The work of the PCC treasurer
From Mr Robert J. Soutter FCIB
Sir, — Thank you for your interesting article about church treasurers (Features, 6 September). Please may I add a few comments, as a former treasurer, recently retired after more than 50 years in office in various parishes?
First, bookkeeping. Despite having retired as a treasurer, I now act as bookkeeper for four parishes in the diocese. These are all comparatively small parishes, and I am, therefore, able to maintain them on good old-fashioned double-entry manual ledgers. I am well used to preparing the formal accounts and various returns. That could be a solution for other small parishes: to find someone to do that work for them. Thanks to emails, the parishes do not have to be on my doorstep.
As your article suggests, however, for larger parishes, a computer-based system is obviously better. Simple spreadsheets are good as far as they go. But, otherwise, if someone is considering a commercial provider of software, I would strongly advise the use of a church/charity-based supplier rather than any commercial one. A PCC does not have a profit-and-loss account! One such church-based system that I know has all sorts of add-ons, including one to deal with Gift Aid. Otherwise, there is one well-known provider of “yellow envelopes” which also runs an excellent Gift Aid system. I use that firm for three different PCCs, and am able to do monthly claims in a very short time.
Second, training. While an Organisation such as ACAT, the Association of Church Accountants and Treasurers, can provide good training, it cannot beat that provided locally specifically for your churches and diocesan needs. I have been privileged to have been able to assist in the provision of a one-day training course in the diocese of Exeter for many years, which has been hugely beneficial for all those who have attended. The interaction with them is great; and the treasurers’ opportunity to talk to one other over coffee and lunch is perhaps even more important.
Third, digital giving. Yes, this may be the “in” thing, but perhaps not 100-per-cent good news. So many who donate by card have no idea that the church will be losing a percentage of their gift to the service-provider. The rates seem to vary from provider to provider and from one card to another. For a gift of £20 for example, it will be a minimum of 20p. A small amount — but it adds up. Taking a card for payment of wedding fees of £800 will cost the PCC around £10. Ouch! It is far better to ask the couple to make an online payment to the church’s account. And I would remind treasurers to remember the accounting: the whole gift of £20 is income; the charges of 20p or whatever are an expense. . .
Fourth, the Parish Giving Scheme is an answer to prayer!
ROBERT J. SOUTTER
12 Westlands
25 Douglas Avenue
Exmouth EX8 2HB
Seriousness in the eye of the C of E beholder
From Dr Andrew Purkis
Sir, — It was disappointing to see in Canon Angela Tilby’s otherwise graceful tribute to the late Bishop Mark Santer (“Theologian who changed my life”, Comment, 13 September) a gratuitous smear: she writes: “It is his incarnational faith that I return to when I despair of the triviality of much of what goes on in today’s Church of England, with its lack of intellectual and moral seriousness.”
Despair doesn’t square with her insight a few lines before that “I came to see that faith had hope at its heart.” Moreover, I see incarnational faith and moral seriousness at every level of our Church today, from my parish to our diocese and the General Synod, bishops, and archbishops. We should, as George Herbert taught us, see God at work in the most apparently humble and day-to-day tasks. And we should disagree with others about the best responses to “Christianity’s eclipse”, as documented by Rupert Shortt on the same page, without resorting to wild caricatures of those with different approaches.
One thing is sure: if thought-leaders in our Church go around, despairing loudly of alleged triviality and lack of intellectual and moral seriousness in much of what goes on in the C of E today, and thereby modelling divisive intolerance, it will make even harder the job of trying to nurture receptiveness in the wider society to the Church of England’s mission of love.
ANDREW PURKIS
44 Bellamy Street
London SW12 8BU
Palliative care and proposed changes in the law
From the Revd Nigel Prior
Sir, — Canon Angela Tilby’s excellent and timely piece (Comment, 6 September) combined two urgent issues: the funding and staffing of our hospices and the conflict (emotional and spiritual) between palliative care and the possible legalisation of assisted dying.
As someone who, only a few years back, helped to create a new “cottage hospice” in a leafy part of East Sussex (where one of my churches formerly stood), I heard that it had recently been “temporarily closed” because of staffing shortages. It remains the daughter hospice to the larger one in Pembury, and is a very beautiful place.
