The Bridges Group

PARISH PROFILE

Self-supporting or House for Duty Associate Ministers (x2)

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BISHOP’S INTRODUCTION

The Bridges Group is a group of rural in beautiful . They face the usual challenges and very real opportunities of many multi- benefices and they have an imaginative way of approaching them. Their Self-supporting OLM (Gillian Roberts) has just been appointed as the new Priest-in-Charge, and they are advertising for two Self-Supporting or House for Duty Priests to make up the ordained team. These two posts are posts with a difference – different from the norm, and different from each other.

Both posts will have creativity and commitment at their heart. One will prioritise the development of mission and ministry in new forms of church, and the other will prioritise development of mission and ministry in more traditional (including BCP) contexts. Our hope is that this will play to candidates’ particular gifts, skills and strengths across the benefice, rather than everyone trying to be good at everything.

The Diocese of has just conducted a Diocesan-wide consultation on rural ministry and I am really encouraged by the number of our rural benefices picking up the challenge to adapt and change for more effective ministry and mission in the 21st century. The Bridges Group are to be commended for their thinking in this process, and for their creative approach to ministry within their particular context.

I commend these posts to you and will be following progress with great interest.

With my prayers

Page 2 of 28 SUMMARY

Southam deanery is the smallest deanery in the Coventry diocese, currently made up of 18 parishes within a six mile radius of the market town of .

As a deanery we have a strong focus on mission and collaborative ministry. We have a deanery mission team that organizes evangelistic events under the national Hope banner, who provide high quality occasions where we can confidently invite friends who are exploring Christian faith.

There are a number of deanery Christian exploration and nurture courses which continue to be run, including Just Looking, Alpha, Discipleship Explored, Lost for Words, and currently Table Talk. We have also streamed lectures from the School of Theology based at in , which have been both well-received and stretching! We use one of our local pubs for many of these courses.

We have a small but dedicated deanery prayer meeting in the heart of the deanery (Kingdom Come), where people gather from across the deanery to pray for the work of God in our parishes and our deanery focus.

With only a small number of in the deanery, we try to work together, especially with mission and training, and new clergy appointments to the deanery would be encouraged to add their gifts to this creative mix. As a clergy team, we would not be able to function without strong lay teams around us, and we are looking for ways to develop and strengthen these teams both within individual parishes and deanery-wide. We are also experiencing huge changes with new housing developments in a number of villages and Southam town itself, so working together and supporting each other, as well as developing new leaders and exciting new ideas for growth, will become even more important.

As a deanery, we have often come up with forward-thinking plans, as the plans for the innovative way of approaching Associate Ministers in the Bridges Group show, and so we think we are a creative and stimulating deanery to be a part of!

The Reverend Martin Green Area Dean, Southam Deanery

Page 3 of 28 BACKGROUND TO POST

The Bridges Group is a group of rural parishes in beautiful Warwickshire. We are facing the usual challenges of many multi-parish benefices, though would like to think we have a creative way of moving forward, which would interest priests seeking the opportunity to develop more pioneering expressions of church in a rural context.

The group of 6 parishes, each with their own PCC, was formed by amalgamating two groups of three in 2009. The Priest-in-Charge of Napton, Stockton and Shuckburgh took on the additional responsibility for the parishes of , and Wormleighton, and for combining these six churches into a Group (The Bridges Group). The name ‘Bridges’ was chosen because along the line of the Grand Union and Oxford canals, along which all of the parishes lie, there are over 30 traditional hump-back bridges.

There has been some progress in working together, but if we are honest this has not permeated down to a structural level, and the churches still very much have their own identity. Some are faring better than others.

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With the changing of the parish share system about 5 years ago whereby parishes are now expected to pay for the ministry they receive, and are responsible for their deployment decisions, questions started to be asked about the viability of the group financially, and also whether one full-time post was the most appropriate and effective way of delivering ministry across the Group anyway.

On the retirement of Rev Michael Greig in 2013, it was decided therefore to give ministry responsibility for the Group on a short-term basis to Rev Bob Clucas, who was already working part-time within the Group, whilst the Deanery and parishes gave some thought to the most appropriate and financially sound way forward. Living outside of the group, Bob worked on a 67% time-basis, sharing pastoral and service-taking duties with the then newly- ordained and self-supporting minister Rev Gillian Roberts, who is based in the village of Stockton but ministers across the group, and with Peter Jackson, a long serving Reader based in Priors Marston providing further support.

In January 2016 it was agreed to allow Gillian the opportunity to lead the parishes during the interregnum with a view to being considered for the Priest-in-Charge role. This period has gone very well and she became the next Priest-in-Charge of the group in December 2016, as a Self-supporting Priest living in her own accommodation in Stockton.

We have two vicarages in the Group (linked to the original 2 groups of 3 parishes). There are some new forms of church emerging across the group (mainly in Napton and Stockton), and positive responses to more traditional services in the other group of 3. We would like therefore to create a two-fold role with two self-supporting or House for Duty priests. One would be based in the vicarage in Napton, and would have a particular (but not exclusive) remit to oversee development of newer expressions of church in the Group (eg Messy Church, café church, and whatever else may be appropriate and accessible for people who do not find traditional church accessible currently). This will include an emphasis on reaching families, youth and children.

