The Venerable Douglas Dettmer Archdeacon of Totnes
Blue Hills, Bradley Road Bovey Tracey, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ13 9EU
(01626) 832064
3rd September 2015
Priest-in-Charge of Wolborough & Ogwell – Newton Abbot Mission Community
Thank you for your interest in this appointment. I hope you have enjoyed reading the benefice profile which gives a good indication of needs and opportunities in these parishes, with forward-looking lay leadership in all three churches and great potential for development of mission and ministry and for church growth, spiritual and numerical.
The PCCs are eager for that potential to be realised more fully and keen to support and work with their new parish priest in enabling this. If the appointment were simply to the present benefice of Wolborough and Ogwell, it would be a substantial one and would offer the priest God is calling there a fine opportunity to give of his or her best in ministry.
From the perspective of the deanery and diocese, this is a key appointment for a further reason. It has been apparent for some time that the work of the Church of England in Newton Abbot needs to be focused upon the town as a whole. That need is becoming more urgent, given the substantial and increasing population growth in the town—especially in large areas of new housing which require new approaches to mission, at once creative and systematic. How a mission community for Newton Abbot should be shaped in future, and whether the work should be undertaken as at present through three distinct benefices or in some other way, are open questions which a new parish priest for Wolborough and Ogwell will have a significant role in addressing.
One of the other two Newton Abbot benefices (Milber) is already vacant and the parish priest for the third (Highweek) will retire next spring. This kairos moment is an opportunity for the Church of England in Newton Abbot, in collaboration with its ecumenical partners, to review and re-envision its offering to the town. The task, with plenty of interest and challenge, will require an exceptional strategic leader in the present post—creative, collaborative, and visionary—to work closely with the bishop and archdeacon and with the deanery leadership in planning and building an effective mission community, while remaining rooted in practice of the parochial ministry for which these parishes offer so much scope.
Please read alongside this letter the Bishop’s Statement relevant to all parish appointments in the Diocese of Exeter. Moving on in Mission and Ministry remains our core diocesan strategy and candidates will need to be familiar with its principles.