Deanery Strategic Plan

From The Marlborough Deanery

Marlborough Deanery Plan Revision 7.5.1 January 2008

Foreword

This document is the culmination of efforts to create a Strategic Plan for the support of the sixteen parishes in the four benefices that make up the Marlborough Deanery in the Diocese of Salisbury. Revision 7 has been written in response to PCC input to Revision 6 of the plan distributed to the parishes in September 2008. The Deanery Synod required that a revision to be completed before Christmas 2008 and Revision 7 was the result. The authors have tried to accommodate as much as they can in terms of comments received from the PCCs prior to 20th December 2008. This particular document, Revision 7 Version 5 contains minor corrections to Revision 7 Version 4 previously circulated and was approved by the Deanery Standing Committee meeting on 12th January 2009.

This revision is an extensive rewrite of the Revision 6 that seeks to clarify the objectives and adds some actions that are required. For brevity, sections of the earlier document that dealt with the background and context of the plan have been removed.

The Plan is a living document and further revisions will be made over time. The basic principles of the Revision 6 have been accepted with certain caveats by the majority of the PCCs who commented, the current stipendiary clergy within the Deanery and by the Archdeacon. As a consequence and after consultation, the Bishop of Salisbury, the Right Reverend David Stancliffe, has appointed the Reverend Andrew Studdert-Kennedy, Rector of Marlborough, as the next Rural Dean of the Marlborough Deanery and he was commissioned on 13th January 2009. At the same time the Archdeacon indicated that all clergy and lay ministers would from henceforth be authorised to work across the four Benefices of the Deanery. All future appointments will also be licensed both to Benefice and Deanery.

The plan expects that the newly appointed Rural Dean will be able to spend some 1-2 days per week on his new duties. Because of the current vacancies in the Whitton Benefice and because the additional resources, in the form of non-stipendiary assistance, required to fill the gaps in his role as Rector of Marlborough are not expected to become available until the latter part of 2009, it is expected that it will be up to a year before Andrew will be able to dedicate this amount of time to his new role. In addition to discussions at the Deanery Synod, which will be the primary body which will oversee the implementation of the Strategic Plan, should any PCC want further clarification of the aims and intentions, or want to discuss how in particular the plan may help the Church within their own parish, please feel free to contact me. I am happy to make myself available to attend PCC and Team meetings when possible.

Richard Irwin Lay-Chairman Marlborough Deanery Synod January 2009

Aim

Simply put, our vision is one where fragmentation is replaced by consolidation, where contraction is replaced by expansion and where the work of God can again be made to play a central role in our communities.

The aim and objective of this document is to provide a strategic overview of how this might be achieved. The tactical implementation of this strategy will be lead by the Rural Dean through the activities of the Clergy Chapter, ordained and lay, the Deanery Synod, the Parochial Parish Councils and the parishioners who are at the heart of our communities and for whose spiritual benefit and pastoral care the Church exists.

We will know we have succeeded if all our churches remain open and our congregations grow.

Metrics

The success of any strategy can only be measured on results and we aim to establish metrics by which success can be measured by trends over time. These may include:

• Numbers of churches that have weekly services;
• Numbers of attendees at church services and other forms of worship;
• Numbers on the each Parochial Electoral roll;
• Numbers of both lay ministers and ordained clergy that assist at worship;
• Numbers of lay volunteers involved in taking worship;
• Numbers of children taking communion;
• Number of children being confirmed;
• Number of people entering vocations.

It is expected that it will take some 2 – 3 years to establish meaningful trends, but feedback from the PCCs will always be welcome at any time.

Actions required:

1. Deanery Synod to agree metrics and synod members to establish who within each parish should be responsible for collecting and sending the figures to the Rural Dean.
2. A spreadsheet will need to be designed for collating the data and representing it in a meaningful way.

The Parish, The Benefice and The Deanery

The Parish is at the very centre of the Church’s identity, particularly in rural areas. The combination of several parishes into a Benefice has been, with the decline in the number of stipendiary clergy, a practical necessity for managing resources locally, and is now accepted as such. However, experience shows that both Benefice and the Deanery are lower in most people’s priorities that the Parish. For this reason the importance of servicing the needs of the Parish remains central to our strategy as to weaken the Parish would most likely result in decline.