The other post (also self-supporting or House for Duty) would be based in Priors Marston, and have a priority on the more traditional styles of service across the group. Both priests would share in pastoral and evangelistic ministry across the group, along with the Priest-in- Charge and the Reader.

As part of working together we have created a ‘Group Committee’ of churchwardens and other key leaders, which takes decisions which affect the whole Group, whilst the individual parishes focus on their own local church-related activities. Decisions taken at the Group level still take into account as far as possible the individual and differing needs of the member churches of the group, particularly in terms of their choice of services. There is a good spirit of cooperation at the Group level, from committee members who for the most part believe in the need to lift our heads up from purely parochial attitudes, especially those with focus on buildings rather than spirituality.

We are particularly conscious of the under-representation of people in the 20s-50 age group in our congregations, and hence why we would welcome a priest with experience of attracting this age range in a rural context.

Page 5 of 28 ROLE SPECIFICATION

The role of these posts is to lead the churches in fulfilling the Diocesan Mission Purpose of:

 Worshipping God  Making New Disciples  Transforming Communities.

This will be achieved by developing 8 essential qualities in the life of the churches (see further http://www.dioceseofcoventry.org/healthychurches):

 Empowering Leadership  Gift-oriented Ministry  Passionate Spirituality  Inspiring Worship  Holistic Small Groups  Need-oriented Outreach/Evangelism  Loving Relationships  Functional/Effective Structures

PERSON SPECIFICATION

We would welcome applications from priests who:

 Love Jesus Christ and model Christian discipleship.

 Have the ability to motivate, inspire and lead people to Christian faith, discipleship and leadership who live within a diverse group of villages. Part of this challenge will be:  The ability to inspire and motivate an older generation of church-goers from a ‘traditional rural spirituality’ into more intentional discipleship of Jesus Christ.  The ability to respect and be respected by people with significant levels of influence, and those with senior responsibility in the secular work-place.  The ability to create new forms of mission and services which will be attractive to existing and incoming generations of villagers in the Group, whilst still valuing and contributing to the more traditional approaches.

 Understand the importance of making relational connections in rural communities and loves to be out and about with intent and time to initiate pleasant conversations with people, whoever and wherever they are.

 Have a passion for pioneering work with the schools, children and young families across the Group.

 Respect and value those who prefer more traditional and BCP styles of service. The more traditional role will prioritise (though not exclusively) help in developing outreach, discipleship and inspiring worship approaches appropriate to these traditions across the Group.

Page 6 of 28 THE BRIDGES GROUP IN RELATION TO THE 8 QUALITIES OF HEALTHY GROWING CHURCHES

Empowering Leadership

The churches in the Group, and the people in the villages, still unfortunately have a traditional expectation that it is ‘the vicar’ who should be doing things.

In the past few years, we have seen two members of our congregations selected, trained and ordained for ministry. One has since moved out of the group for her curacy, the other is now the Priest-in-Charge of the Group.

We have seen people grow in their confidence as leaders of home groups, children’s clubs and in leading Sunday services. However, overall, there has not been a sustained effort to identify, train, and empower lay people into roles currently undertaken by clergy, with Messy Church and cafe church, although having lay involvement, still have significant clergy input.

Stockton – Messy Church PM – Sunday School– Tower of Babel

The new Self-supporting/HfD priests will have a key role in helping us develop new initiatives and training laity to lead and help us to deliver them. They will be involved in creating a major culture shift in attitude to the value of lay people in ministry.

Gift-Oriented Ministry

Tied in with the lack of training for laity in leadership is the lack of intentionality in identifying and releasing people’s gifts and skills. In small congregations, the attitude has been, ‘Everyone help out wherever they can, in order to get the necessary jobs done’. We realise however that this is not a particularly attractive proposition for ministry, is unlikely to attract newcomers, and is very ‘church’ focused.

Page 7 of 28 We have run the Willow Creek “Network” course to help individuals identify their unique God-given gifts and skills so they can be better matched to what they do – both within and outside the church community – helping them to be better motivated and therefore more effective. It will be important for us to build on the findings of this course in individual’s lives and ministry.

Passionate Spirituality

‘Rural spirituality’ has a unique character. It is very different to that of eclectic urban and suburban contexts. We are fortunate to live in an area of uplifting and diverse natural beauty, and for many, whether they attend church or not, there is great awareness of God in our surroundings, in creation and in the seasons and the cycle of life. Linked with this is the importance of occasional offices and special festivals, including harvest and rogation, and carol services, as the well attended annual Young Farmers Club Carol service held in the small village of Wormleighton shows.

We try to use occasions such as Lent, Holy Week and Advent to encourage people to experience different styles of spirituality – some with more success than others. Two of the parishes have weekly prayer meetings for the needs of the community. They use the Ffald-y- Brenin pattern of prayer. There is also a monthly prayer breakfast for the Priors group which is very well supported. All the home groups have an extended time of prayer, with individuals becoming increasingly comfortable with this. There is also a rota of people being willing to lead intercessions on Sundays in church.