Ironically, the Hospice’s former CEO had a vision for building many more “cottage” hospices nationally; so, undoubtedly, the challenge is of “state ownership” versus charitable status — and the time for change is now.
The movement founded by Dame Cicely Saunders is something to be immensely proud of in our nation, but it is at breaking point without serious government funding and investment. The brilliant volunteers who sell furniture, coffees, and meals, and so much more, need the assurance that these Christian places can see some glimmer of resurrection light from that much talked-about economic “black hole”.
NIGEL PRIOR
St Mary’s Rectory
11 Church Street
Woodbridge
Suffolk IP12 1DS
From Canon Nicholas Sagovsky
Sir, — Many thanks to Canon Angela Tilby for her excellent column alerting readers to the danger to hospice funding which lurks in any House of Commons Private Member’s Bill to legalise assisted dying (sic). I wish, though, that she had used the term “assisted suicide”, as the Bishop of London did in her critique of the Bill recently introduced in the Lords by Lord Falconer.
As Bishop Mullally said, “No amount of safeguards could ensure the safety of the most vulnerable in society, should there be a change in the law allowing for assisted suicide. We believe that there would be unintended, serious, and fundamental consequences for the whole of society, especially for those who are at the most vulnerable point of their lives, and for those who love and care for them” (News, 2 August).
The Church, thank God, has utterly changed its view of suicide, regarding it always in a tragic light that calls not for condemnation, but for compassion. To speak of “assisted suicide” may not be appropriate in all circumstances, but it underlines the significance of personal responsibility in the decisions that we make about the manner of our living — and our dying.
NICHOLAS SAGOVSKY
4 Holburn Village
Northumberland TD15 2UJ
Matters requiring attention after the recent riots
From the Revd Daniel Njugana
Sir, — Allow me to advance Paul Vallely’s argument that to prevent more riots, poverty must be tackled (Comment, 30 August).
He suggests that the brazen racism in the recent riots is because of “many ordinary white Britons who now feel so profoundly alienated and even unsafe in their country that they seek out scapegoats”. I posit that racial equality is fundamental to inclusion and securing long-term peace in our socially and culturally diverse communities.
Furthermore, his reference to the report from the Social Mobility Commission, in which he says that “unlike poor people with Chinese and Indian backgrounds [the white British poor] lack the educational attainment which is the key to upward mobility”, obscures the fact that UK ethnic minorities are disproportionally affected by poverty. The Covid-19 pandemic shone a light on this reality for all — even those unschooled in matters of racial inequality — to see.
Therefore, responding to the new geographies of poverty and marginalisation under a global urban hegemony will require the turbo-charging of educational attainment for all in communities of the urban British poor, and paying attention to their cultural and social dynamics.
DANIEL NJUGUNA
8 Bawdsey Road
Amesbury, Salisbury
Wiltshire SP4 7LW
Lack of clergy support in a volunteer’s experience
Sir, — I have just spent 14 years “volunteering” for the Church (Comment, 13 September), having been called by God to carry out work in the council estate in our parish, including work in four primary schools and with the older people on the estate, besides running a Messy Church-type activity until about four years ago. My experience is that people stop volunteering because of the lack of support and interest by the clergy.
When I started, I swapped my job to do the unpaid work, but I asked that I be treated the same as a paid worker, with the same level of support. I felt that this would not just be good for me, but would also provide some accountability for what I would be doing in the name of God and the church. That happened for a while, but of course, clergy change, and there is no continuity; so I have spent at least the past seven years totally unsupported. My experience is that lay people are not valued in their ministries: you have to have a clerical collar or be paid to be taken seriously.
My husband is now a churchwarden for the third time, and I have never known him so taken for granted and left out of the loop as at present. I am not sure whether this is a deficiency in the training of the clergy, but I also feel that those in charge of the diocese are also totally out of touch with those of us in the pews; so perhaps it is not surprising. Yes, it is true that we, who are now retired (as of this year), do have more childcare demands, and so may have less time, but, while I have given up the schools work and Messy Church, I might have continued doing at least some of that work in schools had we been able to work together as a team.