However, the traditional method of licensing clergy to one Benefice has had some serious shortcomings over the years that need to be addressed. The strategy is to address these issues through licensing clergy to both the Benefice and the Deanery. Issues include:

• In the past the isolation of clergy within their incumbency without sufficient support has lead to illness and resignations. Through the establishment of a collegiate system in the form of the Clergy Chapter, incumbents can rely on the support of their colleagues from across the Deanery, issues can be dealt with and new opportunities for the expression of God’s work can be shared.
• Where there is a single incumbent the demands of having several parishes have in the past lead to parishes not enjoying the benefit of weekly services and the threat of Church closure is one that some parishes have seen as inevitable. By sharing the demand for services across a larger pool of people it has been shown that churches in even small communities can be brought back into regular use. By not having boundaries between the benefices, lay ministers, non-stipendiary and retired clergy and other volunteers are able to fill the gaps. It is not enough, however, to have a roving band of players as the Parishes feel the need for some consistency and would like to see their church representatives regularly both during services and at other church related events, such as fêtes and concerts.
• Prior to cross-Deanery Licensing, clergy and lay ministers were required to follow bureaucratic procedures to minister in another benefice. The choice of a parishioner to ask clergy, for example a friend to participate in a wedding or a funeral in another benefice, was difficult and awkward to achieve. By introducing licensing at both Benefice and Deanery levels these restrictions and the bureaucracy is removed.
• Traditionally if a Parish wanted more resources from the Clergy they would only have their busy incumbent to call upon. Concurrent with the establishment of the Clergy Chapter will be the appointment of a Chapter Clerk whose duties will be to help find the resources needed to help the Parishes from across the Deanery with the needs for worship within each Parish. We expect the PCCs to become both more proactive in determining what sort of worship is best for their parishes and for more lay involvement in its organisation and delivery. We would ask that each PCC should work with their incumbents to consider the forms of worship that will most likely help to build congregations within their parish and, where numbers have been in decline, to consider possible alternative forms of worship if those currently practiced no longer serve the needs of the community.

There are other advantages to having a more active Deanery:

• It is envisaged is that where there is unnecessary duplication of effort across the parishes tasks can be done once and not many times. We will seek to reduce bureaucracy not increase it.
• Through a proactive Clergy College and Deanery Synod all parishes can share and benefit from the best practices that can be learned from one another. For example: Welcome Packs for new parishioners and fund raising tips.
• By working together larger events of a higher quality that attract more people can be organised. This is already happening at the Benefice level where parishes come together to put on concerts and even opera that attract people from afar.
• There have been indications from the Diocese that, with adoption of the Deanery Plan, additional specialist resources can be employed by the Deanery without increasing parish share and we will be seeking feedback from the PCCs as to what sort of specialist, such as a youth worker, for example, might most benefit us.
• A new web site (http://www.marlboroughdeanery.org) is being established to provide news, create discussion and disseminate event information across the Deanery.

All ministers, ordained and lay, will continue to be licensed to a benefice, recognising their primary role and loyalty. To symbolise the fact that the Deanery has to operate as a mutually supporting unit and with the recognition of that specialist skills might be made available to other benefices, they will also be licensed to the Deanery as a whole.

Actions required:

1. Appointment of Chapter Clerk
2. Compilation of a register of available human resources, their skills and specialities and availability to the Parishes.
3. Campaign to find and train additional people to help organise and take worship across the Deanery.
4. A process will need to be established for PCCs to make requests of the Chapter Clerk for people to lead worship and for such requests to be fulfilled.
5. The PCCs will be requested to submit ‘best practice’ ideas to the Deanery Synod through their representatives in order that they can be shared.
6. Each PCC will be asked to appoint a volunteer who will take responsibility for keeping the parish information on the web site up to date.

The Role of the Rural Dean

Because Marlborough is the geographical centre of the Deanery it was deemed logical, for the time being, to make the town the seat of the Rural Dean.

The Rural Dean is the person who will draw things together to ensure that the strategy is turned into action. He will be measured by its success. As history has sadly taught us, it is not a job that can be done in odd moments. The role needs time allocated to it and currently it is anticipated that, to be effective, the Rural Dean will need 1 – 2 days per week to fulfil their duties.

The principle duties of the Rural Dean include:

• Leadership of the Clergy Chapter through encouraging regular meetings of the chapter for nurture, support, encouragement and to provide pastoral care and support of clergy and families.
• Development of the Chapter, recognising and encouraging the gifts and skills of lay ministers and encouraging the sharing of good practice and the judicious deployment of all ministry across the Deanery.
• Co-ordinating the life and mission of the Deanery and providing a larger voice with secular agencies.
• Providing a focus of unity in the Deanery by encouraging parishes to see themselves as part of the Deanery, drawing churches together in shared worship and education opportunities and making regular visits to churches in the Deanery.

The Bishop has appointed Rev. Andrew Studdert-Kennedy to the role and in order to allow him also to fulfil the role as the Rector of Marlborough additional resource has been found to help him with his spiritual and pastoral duties in the form of a non-stipendiary priest, Rev. David Maurice. He will also be supported by a Chapter Clerk and by the administrative staff in the Marlborough Office. Because of David’s current commitments, it is not envisaged that Andrew will be able to commit his time fully to the combined role until at least the autumn of 2009.