We do need help however in moving from ‘rural spirituality’ to a ‘passionate spirituality’, centred on the fullness of discipleship of Jesus Christ.

Inspiring Worship

We had positive results for inspiring worship in our NCD survey. We have tried to satisfy congregational preferences in providing both traditional and more contemporary styles. We have found that trying to force any one style of service upon a congregation that has preference for a different style has tended to be self-defeating.

We acknowledge that the more modern services seem to be generally more acceptable with people who are younger or who are not as familiar with church, but the majority of parish congregations still prefer a more traditional style, and BCP is still very much valued in some congregations. In most churches the singing of traditional hymns is much enjoyed.

This desire to meet the needs of traditional and more contemporary styles is one of the reasons we are seeking two Self-supporting or House for Duty priests to serve the Group, as we believe it is more likely that two people will be able to fulfil these different styles with integrity better than one. One will take primary responsibility for the newer expressions of church, and the other will take primary responsibility for the more traditional services.

We have a Common Worship based service of Holy Communion at 10.30am in the three larger parishes bi-weekly. We have lay-led, more contemporary services in two of the parishes each month. The leaders of these more contemporary services would value further training, support and encouragement. Messy Church is successfully reaching out to non- churched families, and encouraging families who have recently had children baptised.

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We also held in Napton, a larger parish, an informal service once a month aimed at those in leadership roles across the whole Deanery. This Deanery service was led by a worship group, with a time for fellowship over coffee and cake, open prayer and sharing and an extended time for teaching from guest speakers. The deanery are exploring what this might look like in the future.

We have a small team trained to take home communion to the housebound.

There is some movement between congregation members attending services at other Bridges Group churches, but this is still fairly limited apart from the Group fifth Sunday Gathering services, which move around the parishes.

Holistic Small Groups

We have five home groups currently running across the group (with one temporarily on hold). These have partly grown out of Alpha courses over the years. One group supports ‘mums’, one is ladies only, one is an afternoon group for the more elderly members of the congregation. Some 30 people (of a regular congregation of about 80) come to these groups. They are recognised as being very valuable and are safe spaces for sharing, building relationships, offering an opportunity to pray for each other and reading the Bible in more depth. They are led by lay people who come together as a group every other month for training, encouragement, and sharing of experiences and resources.

Page 9 of 28 Need-Oriented Outreach

Recent local surveys conducted have shown that there is a considerable amount of goodwill towards our local churches, which we are able to build upon and nurture. Most members of our congregations are involved in local organisations/activities in our villages, whether this is schools, WI, or general befriending the lonely and grieving and “good neighbourliness”. The churches try to be a major catalyst in the villages in making them “a good place to live for all”, and not places where people live in isolation or treat their home as a dormitory to which they retire when they are not working, or after a long commute!

There are no areas of acute deprivation as ordinarily understood, but some of the villages do have significant ‘hidden’ deprivation, and a lack of transport, shops, and doctors’ surgeries. As part of serving this we have congregation members offering lifts to hospital appointments, delivering prescriptions from the pharmacies, running the toddlers group, visiting residents of the local nursing homes, prison visiting, and working in the local foodbank.

Napton – Leading the Singing At the Village Store

The villages can however be a little ‘parochial’, so we are also trying to raise awareness of global issues – fair trade, refugees and asylum seekers, food banks, the environment, etc. On the other hand, there are many highly educated residents, who are very well aware of such issues, but don’t perceive local church-related actions as being relevant to the scale or complexity of such matters.

As in many populations, there are significant social divisions which can give rise to an “us and them” attitude. Such divisions may be related to the houses that people live in and in particular to whether they are owner-occupiers or tenants. In some cases the divisions are not necessarily finance related and in Wormleighton, for example, some of the larger houses rented from the Spencer Estate are quite expensive, but their occupiers’ short term stay in the community means for obvious reasons that they may have a minimal motivation to become involved in their local church. In other villages this divide may be evident between those who live in the older stone properties and those living in former or current council houses.

Page 10 of 28 There is a good variety of housing, except in Stockton where there is a large number of former cement workers houses, despite it being in a rural location.

The national trend which is seeing “higher earners” moving into rural areas and leaving urban centres does present a significant opportunity to capture some of the innate vitality that undoubtedly exists amongst these “higher earners”. They are the sort of people who have a “let’s do it” attitude, and it would be good to enthuse them about Christian faith. To succeed in this respect, however, the churches will have to shed our current (in some people’s eyes) rather old-fashioned image and take a new approach, which might appeal to this growing sector of the population. We look to both of the new appointments to help us achieve this.

A significant element of rural ministry is the importance of the occasional offices. We put a lot of effort into being a welcoming, inclusive church, especially in relation to funerals, weddings, and baptisms. We attract extremely large numbers to these events, giving us a valuable opportunity to share the Gospel with the very high proportion (80%) of our local residents who are nominally Christian – much higher than in the country as a whole. However very few of these nominal Christians return to attend normal services, which are still seemingly outside of their comfort zone. Again, we will be looking to the new priests to help us be more effective in this.