The comment from one member of the clergy that he doesn’t have time to build a team in relation to the Messy Church says it all. We seem to have lost the model that Jesus showed us when he called and nurtured his close disciples and a wider group, as well. Until we get back to that model that Jesus gave us, then, I’m afraid, we “volunteers” will get disheartened and go where we are more valued.
I am still doing the work with the older people and the odd school assembly, but that is because God has called me. As a result of the lack of support, I was totally burnt out earlier this year, and so have had to cut down, but my heart is still for the ministry that God has called me to on our estate. I just wish that someone in authority would show some interest in the work and possibly even in me as a person. I find secular institutions to be much more caring and clued up; so what’s wrong with the Church that it can’t do it, too?
NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
Fuelling of indignation
Sir, — As a pensioner whose ability to keep both warm and fed this winter will not be compromised by this Government’s decision to stop paying the winter fuel allowance to all pensioners, I do not think that I should take sides on the matter: but whereas the Bishops of Southwark and Sheffield have opposed the measure in the House of Lords (News, 13 September), I cannot help asking, Where are the episcopal big hitters, +Cantuar:, +Ebor: and +Londin:? If this restriction had been proposed by a Tory and not a Labour Government, their opposition to it would surely have been all over the front pages of Andrew Brown’s favourite newspapers.
NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
‘Hell’ vicar and what the science involves
From Dr Christopher Shell
Sir, — Your correspondent (“Vicar raises hell in disagreeing over sexuality”, 30 August) speaks of “accepting the science”, which is “clear”. The first thing one notices in this area is the multiplicity of sub-topics, each of which has its own nuanced statistical findings. These can be conveniently divided into causation (the “Born this way?” question) and subsequent correlations; the reference to “science” makes me think that s/he is referring to the former.
Under the causation heading, as I found when researching the topic, a student would need to look into all or some of the following: animal behaviour more broadly; hormone levels and their physical manifestations; identical-twin studies; the effect of family stability-level; that of same-sex parenting; that of unwelcome formative sexual experience; pregnancy and impregnation rates among the same-sex-attracted; the extent to which adolescence temporarily destabilises, and fluidity of sexual orientation within a lifetime; the effect of one’s native culture (norms promulgated in schools and media), and of urban and university environments.
CHRISTOPHER SHELL
7 Markway
Sunbury TW16 5NS
Making connections between the Taliban and a precentorship
From the Revd Martine Oborne
Sir, — When will the Church of England appoint a Head of Justice for Women alongside its Head of Racial Justice — a much-needed post, given the oppression and violence against women and girls which pervades our world?
The Taliban prohibits girls’ attending school and university and has barred women from most jobs. It has banned women from going to gyms, hairdressers, and public parks. It makes shopping trips, eating out, even buying a coffee, illegal for women — unless they cover their bodies fully and have a male chaperone. Last month, it banned women from singing and speaking in public.
But it is hard for the Church of England to be authentic in protesting against all this, when we still use exemptions under the Equality Act 2010 ourselves to go on discriminating against women in our own country. At the moment, a post for Precentor is being advertised for Birmingham Cathedral — but the application form requires that you assent to the discrimination in the Five Guiding Principles in order to be considered.
It is surely time for this sort of thing to end: for the Church to start treating women and men equally, and for us all to speak up for women in other parts of our world.
MARTINE OBORNE
Chair of Women and the Church (WATCH)
Address supplied
Isaac Watts, with a little help from his friends
From Mr Don Manley
Sir, — Recent reflections in Poet’s Corner on Isaac Watts (6 September) reminded me of a Good Friday service in Oxford many years ago. I mentioned to an elderly member of the congregation that I didn’t like the way in which original words were replaced in hymns by new ones for no good reason. Surely “an offering” far too small was metrically superior to “a present”. He responded sceptically, and, when we next met, he explained that he had looked up his dictionary of hymnology, which revealed “offering” as the much newer version. Watts had written “present”.
From this I learned three lessons: (1) beware: Oxford has all kinds of knowledgeable people; (2) the “obvious truth” may not be the truth; and (3) even the greatest writers can sometimes benefit from a good editor. Thank you to George!
DON MANLEY
26 Hayward Road
Oxford OX2 8LW