Aspirations

Revision 6 of the Strategic Plan included a list of other ways in which the reorganisation could offer opportunities that could benefit the Church in every parish. These are aspirations which we hope the Parishes will support. We hope through the forum of the Deanery Synod to receive further input from the Parishes as to where the Deanery might help and to prioritise what is most important.

• A principal task of the Rural Dean will be to revitalise Chapter as the driving force behind ministry in the whole Deanery, the Parishes should see better support for their clergy and a richer opportunity for worship and pastoral care.
• Where individuals have special ministerial skills they can be shared between the parishes, for example working with the bereaved or working with children.
• The Deanery should operate as a centralised unit in the management of much of the burden of bureaucracy and administration such child protection, using standard declarations by Parishes rather than having sixteen people and sixteen PCCs repeat the same process.
• The Deanery could become a focus for work with children and young people and the disabled and additional resources may be made available for such work at Deanery level without impact on Parish Share.
• The Deanery might organise at least two services a year at which Parish choirs might be invited to join in singing new settings, to take back to their own Parishes: such services could also be used to demonstrate new or less familiar forms of worship.
• There may be opportunities for joint fundraising and ideas would be welcomed.
• Templates for Welcome Packs could be created and shared so that Parishes could easily adapt them in order to welcome new parishioners to the Church in their community. A volunteer will be needed to co-ordinate this.
• The Deanery will seek to establish a policy on accepting children for communion before confirmation (in order to involve them more in the family of the Church) to enabled parishes to introduce this if desired. This will be discussed at Deanery Synod.
• The Deanery will seek to establish a policy on Communion by Extension for those parishes who believe this may be beneficial to them. This will be discussed at Deanery Synod.
• The Deanery’s training role for Lay Ministry could be extended. The merits of joint training for confirmation could be recognised, particularly for adults; the same could be considered for Marriage preparation.
• Best practice could be shared, throughout Chapter, on liturgy and the involvement of lay people in leading worship;
• The Church’s Fresh Expressions initiative which aims to resource mission through encouraging new and different expressions of Church life is likely to be an indispensable part of the future life of God’s Church. The initiative by its nature is not parish focussed, so the Deanery might well prove a more suitable source for encouraging and sustaining it.
• Deanery Synod will be a more vital place because the Deanery will have things to do: apart from its responsibility for policy within the Deanery it could be a forum for discussing issues of general interest to the Church, which cannot be done realistically at Benefice or Parish level.

What Will It Cost?

Additional costs are limited with the appointment of the Rural Dean not requiring additional funding from Parish Share. As intimated above additional resources in the form of a specialist may also be made available by the Diocese, but discussions will need to be held as to what the Deanery’s priorities would be when deciding the nature and duties of such a specialist. Parishes may be asked from time to time to contribute to shared administrative expenses if they are beneficiaries of such services. Any such expenditure would be put in the form of a budget to Deanery Synod for approval by PCCs.

The development and hosting of the new web site is being provided gratis.

Timetable

• 11thFebruary 2009 - Next Deanery Synod Meeting.
• 1st June – Target date for launch of MarlboroughDeanery.org web site (for those who hate typing a shorter Mdeanery.org address can be also used.)
• 1st October 2009 – Rural Dean will commence full duties allocating 1 – 2 days each week to the role.

Staffing Levels

At the meeting of the Deanery Pastoral Committee on 1st March 2009 the issue of the deployment of resources to meet the required reduction in stipendiary posts by one within the Deanery by 2016 was discussed. The following was resolved:

1. That because of the central position of the town and the resources available, Marlborough should be the home of the Rural Dean.
2. That Ridgeway and Upper Kennet Benefices should retain their current single stipendiary posts.
3. That the Whitton Benefice should, in addition to the Team Rector, for the next five years, maintain a second stipendiary position of Team Vicar/Deanery Mission Officer.
4. That amongst of the duties of the Whitton Team Vicar/Deanery Mission Officer might be the following:

           a. To prepare the Whitton Benefice for the move from Stipendiary to House for Duty position at the termination of the Vicar’s Tenure;
           b. To work with the other Benefices in the Deanery to find and encourage people with vocations to become either clergy or lay workers within their parishes;
          c. To look for a solution for resourcing the Upper Kennet Benefice on at the end of the term for the current team;
          d. To look to find additional resource for the Ridgeway Benefice as retired clergy and lay ministers reduce their involvement.

1. That when the current Vicar of Preshute retires the second stipendiary post for Whitton is transferred to Marlborough and, depending upon the circumstances at the time, possibly replaced in Whitton by a part-time, non-stipendiary House for Duty Team Vicar.
2. That the Deanery Synod discusses the most suitable role for a Deanery Lay post that finances will allow for once the second stipendiary position at Whitton is replaced.