We have run courses to encourage people in their faith – either Alpha or similar. Several Alpha courses run nearly fifteen years ago were well attended and brought a small number to faith, but Group village interest in more recent ones organised at Deanery level and held outside the Group villages has been minimal. The Group clergy devised and ran a six week course, with cooked suppers, and called ‘One Life’ in the autumn of 2011. About 30 people came, almost all of whom were existing church members, but it did serve to deepen understanding and commitment. A J. John course, based on the Ten Commandments, attracted less than a dozen people and served mainly to build relationships. There is a need to take a fresh look at which courses and other events might be appropriately used to nurture a deeper spirituality and understanding of discipleship in our context.

The Group is also involved in the Deanery Mission Team which runs discipleship courses across the Deanery. This received Diocesan funding for its Hope 14 Programme, and has continued to run more events and courses in 2016. We also initiated a deanery-wide Marriage Preparation course based on resources from Holy Trinity Brompton. This is now run elsewhere in the Deanery, but all our wedding couples are encouraged to attend.

A school assemblies’ team regularly visits the 3 schools within the Group, and we have successful children’s clubs in both benefices, catering for toddlers to teenagers, run by lay members of the congregations.

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Priors School Service One of our churches has a monthly coffee morning and another has a monthly soup and pudding lunch – both of which bring in many non-churched people and also build relationships.

However, there is no embedded culture in the congregations of making disciples, and in this regard we need to learn HOW to be and to make new disciples. This is pivotal to our future, in a context where the age of many members of our congregations leads them to feel, perhaps not unnaturally, that there would be little benefit in their undergoing training in relation to their Christian beliefs and activities. Providing motivation to such elderly people will be a significant challenge.

Loving Relationships

We think we are a fun, loving community, and the NCD survey results seem to reflect this. Lots of our activities involve cake! The churches hold regular social events such as concerts, meals and quiz nights. We occasionally have whole Group events but these are less well supported. There is still a long way to go in building up the cohesion of the group of two benefices. This is also reflected in a reluctance to attend different churches.

One of the single issue concerns that unite the communities is the opposition to HS2 which will run right through the middle of our parishes.

Page 12 of 28 Functional Structures

We have a pattern of meetings for the Group, which includes PCCs, PCC project sub- committees, Joint Wardens, Small Group Leaders and School Assemblies’ Team.

The PCCs in the larger parishes generally meet on alternate months, with lay chairs for most PCCs. Clergy attendance at PCCs is considered as desirable rather than essential. Modern communications enable decisions at PCC level to be taken without physical meetings which tend to be held less frequently in some parishes, although decisions on major issues are still recorded in the form of meeting minutes.

We have created a ‘Group Committee’ of churchwardens and other key leaders, which takes decisions which affect the whole Group, whilst the individual parishes focus on their own local church-related activities. We have a part-time Group Administrator who works from home. She is responsible for rotas, routine correspondence and filing, the management of the website calendar, the administration for baptisms, weddings and funerals and DBS checks.

There is a weekly team meeting of the clergy and administrator. They are joined every quarter by the wardens, where appropriate, to plan the worship services and the future direction of the Group and its resources.

Discussions have begun about giving the Group Committee greater powers to develop overall strategy, promote identity, cohesion, and a greater sharing of ideas, and resources. We are not yet at the stage of any overall amalgamation of parishes and churches, although this may happen if any of the smaller units should become dysfunctional for reasons of finance or simply because of the lack of a congregation or people capable or willing to run it.

There is a Group bank account to pay expenses, such as clergy travel, the administrator’s salary, photocopying and training resources to which all parishes contribute proportionally to their parish shares.

We would wish our new Priest-in-Charge and Self-supporting/HfD priests to take a leadership and strategic overview. We are not expecting them to be involved in the details of church building care, finance, and administration of the parishes, unless their involvement is really necessary to achieve the strategic goals.

Page 13 of 28 THE PARISHES

History

Each of these six parishes and churches has its own unique history going right back to the time of the introduction of Christianity to this part of South East Warwickshire, bordering on Northamptonshire to the East and Oxfordshire to the South (part of the original Saxon Kingdom of Mercia). Their histories are the foundation for today’s reality, certainly in terms of their church buildings and their dwellings. The livelihoods of the residents are no longer exclusively involved in traditional rural crafts and activities, largely due to the advances in mechanization in farming, which no longer demand large numbers of farm-labourers. However all the parishes are still surrounded by productive farmland.

Initially, after the Norman Conquest, the Bridges Group area was in the hands of great landowners and abbeys mostly from further north such as and Stoneleigh, and in the hands of original Norman families like the De Montforts, Count de Meulen and the Earls of . The Southern part of the group, comprising the parishes of Priors Marston, Priors Hardwick and Wormleighton, is to a significant extent set in lands that were “enclosed” in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Acts of “enclosure” enabled certain entrepreneurial families, some of whom were already tenants of the manorial lords and priories (and particularly the Spencers - now part of Britain’s royal lineage) to acquire larger acreages initially for sheep rearing for which the land was highly suited.

