Havant Deanery Stipendiary Clergy Deployment Review
1. Background
Havant Deanery, part of Portsdown Archdeaconry in the Diocese of Portsmouth, covers the suburban areas of Havant and Waterlooville, along with outlying villages along the A3, and the coastal areas of Emsworth and Hayling Island. It is a diverse and large Deanery, with pockets of relative wealth in the area, as well as areas of considerable social and economic deprivation.
The population in the Deanery is expected overall to age in the next few years, with the exception of Emsworth; there are also areas of new housing which are attracting younger families. The West of Waterlooville Major Development Area (WWMDA)) is the largest example of such growth, with 10K new inhabitants expected in the next ten years.
Average weekly church attendance has declined during the period 2008/9-2011/12 by 5.2% and the percentage of people identifying themselves as Christian fell from 73% to 59% between 2001 and 2011. Many church buildings are in need of urgent maintenance or refurbishment. Although most parishes pay parish share faithfully, some are struggling, and many report the need to draw upon reserves in order to meet current financial commitments.
2. Mandate from the Bishop’s Council
A previous Deanery plan, running from 2005-2015 (updated 2007) emphasized parish partnerships as a way of managing future reductions in clergy numbers. Some reduction in posts occurred during that time, but there was little clergy movement or retirement. Some parishes had to wait for new vacancies to become available before existing vacancies could be filled.
Several retirements, moves, or resignations occurred early in 2014, which led the Archdeacon to ask the Deanery Mission and Pastoral Committee and the Bishop’s Council to agree to form a small task group to work on a new Deanery plan.
The remit of the group was to write a report which includes information on population, patterns of church attendance and ministry, and opportunities for ministry and mission. Additionally, it was to make recommendations for mission priorities for clergy and laity, accompanied by a new five to ten year future deployment plan for stipendiary clergy. The report was to come back to the DMPC and the Bishop’s Council with proposals for further discussion or approval.
Some factors needed to be borne in mind:
The agreed stipendiary clergy allocation for the Deanery is currently 16 posts.
The average age of stipendiary incumbents in the Deanery at the commencement of the review was 57, and half of the 16 are in their sixties, with all but one of the other half in their fifties.
Many clergy have been in post for more than ten years. Some more parishes are likely to become vacant in the next five to ten years.
The Diocese currently has no plans to reduce stipendiary clergy numbers further, but, given predictions for clergy retirements and recruitment, this cannot be ruled out in the future.
The Bishop’s Council had also mandated a Pioneer Review Group, which reported back in May 2014 with recommendations about pioneer deployment.
3. Current stipendiary clergy deployment
The current spread of clergy, stipendiary and self-supporting, including title curates, and Readers can be found in appendix 1.
The vacancies which prompted the DeaneryReview were the following:
Havant St Faith (March 2014)
Warren Park St Clare (March 2014)
Hayling St Mary (April 2014)
Hart Plain(vacant since spring 2013, and unfilled because of the previous Diocesanmoratorium policy)
A retirement from the summer of 2015 at Hayling St Andrew and St Peter has been signalled.
A further vacancy at St Wilfrid’s Cowplain from August 2014 was announced during the Deanery group’s work, when The Revd Canon Dr Paul Moore was appointed Archdeacon in Winchester Diocese.
4. Group process
The group met three times between February and May 2014. It included clergy and lay people from across the Deanery. At the first meeting, three guiding principles for discussions were established:
i. We are not rehearsing the past -- we are here to consider the future;
ii. The scope is the whole – no one person is here to fight for any single part; partisanship is not helpful;
iii. There will be some pain involved in change.
The group drew on the work which had been done by the Venerable Peter Sutton, who had prepared detailed Deanery descriptions and census information for a recent Bishop’s Council exercise. It used this to explore population patterns, average weekly and usual Sunday attendance, and occasional offices (appendix 2).
The group explored the conclusions of the recent Church Growth report, From Anecdote to Evidence. It noted the need to prioritize work with young people in order for churches to grow; the challenges associated with amalgamating parishes without identifying a focal minister for each church; the value of pioneering approaches; and the importance of leadership in creating a vision and strategy for church growth.
The group also made reference to a paper (appendix 3) written by Revd Andy Wilson on the shifts in weekly attendance across the Diocese which noted the increasing proportion of church attendees centred on a small number of larger churches. The group observed that this, in turn, places a burden on such churches beyond their own ministry costs, with associated risks to the whole Diocese if these churches cannot sustain their own growth.
