HOW many churches can a stipendiary priest cope with? And how do you justify that figure?
Taking over as area dean during a period of pastoral reorganisation, I was Googling anything that modelled benefice size and the stipendiary needs of a benefice. I found very little, though perhaps I didn’t look hard enough. Comments from others were mostly helpful, but included “We leave it to God,” and “We just try to organise it without anyone getting too angry.”
But, when funds are insufficient to pay the total deanery share, and the extraordinary contribution made by self-supporting ministers (SSMs), clergy with permission to officiate (PTOs), and Readers/licensed lay ministers (LLMs) is on an age-related downward trajectory, how do you plan now — and also make it future-proof?
Newport deanery is just north of Milton Keynes, which recently became a city, with plans to double its population in the next few years. The 23-church deanery is bisected north-south by the M1 (including Newport Pagnell Services) and also by the flood plain of the Great Ouse. Tiny Buckinghamshire villages with 13th-century churches can suddenly find adjacent farms turning into housing for 15,000. We do not want to close churches, which may become the spiritual heart of larger communities in the coming decades.
We needed a simple model that used easily accessible data to do two things: first, to describe the basic workload of a stipendiary parish priest, so that we could plan the benefices and staffing; and, second, to introduce flexibility to cope with growing or shrinking congregations, which would help to future-proof our planning.
INEVITABLY, finances are crucial, but are not the driver. If the base model could be justified by workload, then next year’s budget would have some rational underpinning to it, albeit amended by church-treasurer discussions. Model simplicity would be a definite plus. Yes, there is a formula, but one that, easily described to a deanery synod, is clearly fair.
We narrowed down the many possible variables to three that, between them, described much of what was going on. While the number of PTOs, Readers, and SSMs, the deprivation index, Sunday-worship numbers, share contribution, and other matters were important, their inclusion did not improve the model significantly. The three variables are: (A) number of churches in benefice; (B) benefice population; and (C) electoral-roll numbers.
(A) is obviously a factor in workload. (B) drives the number of occasional offices, pastoral care, and civic-representation events. And (C) must be (though not always) an indicator of the life of each church.
Modelling this, using multiple regression analysis, with data from other deaneries, we obtained these results (rounded):
- 1/100th of a stipendiary priest for every four on the benefice electoral rolls;
- 1/100th of a stipendiary priest for every 400 in the benefice population; and
- 1/12th of a stipendiary priest for each church in the benefice.
It was a delightful surprise to realise that this worked as a model not only in the test deaneries, but also in England as a whole. Using the 2022 statistics, with a population of 57.7 million, 16,000 churches, and electoral rolls of 870,000, it gives 4950 parish-based stipendiary posts. The actual number of stipendiaries in parishes, excluding curates (1372) and associate ministers (245), was 4979.
In the deanery synod, it was pointed out that 1/100th of a priest might just be one big toenail. Nevertheless, the model proved acceptable, because it was clear and intuitive and worked with external data. Of course, deaneries and benefices are all different, as are parishes, each with specific needs; but we were seeking not perfection, but just a reasonable and justifiable starting point. The results were as above (benefice names are pseudonymised).
Variation from the base values in the test deaneries came in many forms. Some stipendiary priests with small populations were immovable; others were also school chaplains; and some had self-supporting ministers or appointed house-for-duty clergy working with them.
These were elements that needed differing degrees of human input over and above the basic model. With a fairly broad brush, however, it worked, and gave a future plan for us; it also provided an indicator of the workload for every church — not driven by finance.
SO, EACH benefice had a base number for stipendiary appointment. Note, for example, that Holyclose did not quite make it to 1.0, but needed rounding up. So, our base figures are: Wattletine: 0.5; Holyclose: 1.0; Norton X: 1.0; LIGHT: 1.5; Evertham: 1.2; and Whisun (which is actually Evertham in three years’ time): 1.5. Any variation on those base figures was then up to each benefice, and has to be financially secure.
Finally, if you are an incumbent reading this, just maybe you have done the calculation for your benefice. The model says that I should not be full-time (1.0), but 0.67; but I suppose it gives me space to be area dean, lead on the pastoral reorganisation, and write an article for the Church Times. Meanwhile, two other priests in our deanery have benefices requiring 1.25. That imbalance, along with share issues, is the original reason for pastoral reorganisation.
Does it work in big city parishes? I don’t know. Has someone done this before and I’ve not found it? Maybe. So, feedback would be helpful: rev.adrian.low@gmail.com.
The Revd Adrian Low is the Area Dean of Newport and Priest-in-Charge of the LAMP group of parishes, in Oxford diocese. He is Emeritus Professor of Computer Education at Staffordshire University.