broken. Financially, as a diocese, we are propped up by historic assets, but that isn’t the main problem. Even if we had the resources to fund even more clergy that we have now, there simply aren’t that number of clergy out there. The former Bishop of Lincoln led a campaign some years ago to fund 50 extra clergy for the diocese funded from historic assets. They couldn’t find that number of clergy to come and fill the roles. The situation is now even more difficult, especially in rural dioceses like ours. The result is that clergy are under strain, and even more so because we are carrying so many vacancies. Any further reduction in the number of clergy under our current way of doing things would just create undoable, unattractive jobs, more and lengthier vacancies.
Over the next few months, I am hoping we can have some sensible conversations about a different approach. I don’t come to that with a fully formed idea of what the outcome will be, but I do know that we must follow Jesus in the world as it is now, not in some fondly remembered time before the repeal of the 1947 tithe act. Part of that will be about our expectations of one another. So many of the parochial difficulties I have encountered in the last six years have been about a mismatch of expectations between clergy and parishioners. Both parties are working to an understanding of the other’s role which is assumed but never articulated and examined.
The Church has frequently had to navigate change in the light of new realities. Lets be gentle with each other as we navigate this one together.
+Richard