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A New Appointment to the See of Doncaster a Statement of Need from the Bishop of Sheffield

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A New Appointment to the See of Doncaster a Statement of Need from the Bishop of Sheffield A new appointment to the See of Doncaster A statement of need from the Bishop of Sheffield Introduction Following the announcement of the forthcoming retirement of the Bishop of Doncaster (at the end of September this year) I am writing in accordance with sections 12 and 17 of the Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure, to request permission to fill this suffragan see. A continuing Vision The Diocese of Sheffield serves around 1.25 million people across South Yorkshire and the East Riding. Our vision statement has informed the strategic direction of the Diocese for a decade: The Diocese of Sheffield is called to grow a sustainable network of Christ–like, lively and diverse Christian communities in every place which are effective in making disciples and in seeking to transform our society and God’s world. We long to see sustainable Christian communities in every place. We long to see the Body of Christ grow in depth and in numbers. We long to see every disciple, and the whole Church, better serving our local communities and wider society. An Escalating Challenge However, our capacity to realise this vision and to minister effectively to our commu- nities is threatened by what we are calling ‘the four-headed beast’ — ‘ABCD’, where A is for declining Attendances; B is for Budgets in deficit; C is for Church Structures unfit for mis- sion; and D is for unbalanced Demographics, weighted dramatically to older people and to long-established rather than more contemporary congregations and patterns of worship. In terms of attendance (2016 data), the Diocese of Sheffield sits in the bottom quar- tile of Church of England dioceses for per capita attendance (just 1.3% for adults on Sun- days), and for attendance decline in the past decade (-12%). In 1989, over 20,000 adults worshipped routinely in our churches on Sundays; thirty years later, the number is just over 12,000. Draft 2018 figures do not suggest an improved picture. In terms of budgets, in 2009 parish share revenues amounted to £4.8m; in 2018, they had fallen to £4.3m. Similarly, funding from the Church Commissioners (aside from SDF grants) amounted to £2.1m in 2016, but has fallen to £1.8m this year. Together with falling fees income, falling revenues from rents and investments and reduced grant income, this represents a serious financial challenge. In terms of church structures, buildings are a particular headache. Even Doncaster Minster, arguably the second most iconic church building in the Diocese, has no kitchen or toilet; and its fixed pews significantly restrict the kind of activity it can host. Many of our buildings are not located where we would site them if we were building now; may are not 1 configured as flexibly as we would design them if we were building now; and many require alarming amounts of investment to keep the fabric sound. In addition, our key clergy and lay leaders are often held back from mission activity by the burden of compliance of one sort or another. In terms of demographics (2016 data), whereas on average 1.3% of the population of the Diocese routinely worships in a Church of England church on Sundays, this figure is not uniform for every age-group. It is 3.1% of those aged 66-75, 2.8% of those aged 76-85, 2.1% of those aged 86+ and 1.9% of those aged under 11; by contrast, it is just 0.9% of those aged 25-45 and 0.2% of those aged 18-24. Draft 2018 figures do not suggest an im- proved picture. Renewed, Released, Rejuvenated! To meet this escalating challenge, the senior staff consulted widely with deaneries and other bodies through 2017-18, and in October 2018 launched the new strategy to real- ise a flourishing and generous Diocese of Sheffield by 2025: renewed, released and rejuve- nated! We seek to be a Diocese renewed in the grace and power of God, by a constant reli- ance on the Holy Spirit. To this end, we have created a prayer community whose members commit to praying daily for the renewal of the Diocese. The community has 340 members so far: we are seeking to recruit 2025. We have composed a Diocesan Vision Prayer to be said daily and we are heartened by the number of people and congregations making regular use of it. We seek to be a Diocese released from the constraints which hold us back from mis- sion, and released, as the whole people of God for the whole mission of God. To this end, we have begun a radical assessment of our church buildings to determine which are assets in mission (or have the potential to be) and which are liabilities. We have been taking part in a learning community for Setting God’s People Free and have a number of initiatives un- derway to enable all the baptised to realise their calling to be Lights for Christ in the world. We seek to be a Diocese rejuvenated — partly through a dedicated and sustained programme of outreach to families, children and young people (the Centenary Project and related SDF Children, Young People and Families Project) and partly through the creation of 75 new congregations, including 25 in our church schools. We are encouraged by the num- ber of parishes whose 2019 Mission Action Planning returns include a commitment to es- tablishing a new congregation within the next three years. This process will undoubtedly be greatly helped by our successful SDF bid to establish Resourcing Churches in Rotherham, Goole and Wath — we expect to have 12 such churches across the full geographical and theological breadth of the Diocese by 2025. Just 75 stipendiary incumbents? However, the Diocese of Sheffield is also in the bottom quartile of Church of England dioceses for for stipendiary clergy per capita (less than 1 per 10,000 people). Just 20 years ago, in 1999, there were 155 stipendiary incumbents in the Diocese — together with a raft 2 of chaplains, many of whom (especially industrial chaplains) were on the diocesan payroll. This month, in May 2019, there are just 97.5 — a drop of over 33% in two decades. But in 2019, we can really only afford 90: we can only balance the budget this year by selling off property — not a good or sustainable course of action. We have taken the mitigating ac- tion of declaring a moratorium on recruitment to stipendiary incumbency posts — but this is not a sustainable option either. It would appear that this decline has been budget driven throughout, but with little thought given either to how to reverse this chronic trend, or how to deploy the reduced number of stipendiary incumbents, who have simply been spread more thinly across the Di- ocese. This has had a demonstrably negative effect both on clergy wellbeing and on clergy effectiveness in mission, despite real progress in generating and nurturing vocations to self- supporting ordained ministry and by making more strategic use of retired clergy. There is no reason to suppose the trend will reverse itself; indeed given the demo- graphic profile of our congregations and the fact that our most faithful attenders are often also our most generous givers, there is every reason to fear that falling revenues via Com- mon Fund in the next ten years will reduce still further the number of stipendiary incum- bents we can afford. The simple fact is that if the present trend continues to 2029 (and there are reasons to fear it might actually steepen), we will only be able to afford 75. In my view, it would be reckless at this point to continue as before, simply by spreading a sub- stantially reduced number of stipendiary incumbents still more thinly, and hoping for the best. It is time to review the way we deploy stipendiary clergy, and to plan to grow the nu- merical and financial health and strength of the Diocese for the future. To this end we have begun a process of consultation with very PCC over a model which assumes the Diocese can only afford 75 stipendiary incumbents. This is not a goal. We do not aspire to this figure. We do not believe that the Diocese can flourish longterm with so few stipendiary incumbents. Rather, we have settled on this figure for three rea- sons: i) First, people recognise this as the number we seem destined to have by 2029 if the current trend continues. It is a number with default credibility in the Diocese as an in- evitable outcome if we do nothing to grasp this nettle. ii) Secondly, it is a figure that we are confident we can afford for long enough to put into action our plans for growth. That’s to say: it would be disastrous for morale to cut to, say, the 90 stipendiary incumbents which we can afford in 2019 and the 89 likely in 2020, only to have to cut further in 2021 or 2022 to 85 or 80. iii) Thirdly, and positively, we believe a ‘target’ figure of 75 is conveying to the whole dio- cese the urgency of our situation, creating the necessary impetus for change. If we sought to cut only to 90 at this point, the temptation would be great to assume busi- ness as usual. Everyone knows that a model which assumes only 75 stipendiary incum- bents will require everyone to work differently. It will enable the culture change re- quired at congregational level, so that every baptised person is encouraged to enter the full dignity of their baptismal vocation to serve God as a minister and missionary in the world.
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