A NETWORK of churches in Southend, in Essex, is to receive a share of the £1.6 million awarded to the diocese of Chelmsford by the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board (SMMIB).
The award is described by the diocese as supporting “the first stage in a missional plan to grow mission in its Bradwell episcopal area, starting with a plan for Southend”. A further £3.6 million has been agreed in principle, and the Area plans to submit a further bid of up to £7.8 million, focusing on Basildon and Thurrock, described as “two areas with significant and growing populations and historic under-investment in its churches”.
The “revitalisation” at St Andrew’s, Westcliff, is the fourth in Southend in recent years. In 2018, with some support from national Strategic Development Funding (SDF), a group of church-planters from St Michael and All Angels, Westcliff, an Evangelical church, planted a new congregation into St John’s in the heart of Southend, the most deprived parish in the diocese and one of the most deprived in the country (News, 25 January 2019). The latest annual report from the SMMIB said that average weekly attendance had since grown from 41 to 190, and that a quarter of that number were new to church.
In 2022, St John’s revitalised Christ Church, Southend, and in November a team led by the Revd Linda Saville, a self-supporting minister (SSM) serving as a pioneer curate, planted a congregation at St Andrew’s, Westcliff.
The SDF-backed 2019 plans included the creation of a plant at St Mark’s, Southend, led by a team from an Anglo-Catholic church, St Clement’s, Leigh-on-Sea. The SSM at St Mark’s is supported by the Vicar of St Alban’s, Westcliff, and St Mark’s, the Revd Neil Dalley, who has pioneered a partnership with the local LGBTQ+ community and developed work with children and local families with strong connections around art and music.
The parish appointed an LGBTQ+ chaplain, the Revd Sam Mackie, last year. The new grant will fund a Bishop’s Mission Order “to support churches across Southend in welcoming people from this community and creating safe places for them to explore faith”.
The award follows a grant of £14.95 million from the SMMIB for the diocese’s “Believing in Barking” plan, announced last year (News, 11 April 2025). It comes against a challenging financial backdrop.
The General Fund reserves stand at £4.5 million — below the Board’s target level of £5.3 million. The diocese has said that a “sustained improvement” in parish share contributions will be required if it is to maintain ministry “at broadly current levels”.
Also announced by the SMMIB is investment of £420,000 in the Estates Evangelism Task Group (EETG) to aid the gathering of those working in estates mission by region to share what they have learned and £180,000 for Church Army to enable more people to access its “Envoy” evangelism resource, with a focus on low-income communities..
A paper on the Archbishops’ Council’s 2027 budget, provided for the meeting of the General Synod this month, said that diocesan demand for Diocesan Investment Programme grants from the SMMIB “may exceed the available funding”.
Separately, a report from the National Funding for Diocesan Ministry Review listed as an emerging theme “a shared recognition that many of the challenges facing the Church, including clergy numbers, diocesan deficits and parish viability, cannot be meaningfully addressed within short-term funding cycles”.
The report continued: “Questions around clergy sustainability, lay leadership capacity, and the pressures on parishes — especially in rural and lowest income contexts — have highlighted the need to ground future approaches firmly in the realities of frontline ministry.”