Where furtherknowledge of local situations was needed, particularly for parishes which are currently in vacancy, clergy or churchwardens were invited to make a brief contribution. An email invitation to give views on the Deanery was sent to incumbents, and led to one written response from a churchwarden. Revd Simon Sayers, representing the largest church in the Deanery, was invited to give a perspective on mission, parish share, and Deanery planning. Revd David Lindsay spoke to the group about Reader ministry, including recent developments in lay ministry training, and alerted people to the relative under-use of lay ministers in leading services and preaching in this Deanery.
5. Themes
The following themes emerged in the group’s discussions.
i. Attendance
The group noted sharp differences in average weekly or usual Sunday attendance per stipendiary priest allocation across the Deanery: for example, St Clare’s Warren Park AWA 15; Warblington with Emsworth AWA 286. Both have until recently had one full time priest.
ii. New population
Some population change is expected because of new housing, particularly the West of Waterlooville development. The decision under the previous Deanery plan to reduce the post at St John’s Purbrook, even though it borders this new housing and has one of the two access roads into the new housing, had been justified because of there being two and a half posts across the new Purbrook/Portsdown/
Crookhorn cluster. Although the group didn’t feel that the size of Purbrook’s current congregation merited a full time post, it felt strongly that the needs of the new housing’s population should be addressed, and that pioneer ministry should be explored. Other areas of new housing are much smaller, but there is a need even there for existing parishes to be proactive in their mission outreach into these areas.
iii. Parish share
Parishes appear to pay their share willingly, but many report struggling to meet the amount requested, and some dip into reserves. The largest of the Deanery’s parishes, Warblington with Emsworth, makes a large contribution beyond covering its own ministry costs. It does so willingly, but its vicar reported the need for the parish to believe that this money was well spent elsewhere in the Deanery, and in central diocesan resourcing. It was also noted that parishes which grow and pay larger amounts of parish share are not currently allowed to increase their stipendiary ministry provision, even from their own funds. This leads to a perception of unfairness – parish share is never capped, but ministry provision is – and is a disincentive to growth. Given the dependence of the whole Diocese on the parish share which is paid by larger churches, this issue needs to be addressed, if the principle of fairer shares is to be maintained. A parish share review group is currently underway.
iv. Pioneering opportunities
The Diocese’s Pioneer Review, which reported to Bishop’s Council in May 2014, identified the need to build capacity, increase training for lay and ordained pioneers, and find new missional approaches for new housing areas and difficult-to-reach areas. The issue of new housing was explored by this review group in relation to St John’s Purbrook. The issue of hard to reach areas was also discussed, and it was noted how difficult it was to maintain traditional models of church in the outer housing estates of Havant Deanery. The group noted a community pioneer/outer housing estates missioner model, which had recently been successfully used in Sheffield Diocese, as a way of coordinating new mission approaches across a large area of isolated housing estates, and was keen to explore this further. An imminent bid for social enterprise money and likely bids from four outer housing estates churches (Warren Park, Leigh Park, West Leigh, and Hart Plain) for renovation of their ageing buildings as community spaces, could tie in well with the creation of a similar new post in Havant Deanery.
v. Young people
Very few churches in Havant Deanery, though there are some notable exceptions, have significant numbers of 12-25 year olds. There are plans for a lay youth pioneer in one cluster, and some small but growing youth groups, but for smaller churches, especially if they are not working in partnership with others, sustaining good quality youth work is difficult. Two large further education colleges (HavantCollege, and South DownsCollege) have very little church connection. The Deanery is not likely to be able to sustain a dedicated youth missioner post, but it needs to signal, through this Deanery, some commitment to addressing the needs of young people.
vi. Part time posts
The Deanery currently has some part time posts (Rowlands Castle 0.5; Blendworth/Chalton/ Idsworth 0.5) and it was anticipated by the group that some others would be needed because of the geographical spread of the Deanery. There was a wariness to introduce too many more, because of perceived difficulties with recruitment, but a willingness to do so in certain targeted areas where the local circumstances meant that a part time post was the only or a sensible option. Of the current 0.5 posts, it was recognized that the possibility of combining Rowlands Castle and BCI in the future should be borne in mind when the current post holders reach retirement. There was little enthusiasm for combining posts which are not geographically contiguous.
