1
Renewal & Reform
2
Couple of graphs
3 Clergy Numbers 2000 – 2021 (Projected)
6397
7465
8115
6863
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
10000 National number of stipendiary clergy
National Projection
Diocesan Projection
Diocesan Ambition
50% more vocations by 2020
4 Slow Decline
Average Annual Change (based on last 30 years)
0.3%
-1.3% -1.4%
-1.0%
English Population Sunday Attendance Electoral Roll Stipendiary Clergy
5
0
200,000
400,000
600,000
800,000
1,000,000
1,200,000
1,400,000
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Electoral Roll
Average Weekly
Attendance (AWA)
Usual Sunday
Attendance (uSa)
Average Child
Sunday
Church of England Attendance Trends
-14%
-16%
-14%
-23%
% Change
2003-15
6 National Attendance
Usual Sunday
Attendance (uSa)
1989: 1,155,000
= 5,000 People
7 National Attendance
Usual Sunday
Attendance (uSa)
1989: 1,155,000
2015: 759,400
= 5,000 People
8
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1979 1984 1989 1994 1998 2005 2014
Average Age (Adults and Children)
Church of England UK
C of E Age Profile Trend
12.3 Years
9
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
Population in attendance by age
National average: 1.7%
10
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
Population in attendance by age
National average: 1.7%
11
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
Population in attendance by age
National average: 1.7%
12
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
4.2%
Population in attendance by age
National average: 1.7%
13
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
4.2%
2.0%
Population in attendance by age
National average: 1.7%
14
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
4.2%
2.0%
1.0%
Population in attendance by age
National average: 1.7%
15
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
4.2%
2.0%
1.0%
0.6%
Population in attendance by age
National average: 1.7%
16
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
4.2%
2.0%
1.0%
0.6%
Population in attendance by age
1.0%
National average: 1.7%
17
1.5%
1.0%
0.6%
1.0%
2.0%
4.2%
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
Population in attendance by age
4.9%
National average: 1.7%
18
1.5%
1.0%
0.6%
1.0%
2.0%
4.2%
3.6%
0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5% 5.0%
0 to 10
11 to 17
18 to 24
25 to 45
46 to 65
66 to 75
76 to 85
86+
Percentage Population in Attendance
Population in attendance by age
An 81 year old is 8 times more likely to
be a church attendee than a 21 year old
4.9%
National average: 1.7%
19 Attendance projection
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
800,000
900,000
Adult A
ttendan
ce Attendance Projection range
50%
of sce
nario
s
80%
of sce
nario
s
Midpoint projection
20
Renewal & Reform
21
22
• Renewal & Reform is an ambitious
programme of work which seeks to
provide a narrative of hope to the Church
of England in the 21st century
• A growing church in and for all people in
and for all places
23
Narrative
• A plentiful harvest
– Luke 10:2
• A hopeful future
• A realistic assessment
• A growing church
24
The implementation challenge
• Diocesan strategies/narratives – Missionally ambitious
– Contextually appropriate
• Supported by:
– Senior leadership training
• Bishops; Deans; BAME; Strategic Leadership Development Programme; Strategic Learning Communities
– Strategic development funding
• £24 million pa
– Peer review
25
The cultural change challenge
• Evangelism – Inc digital evangelism
• Discipleship – Setting God’s People Free
• Vocations – What each diocese needs
• Simplification – Make it easier
26
Setting God’s People Free
• Discipleship/Kingdom connection
– Setting God’s People Free: This report identifies the need for two
shifts in culture and practice that we see as critical to the
flourishing of the Church and the evangelisation of the nation.
Until, together, ordained and lay, we form and equip lay people to follow
Jesus confidently in every sphere of life in ways that demonstrate the
Gospel we will never set God’s people free to evangelise the nation.
Until laity and clergy are convinced, based on their baptismal mutuality,
that they are equal in worth and status, complementary in gifting and
vocation, mutually accountable in discipleship, and equal partners in
mission, we will never form Christian communities that can evangelise the
nation.
27
For avoidance of doubt
• It calls for a shift in culture – not a narrow, centrally driven strategy.
• It looks beyond and outside Church structures to the whole people of God at work in communities and wider society – not to ‘fixing’ the institutional Church.
• It seeks to affirm and enable the complementary roles and vocations of clergy and of lay people, grounded in our common baptism – not to blur or undermine these distinctions.
• It proposes steps to nourish, illuminate and connect what is working already in and through frontline parishes – not to institute a top down approach.
• It aims to see confident involvement, engagement and leadership of lay people wherever they are called to serve – not to devise lay alternatives to clergy.
28
In reality
• Value School teachers or Sunday School leaders?
• Previous reports have made a difference
– But enough of a difference?
• Demonstrate impact
• Make changes by inspiring or cajoling?
• How to make it real?
– Emerging fashion for Rule of Life
• Setting all God’s People Free
– Or just the adults?
• 150 hours vs 5,000 hours
29
Renewal & Reform
• Long obedience in the same direction
• If it was easy would have done it
• Methods of the past got us to where we are
• Implementation gap
– What are you doing differently tomorrow?
30
The new(ish) favourite word
• Intentional
• But for avoidance of doubt:
– Not expecting or desiring uniformity
– Not after a single prescription
– Not favouring a particular approach or ecclesiology
– Etc etc
31
Thoughts from elsewhere
32
Some questions
• How high are you setting the bar for appointments? – Birmingham: Children & Family Missioners
• Are you investing in leadership? – Durham: Missional Leadership for Growth
– Liverpool: Transforming Wigan
• Are you exploring different models of ministry/parish structure? – Exeter: Growing the rural church
– Chelmsford: Turnaround teams; interim ministry
• Are you taking hard decisions? – Chelmsford: Dis-appointing clergy
33
Some more questions
• Are you giving targeted support to parishes?
– Sheffield: Mission and admin support
• Are you planting churches/congregations?
–Rochester: Re-establish mission in a town
– Liverpool: Multiplying congregations
• Are you establishing resource churches?
–Chichester; Birmingham; Southwell & Nottingham …
34
Most important lesson from elsewhere
• Implement your own plans
• You can’t do everything
– So do what you do well
35
Context
36
The shape/structure of church
• More clergy, but fewer stipendiary clergy
• More congregations
• Bigger missional/ministry units
• Multiple forms of leadership
• Multiple patterns of deployment
• More confident ecclesiologies
• Higher/lower appointments bar
37
Select
Train
Deploy
Deploy
Train
Select
Multiple patterns of deployment
38
Culture and relationship
• Higher accountability
– Mutuality within the body of Christ
– Your charge and mine
• For such a time as this
– I didn’t get ordained for this
• Priestly/episcopal/apostolic
39
Some thoughts from Joshua
• As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake
you. (Joshua 1:5)
• When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God … you are to
move out from your positions and follow it. 4 Then you will know which way
to go, since you have never been this way before. (Joshua 3: 3-4)
• Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each
of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder … 6 to serve as a sign among you.
In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell
them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the
LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These
stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. (Joshua 4: 5-7)
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