LEOMINSTER DEANERY SYNOD

MINUTES OF THE DEANERY SYNOD held at Brimfield Village Hall at 2.00pm Thursday 28th November 2019

Welcome Mrs Lydia Davies welcomed everyone to the meeting and Prebendary Mike Kneen led the introductory prayer.

Talks CARE FOR CREATION. Preb Mike Kneen spoke of the majestic progress of creation over on Environ- millions of years, perhaps through the Big Bang and later forces of evolution. Humankind had mental long studied these matters with enthusiasm in the Abrahamic tradition. It was God’s world, Issues God’s universe, God’s creation. In Genesis we read that God brought successive levels of order and beauty to the ‘chaotic soup’ and saw after each stage that it was good. The creation was God’s, and it was good. Moreover, it was clear from several points in the Old Testament that it was given to us on trust and not to wreck for our own purposes. Later, Paul had famously spoken of the whole of creation groaning in travail and suffering as we awaited redemption. The stewardship that we had been given did not admit of our carelessness. And our carelessness started at the point where we understood but did nothing. The overwhelming scientific consensus was that human-made climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions was real, and the greatest threat to our existence that we faced. Many of the tiny minority who believed otherwise were beholden to fossil fuel interests. We should reflect on Greta Thunberg’s simple message: that we, and our politicians, should listen to what scientists are saying about climate change, and act upon it. Some people pointed out that floods, fires and snow were nothing new. However, in the last 140 years or so the five coldest years globally were 1898, 1892, 1883, 1960 and 1990. However, the five hottest had been 2006, 2007, 2011, 2014 and 2017. If we allowed such climate change to go on unchecked we would be inflicting harm on those who were already poor. We couldn’t ignore climate change, keep our standard of living, and watch others drown. We would all drown together. However, if we tackled climate change to the benefit of low-lying lands like Bangladesh, we would benefit too. As Christians, we could act. We worshipped the God of truth, so we should always be looking to see what was true. It was essential to take this out of the political arena. London, Bristol, Edinburgh and Manchester were examples of where local authorities were doing good environmental work. Private organisations such as pension providers could make the running too, in deciding where to put their money. It was quite possible to make a good return on doing good things! You should challenge what was nonsense, seek good for others, and consider how you used your wealth. You should think about what power company to use. Did you need a new heating system? Heat pumps were good, insulation even better. How would you travel? Did you need to replace your car? What would you tell your MP? What would you do with your savings, and could you save for the good? What else could you think of?

ECO CHURCH. Mrs Rose Jenkins said that maybe you were a person who wanted to do something about climate change but weren’t sure how to go about it. In that case, Eco Church might be just the thing. Eco Church wasn’t a one-off activity; it was a framework for a journey you were probably already on without realising it. It was an initiative run by an organisation called A Rocha International, a charity focusing on environmental and ecological action. Mike had shown why we should be doing something, and we now came to what we should be doing. The Eco Church questionnaire would help to identify what you had already done and would give you ideas about what else you could do. Each parish would have its challenges, opportunities and different skills, and it was important to start from where you were. [You can find the questionnaire at https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/.] When you filled in the questionnaire, there were dials that told you how far you were getting on towards the Bronze, Silver or Gold Award. In the case of the Bronze or Silver, you got the local Vicar to sign the filled-in form, and then you sent it off. For Gold, you had to be inspected. The sections in the questionnaire were as follows: 1. Worship and Teaching (things like harvest festival, Lent course, relevant hymns); 2. Buildings (e.g. collecting rainwater, having cycle racks); 1

3. Land (e.g. having bee-friendly plants, music in the churchyard); 4. Community and Local Engagement (e.g. Fairtrade, Traidcraft, Tearfund Quiz); 5. Lifestyle (e.g. having a re-use board, recycling, having communal Christmas cards). The church would need to have a person as a focal point. Once people knew the church was on a journey, they would want to join in. It could all break down age barriers. So: go online for the Questionnaire and take things from there, one step at a time.

Synod After the interval, Lydia expressed thanks to those who had kindly served the refreshments. business Attendance Present: Clergy 4, Lay 24, Guests 1; total 29. Apologies received: Clergy 2, Lay 10.

Minutes of Minutes of the meeting held at St Leonard’s, Yarpole on Thursday 26th September 2019 were the previous approved. meeting Matters None raised. arising New Team Mike Kneen was delighted to announce that The Reverend Rufus Noy had been appointed to fill Vicar the vacancy for a Team Vicar. He was currently the priest in charge of Upper , comprising , Capel Newydd and , in the Diocese of . The licensing service would take place at the Priory Church at 2.00pm on Saturday 25th January 2020.