Coventry to the North was a major wool-trading city and thus a major market for the sheep production chain. The medieval system of land usage was actually something of a barrier towards economies of scale in agriculture, so acts of enclosure brought significant benefits for the landowners and some of their employees although they also entailed the destruction/desertion of a number of small parishes/settlements in the area, which are now just single buildings or names of farms on the Ordinance Survey maps, or, as in the case of the “Old Towne” of Wormleighton, just humps in the ground. The Spencer family, whose original seat/manor was at Wormleighton, together with the Shuckburghs of Shuckburgh Hall, remain major landowners in this area to this day and have patronal links to some of its churches.

The names of Priors Hardwick and Priors Marston are an obvious indication of links with the Priories in Coventry and with Leofric King of Mercia. These villages are located on Drovers' Roads along which cattle were historically driven from Wales to markets in London. Some Welshmen married local girls and settled in the area.

Wormleighton’s history is very much linked to that of the Spencer family although it was a reasonable sized settlement before their arrival. The Spencer family trust still own most of the surrounding land and the dwelling houses in this small conservation village. A book on the history of the church and village is available to be read by visitors in the church, which is a Grade 1 listed building and is currently due to be structurally renovated with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The Tudor Manor house which was largely destroyed during the Civil War is currently unoccupied although the ninth Earl Spencer is keen for a member of his family to live there. He is the patron of Wormleighton church and retains a keen interest in its well-being, as it was the original site of this family’s rise to prominence.

Page 14 of 28 The village was visited by many famous people in earlier times, including possibly Queen Elizabeth the first and King James I. Prince Rupert had his HQ there before the Battle of Edgehill in the Civil War.

Lands at Shuckburgh, which border on Northamptonshire to the East were also enclosed by the Prioress of Wroxall in 1517. Shuckburgh is another manorial settlement with an ancient and still existing Norman family seat and estate based at Upper Shuckburgh, which has its own very beautiful family church, although this is not part of the Bridges Group.

Lower Shuckburgh's church, which is part of the Bridges Group, has a very interesting building, built in 1864 in brick but in the Neo-Gothic style.

Napton-on-the-Hill, a good sized village, is called Neptone in the Domesday Book. It was in earlier times a significant settlement in this part of Warwickshire and was granted a Royal Charter by King Edward II in the 14th century. It has a prominent windmill as well as its Grade 2 listed church building located at the top of the hill, some way above the rest of the village. Napton is an important centre nationally for canals providing a link between the and the via the Warwick and Napton Canal which was built in 1800.

Stockton, with its recently interior re-ordered church building, is a large village with a rather different history from the other churches in the Group. Its historical development has been based not on agriculture but upon the production of lime and cement from quarries in the area, whose products were conveyed by the canals and via a now demolished railway line. Whilst the village is set in the middle of open country and is therefore still a rural parish, many of its dwelling houses were built for use by workers in the cement industry, as is the case with a number of other villages in the area.

Page 15 of 28 Location

The Bridges Group parishes run from Stockton in the north to Wormleighton in the south, mostly along the line of the Grand Union and Oxford canals, over which there are over 30 traditional hump-back bridges within these parishes (and hence the name of the Group). The two canals meet in Napton. Marinas provide moorings for many residents. The canals climb up past Napton Hill into the rolling landscape which borders on the Northamptonshire uplands and features the 500-600-ft high hills of Napton, Shuckburgh, Priors Marston and Priors Hardwick, which provide inspiring views of South Warwickshire and the neighbouring counties, even as far as the Malverns.

Wormleighton Parish Summer Walk in Fields of Gold to Come At Harvest

Four urban centres – Coventry, , Rugby and are equidistant, 13 miles, from the centre of the Group, and the growing market town of Southam is just 5 miles from the furthest point.

Though situated in some of the most beautiful and tranquil landscape in the Centre of , the parishes lie within 20 minutes of both the M1 and the M40, and residents can travel to central London in one hour, and also take the train directly to the North, North West, South and Scotland from Banbury or Leamington Spa.

Population

The population of the Group is now 3600-3700. (Census 2011 was 3512 including a 100 estimate for ). About 90% of residents in the Group live in the three larger villages of Stockton (1,347), Napton (1,144), and Priors Marston (579). Numbers are growing, slowly, due to an influx of people wishing to move from more crowded areas and/or to commute into London, a rise in the birth rate, and planned new housing.

Page 16 of 28 Farming and associated occupations are still significant: sheep, cereal, vegetable and dairy farming are everywhere visible and alive, despite bouts of adversity. There are many small trades people and a few small engineering works, some involved with farming and associated products equipment and canal boats. Nevertheless, most employment comes from services and manufacturing outside the area, especially in motor industry engineering and motor racing engineering, both of which have international design hubs close to these parishes. Consequently, there is a significant proportion of highly educated people with scientific or engineering backgrounds, finance and medical specialists, and consultants. We have found that they expect informed answers and teaching about faith. Outside of Stockton, there are relatively few people working in unskilled occupations.