vii. Reimagining ministry
This Deanery Review is of stipendiary clergy deployment. However, it is impossible, and would be wrong, to look at deployment without considering the ministry of lay and ordained self-supporting ministers. In wider conversations in the Diocese, and in the Diocese’s Pioneer Review, it is being widely acknowledged that training for self-supporting ministry needs to be much more developed, greater numbers of people encouraged to offer themselves for this ministry, and ministry reimagined so that it becomes truly collaborative. David Lindsay’s presentation to the Deanery group offered surprising statistics on the under-use of lay ministers in Havant Deanery compared to other parts of the Diocese, and it was felt that this needed to be addressed. The Archdeacon has begun some of the work around reimagining ministry with Deanery Synod and will continue with other churches. The PioneerReview has made recommendations for increasing self-supporting ministry capacity. Although it will take time before our patterns of ministry change, this Deanery group wanted to make recommendations about where self-supporting ministry posts might need to be allocated in the Deanery, as part of the new Deanery plan.
viii. Ecumenism
Ecumenical partners work with the Anglican churches in established partnerships across the Deanery, and in new and unofficial ways, for example in the new Berewood housing area. One of the local Methodist co-superintendents took part in the first meeting of a vacancy mission audit at Hart Plain Church along with the Archdeacon and Revd Charlie Peer, and the other is about to meet the Archdeacon again for discussions about future work. There is a keenness to work together with ecumenical partners, where there are clear outcomes which can be achieved together, but little enthusiasm for creating structures or meetings without clear outcomes in mind.
6. Recommendations
The following recommendations are made in line with the agreed deanery allocation of 16 stipendiary clergy. Appendix 4 shows the new spread of this allocation. These vacancies could all be filled as soon as is practicable; there is no longer a moratorium policy.
Current vacancies
i. Havant St Faith
This post should be replaced in its current form as soon as possible, but with the recognition that this is a complex and demanding role, which will require careful recruitment to find someone capable of seeing through a building project, managing the consolidation of a property portfolio, and developing the congregation in mission. Support from the wider Diocese will also be needed. The partnership with the wider Havant cluster (Leigh Park, West Leigh, Bedhampton) should be continued, with the Vicar of St Alban’s continuing her role as cluster co-ordinator. Future bids to, for example, the Heritage Lottery Fund from St Faith’s and other cluster churches need to be co-ordinated, so that they do not contradict or undermine each other. The cluster could continue to provide a good training base for a title curate. Given the size of the workload, some SSM support would also be useful here.
ii. North Havant estates
The vacancy at St Clare’s Warren Park should not be filled. Instead, a community pioneer post should be created (housed at St Clare’s Vicarage) to co-ordinate mission across the Greater Leigh Park estates and cluster, with an emphasis on creating new worshipping communities, and connecting faith with community engagement.Models from other dioceses have already been researched; further work will be done on this and a role description will be written with oversight from the DMPC.
The post holder would need to work closely with the congregation of St Clare’s (and indeed with those of St Francis and St Alban) in order to build on existing community links, but would not be their new vicar and would not be responsible for the provision of their worship. This means that the Vicar of Leigh Park will be solely responsible for both churches in future; some SSM support may be useful.This post should be under the direction of either the new Area Dean or cluster co-ordinator. A Bishop’s Mission Order may be needed in the future.
iii. Hart Plain and Cowplain
Hart Plain should become a half time post, and that post should be linked in a team with Cowplain and Westbrook Church, with one and a half stipendiary posts available across the three churches. Given that Methodist ministers plan and lead half of the Sunday services, the Review Group did not believe that Hart Plain’s numbers justified a full time appointment. By strengthening the existing cluster arrangement with Cowplain, which is strong and thriving, the Review Group believed that it would be possible to create an attractive team ministry with ordained and lay ministers working together, to which it would be possible to recruit (first) a full time Vicar for Cowplain, followed (quickly afterwards) by a half time Vicar for Hart Plain. If a suitable incumbent is appointed to Cowplain, the cluster would form a good base for a training curate in the future.
iv. HaylingIsland
St Mary’s, St Peter’s, and St Andrew’s should move to having one and a half stipendiary clergy posts across the three churches. None of these posts should be recruited on a long-term basis until the Vicar of St Peter’s and St Andrew’s has also retired (the Vicar of St Mary’s retired at the end of April 2014), in order that the new appointments be perceived as covering all three churches equally. A new group leader (likely to be Team Rector of a new team/group benefice) would live in St Mary’s Vicarage but would need to work hard to be perceived as relating equally to all three churches.
Although it is likely that the 0.5 of the allocation would be a single post, living at St Andrew’s Vicarage, and working, under the direction of the new Team Rector, across all three churches, it is also possible that this could be split into a house for duty post and a separate lay or ordained part time role, with a specific ministry focus across the team (eg pastoral care, training, ministry to older people/families/children).If there are only two stipendiary clergy working across the three churches, the new team should be considered for a self-supporting ordained minister in the future.