Name of Church/Parish/Benefice

The Bridges Group PARISH PROFILE Self-supporting or House for Duty Associate Ministers (x2) Page 1 of 28 BISHOP’S INTRODUCTION The Bridges Group is a group of rural parishes in beautiful Warwickshire. They face the usual challenges and very real opportunities of many multi-parish 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 Coventry 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 DEANERY 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 Southam. 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 St Mellitus college in London, 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 clergy 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 Priors Marston, Priors Hardwick 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. Page 4 of 28 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 Deaneries 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.

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