Between the six villages we have two shops, three schools (one Local Authority, one Church and one Free School) and a private school for children with special needs. There are quite a few pubs (although several have closed recently), four village halls and three sports clubs. There are active WIs and uniformed groups. There is a regular bus through Stockton with hourly buses to Leamington and Rugby. There is a less frequent bus in Napton and Shuckburgh. There is no bus service in the other villages except for a once weekly bus to Sainsbury’s in Rugby. The Church organises car transport for these villages to hospitals and doctors’ surgeries.

Buildings

We have six ancient, but very beautiful, church buildings. Three of them have recently been given internal updates and now have kitchen, toilets and flexible accommodation within the buildings for formal meetings, children’s’ groups, prayer and course meetings, and meals. Four of them require major roof or high level stonework repairs. Funding has been secured for two of them. Otherwise, they are in generally good condition. Not surprisingly, the three with good facilities are used much more than the three without them. Their use outside of worship is gradually growing, for meals, meetings, children’s activities, concerts and courses.

Building Napton’s Now Completed New Facilities

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PM Church- New Flexible Space – Set Up for Crafts An extensive survey just carried out in 4 of the villages into ‘community’ uses of the church building in Wormleighton, has yielded a long list of constructive and indeed imaginative suggestions. Church buildings are kept open during the day and all of them attract visitors from the canals. Wormleighton, being close to the Oxford Canal and within a conservation village that appears almost lost in time, gets a good number of visitors from all parts of the world many of whom are struck by its still basically medieval interior, which comes as quite a shock after seeing its somewhat unprepossessing and worn stone exterior. Many visitors remark on its being a special holy place.

St Peter’s Wormleighton Wormleighton Manor Archway

Priors Hardwick, another strikingly beautiful church, benefits from being located next to the village green and the Butchers Arms, which is a renowned and popular restaurant attracting clients from a very wide catchment area, and is also visited by people from far and wide.

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Priors Hardwick St Mary’s Teas at Fete on Village Green Opposite St Mary’s

Priors Marston's church building, equally beautiful and well-tended, and sympathetically renovated and equipped inside, is right in the centre of the village next to the school and pub. Surrounded by the trees of the churchyard, it is 'tucked away' and so does not attract passing visitors quite so frequently.

St Leonard’s Church South Side

The village of Napton also is visited by people using the two nearby canals. However, its very beautiful church building, standing as it does in splendid isolation on the top of its steep hill, possibly suffers a little from this wonderful position, as it is somewhat distant from the centre of the village. It has, however, just been fitted out with a toilet, kitchen, and meeting room, all off the north aisle. It has become a haven for bird-spotters, attracting people from around the country. The church has taken advantage of this, having tea and coffee available in the church building for visitors.

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Napton Church - On the Top of the Hill

Stockton church building is close to the centre of the village and was the first in the Group to be transformed inside to provide catering facilities, meeting rooms, flexible open space and a toilet. Greater community use is planned.

Stockton Open Space Set for Christmas Lunch- Kitchen at West End

Lower Shuckburgh is a fascinating and unique Victorian church building just off a busy main road and close by the Grand Union, so also enjoys tourist visits.

Open air service!

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Lower Shuckburgh Church

The graveyard in Stockton is now closed, apart from the Garden of Remembrance. There is a parish council cemetery nearby which is well maintained. The graveyard in Napton is close to full. Negotiations are underway with the parish council to find an alternative site. The graveyards in the other four churches are still open. The PCCs have guidelines about parish connections for who can be buried in the graveyards and closely follow the Diocesan guidelines, thus reducing the potential for conflict! Funerals are often held at the local crematoriums – Oakley Wood (Warwick), Banbury and Rainsbrook (Rugby).

Wormleighton’s graves will be subject to a historical survey which will be conducted by specialists and funded by the Heritage Lotter Fund. Some of its gravestones are “listed”. The older parts of its graveyard grass is kept “mown” by sheep.

Page 21 of 28 Vicarages

Vicarage at Napton

Vicarage at Priors Marston

There are two vicarages in the Group, one is located half-way up Napton Hill with extensive views over the land towards Stockton. The other is right in the middle of Priors Marston, overlooking the school playing field and with open land either side. Both are modern houses. It is likely that the pioneering role (if HfD) will be based in Napton and the more traditional role (if HfD) will be based in Priors Marston, but this is open to negotiation.

Page 22 of 28 Services

The current monthly service rota is shown below. We are willing to consider changes to this.

1st Sunday 2nd Sunday 3rd Sunday 4th Sunday Priors 9.00am 9.00am 9.00am - Hardwick BCP Communion BCP Morning BCP Communion Prayer

Wormleighton - 9.00am - 10.30am BCP Communion Morning prayer Lay-led

Lower - - - 9.00am Shuckburgh BCP Communion

Napton 10.30am 10.30am 10.30am 10.30am CW Communion Morning Worship CW Communion Morning Worship Lay-led 6.00pm Informal Lay-led

Stockton 10.30am 10.30am 10.30am 10.30am Morning Worship CW Communion Messy Church CW Communion Lay-led

Priors 10.30am 10.30am 10.30am 10.30am Marston Morning Worship CW Communion Morning Worship CW Communion Lay-led Visiting priest

On the fifth Sunday, the Gathering, a united family 10.30 Communion, rotates round the Group.

In 2015, the Group churches conducted 19 baptisms, 10 weddings, and 24 funerals.

Page 23 of 28 School Links A page summarising the work of the DBE with schools can be found here: http://www.dioceseofcoventry.org/images/document_library/UDR01414.pdf. We have a school assemblies’ team that goes into Napton and Stockton every Monday and into the Priors School on alternate Mondays. End of term and harvest services, attracting large numbers of parents, are held in the three churches of the villages with schools. Our Priest-in- Charge is a governor at two of the schools, while a PCC member represents the church at the Priors School. Good relations are fostered with all the schools.

Ecumenical Links Stockton has been in a Local Ecumenical Partnership with the Methodist Church since its chapel closed in 2002. The District Methodist Superintendent currently presides at services in Stockton once every month.

Administration We have a Group website. Updating is done both by individual parishes and ‘centrally’. It is not used by the parishes as much as it could be, and this is related to the need to promote greater Group identity and cohesion. All parishes are reached through parish magazines, produced by the churches or the villages, and covering all church and all village activities. Church activities/news are also now being put out on social media.

Finance and Stewardship The table below summarises our financial situation in 2014:

Stockton Napton Lower Priors Priors Worm - Group Shuckburgh Marston Hardwick leighton Total (2013) General 19203 36038 5556 22812 11729 5378 100266 Income Planned 6210 5548 210 6157 5000 2065 25190 Giving Gift-Aid 4431 3957 113 3103 1650 435 13689 Fundraising 1474 5853 4816 1566 200 Incl. in (eg fetes) other Grants 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 General 17966 35819 3693 20730 10954 5161 94323 Expenditure Parish Share 9600 10623 1640 10530 5158 2088 39639 Contribution Unrestricted 2801 -22 n.s.s. 13924 3418 15043 Reserves Restricted 3281 10049 n.s.s 20784 6917 2953 Reserves Total Y/E 6082 10026 4107 34708 10335 18006 83264 Balance Any special Income + Income high, Most Major consideratio spending not typical. giving not roof ns, future high due See note planned- repair to expenditure to below changing be done, etc.? building now. mostly work. Major with More tower HLF normal: stone work funding, £25k needed secured

Page 24 of 28 Reserves above equal year end bank balances. Audited accounts for Lower Shuckburgh for 2014 are not available. Parish share was paid. Income was exceptionally high in 2013 due to a special fundraising event. Group Total Income without this and without Napton building work income would be more like £85k.

Clergy expenses are met in full.

Each Deanery is expected to fund the costs of its own ordained ministry. This means paying the full cost of all clergy, which together with all ancillary costs is some £56,500 a year. Within the Deanery, this same principle is applied to each group of parishes. However, the groups within this Deanery do support one another with substantial sums each year. The Bridges Group was thus supported, until it took the decision not to appoint a full time ordained minister. It has now taken the further step to recruit two Self-supporting/HfD priests to work with its existing Self-supporting Priest-in-Charge. Apart from other key benefits, this will enable the Group to help support other Deanery churches.

A copy of our accounts for the last 3 years is available on request.

INDIVIDUAL PARISH INFORMATION

BENEFICE OF STOCKTON/NAPTON/ LOWER SHUCKBURGH

Lower Shuckburgh

Lower Shuckburgh was a chapelry in the parish of Priors Hardwick from the early 13th century. It became a separate parish in 1860, and the 1668 church was rebuilt in 1864. The village has about 100 residents. The building, designed by John Croft, features in Pevsner’s famous book on English Churches as one of the most important in the country for its unique exterior and interior architectural syle. It thus attracts visitors from the nearby .

The advowson, obtained by the Coventry OVER family, was passed to Lord Spencer and then sold to Major Shuckburgh (Baronet) and then to Sir Gerard Shuckburgh. The vicar of Napton then had to provide a for Lower Shuckburgh. In 1975, Lower Shuckburgh became a shared benefice with Napton, and was recently united with Stockton (to form a 3 church benefice). Currently, there is just one service monthly at Lower Shuckburgh - Holy Communion with King James Version readings, with attendance typically around 6 (mostly not from Lower Shuckburgh itself). The church struggles financially, but has managed to pay its share, with imaginative fundraising, and it receives welcome spiritual support and encouragement from the Group.

Page 25 of 28 Napton

Napton Church is a Grade 2* Church, the earliest part being 12th century, but mostly it is 14th century. The lower part of the tower is 13th century. It has painted texts high on the walls from the late 18th century and a local builder built the roof in 1860. The pulpit, prayer desk and font were added in 1872. The north transept is Victorian. A beautiful oak chest presented in 1624 by Thomas Garrit and his wife “for the love of this place” stands in the chancel with two different locks, one for the Vicar and one for the Churchwarden. The vestry was replaced with a new stone built meeting room, toilets and vestry to replace the Victorian vestry in 2014. The church maintains its bell ringing tradition.

Napton has a population of 1,144 (Census 2011). The houses have a rich mixture of architectural styles with old buildings interspersed with new, stone with brick and large and small. There are no really large houses in the parish. There are still half a dozen working farms in the Parish.

Most of the active church worshippers live in the village, but we do have many visitors from the canals and birdwatchers as the church is on a migratory route for many birds. We do have movement between the six parishes in the Bridges Group for some services. Our Churchwarden lives in the village as do all the members of the PCC. As well as the regular services covered above, we have many festivals throughout the year, including a flower festival and Christmas Tree festival which take place on alternate years.

Stockton

Stockton has the largest population (about 1,400) in the Group. Church events and activities take advantage of the flexible internal layout. Lunches and teas are made possible due to the kitchen (and toilets). There is a small but highly productive group called Friends of Stockton Church who organise the coffee mornings, concerts and additional events to support the church. Their activities help to raise the profile of the church within the village. Their input is also vital in enabling the church to remain solvent.

Although the regular congregation is small, an extended team of people help the church through a variety of voluntary activities from cleaning to looking after the clock.

BENEFICE OF PRIORS HARDWICK, PRIORS MARSTON, AND WORMLEIGHTON

Priors Hardwick

Priors Hardwick is a picturesque village lying between Wormleighton and Priors Marston, both in size and geography. The houses form a ring around a large meadow, the site of the medieval village, a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The most dominant buildings are the Grade II* stone church, dating from around 1300, followed by the nearby and renowned Portuguese restaurant, which attracts many visitors to the vicinity.

Page 26 of 28 Most of the 175 residents live in freehold houses, many of them built, like the church, of stone, and nine of which are also Grade II listed, as is the old red telephone box and 7 of the graves and tombstones in the churchyard. Most of the village lies within a conservation area. This all means that many newcomers need to be relatively well off to be able to buy into the area.

The church normally holds two services per month and its congregation is often supplemented by people from other parishes who come for the traditional (BCP) style of worship. Special services here (eg Carol service, Harvest Festival) are very well attended but regular attendance in between is inconsistent. The church currently lacks a water supply and toilet facilities, but there are tea/coffee making facilities in the vestry and nearly every service is followed by some form of hospitality, to encourage increased fellowship.

There is one small monthly house-group but some members attend activities and services at the sister churches.

Its PCC members include people with business experience and capabilities that enable this small parish sometimes to “punch above its weight” and to take the initiative in matters like administration and fiduciary responsibility. It currently has no churchwardens but their duties are covered, mostly, by members of the church.

There are several groups/clubs/activities in the village. Most are supported to some extent by members of the church even though these are notionally secular bodies.

Priors Marston

Priors Marston is a village of 600, growing with the influx of young families attracted mainly by the Priors School. It has a pub and limited hours post office, but no shops or daily buses. It is a materially prosperous, and property is expensive.

Dating from the 13th Century, St Leonard’s Church was substantially extended and re-ordered in the Victorian era. Surrounded by its churchyard and high trees, it is right in the centre of the village and its network of pathways. The school is adjacent, and the pub is just over the road. The interior of the building is unpretentious and uncluttered.

From the high west tower window, the light pours in through the glass screened high arch, opened up as part of the interior re-ordering completed in 2012. Wood flooring adds a rich colour and is very practical for all purposes, including work with children, craft mornings etc. The acoustics are excellent, as testified by visiting choirs, as well as the regular church choir, and the bellringers.

Spurred on by the need to save and fund the village school, one of the first batch of 22 ‘Free’ primary school in England, the village has a ‘can do’ mentality, which is also part of the spirit of the church, despite the age of most of its members. The church needs to tap yet more into that energy.

Page 27 of 28 Hospitality centred on good food, providing space and organising activities for children (in the church building and in the village hall), maintaining a robed choir tradition within CW and seasonal special services, are its distinct characteristics.

A newly produced illustrated guide to and history of the church is available on CD if required.

Wormleighton

Wormleighton has a Grade one listed church. The population is less than 100, with most of its dwelling houses owned by the Spencer Estate. Nearly all the active churchgoers live in freehold properties, apart from some on tenanted farms. Its churchwarden is not resident in the parish, but is a former resident.

The church currently lacks a water supply and basic amenities, but there are plans being made for improvements in this respect.

As a village it is of national historical importance largely due to its being the original home of the Spencer family and to its connections with notable historical figures. The church receives a significant number of visitors.

The church normally has two services per month, and its congregation is often supplemented by people from other parishes. However having small service attendance is nothing new for this church.

PCC members include people with business experience and capabilities that enable this small parish to sometimes “punch above its weight”.

FURTHER DETAILS For further information about the post please contact the Rev Gillian Roberts on 01926 815831 ([email protected]), the Area Dean, Martin Green 01926 613466 ([email protected]). Informal conversations are very welcome.

An application form can be downloaded from the Diocesan Website: http://www.dioceseofcoventry.org/vacancies/current_vacancies.

Applications to be submitted by noon on Friday 10th March.

Interviews to be held on 4th and 5th April.

An enhanced DBS disclosure is required for these posts.

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