Finance Canon Rosemary Lording wanted to celebrate where we had got to in the Parish Giving Scheme. • She thanked the 12 parishes in the deanery who had signed up. • We now had 122 individuals signed up out of about 500+ who were regular givers to their parishes. • Richard Jones, the Givings Adviser, had been to the USA but would be with us again until May. He had done superb work in encouraging people to reconsider their giving. • Those who had signed up had increased their weekly giving from an average of £6.25 to £10.92 plus Gift Aid, an increase of £4.67 each, giving much-enhanced sustainability to their parishes. That was brilliant. [These figures were from Richard.] • Richard had estimated that the annual deanery income would be increased by £19k from the 122 people already referred to, with Gift Aid to be added on top. • 95% of the 122 people had signed up for annual inflationary increases. • It was important to move on, and we wanted to encourage those who were on the PGS to encourage other parishes to take that step forward. • We had seven parishes signed up who had done nothing about it. • We had 16 parishes hovering on the sidelines who had done nothing at all. • If we could now get another 130 people signed up that would take us up to about half of the regular givers). We then had the potential to increase deanery giving by about £42k or £51.5k with Gift Aid added, and so nearly an extra priest. (Richard’s figures.) • The PGS made life considerably easier for treasurers. • In conclusion, Rosemary thanked those who had transferred to the Scheme. She asked us to bear in mind that if we could get up to about 250 people on the PGS (half the regular givers), we could be well on the way to where we wanted to be.

Letter to Preb Mike Kneen introduced The Reverend David Wyatt who has joined us as Curate in the Church Pyons group. David was invited to read out an excellent letter which he has written to the Times Church Times (edition of 22nd November 2019). The letter appears as an appendix to these minutes.

Draft Motion The meeting considered the draft Motion (Name) moves that Leominster Deanery Synod a) deplores the suggestion that, for the diocese to become financially solvent, stipendiary clergy numbers will have to be reduced; b) feels that any such reduction would be a retrograde step since the visible presence of a priest gives spiritual support and guidance as the face of the church to those in a parish and is essential to our mission and to the growth of the local church;

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c) proposes that, rather than reducing stipendiary clergy, the number assigned to parishes should be increased, where they would take on diocesan advisory posts thus reducing extra financial burden; d) proposes that new local vocations to the priesthood should be sought and encouraged; e) proposes that more sacrificial giving as part of a revival of Christian faith in this diocese should continue to be encouraged and that as far as possible all parishes should adopt the Parish Giving Scheme. cont Preb Mike Kneen said that a variety of concerns had prompted this item. For one thing, we felt that it was necessary to have an adequate number of clergy to give strength to our village churches. Clergy were in short supply. There was a hope that some of our interns, of whom we had had five, would return to the diocese for their curacy after training. Nevertheless, there would be a shortfall, which would require imaginative management. The cutting of stipendiary clergy to balance the budget was something that had been forced on the diocese. However, we felt we needed to discuss the way resources were allocated to put clergy on the ground. It was a relief that we had been allowed to appoint Revd Rufus Noy. Across the board, the diocese was looking to lose at least seven clergy posts. However, we didn't want to end up in the same position as the , which had gone from around 100 clergy down to 20. That was not sustainable. Next, there was the issue of the way money was issued from central church funds. The Church Commissioners didn’t want to give subsidy money to dioceses which made no effort to stimulate mission and so forth. But there was a feeling that you could only get money by ticking a lot of boxes and doing a lot of paperwork. Then money might be given for you to take part in a scheme dictated by someone in Westminster or the London suburbs, a scheme which might not look nearly so clever in flooded North Herefordshire. It was true that he had looked back with approval to the time when parish priests sometimes doubled as diocesan specialists – such as Peter Rees as Vicar of Dilwyn and also children’s officer for the diocese – but actually we couldn’t go back to those days for a simple reason. It may be that the church as a whole would wish to deploy lay people as their specialists and make the maximum use of the clergy in the parishes, feet on the ground. So the reference to that in the motion may not be quite what we wanted to take to diocesan synod. What we wanted to do was to make a motion that would make progress and not one that people could write off. It would be no use our saying “We want x and we want somebody else to pay for it”. Rosemary had shown that if we were to roll out the Parsh Giving Scheme it might give us the impetus we needed. His cncern at present was to maintain numbers. It might be that we could strengthen the clergy by having somebody to do the admin that kept clergy off the streets. Or it might be tha we could pay for some extra time from our Intergenerational Missioners. But we couldn’t put forward a motion such as this without a clear intentin that we were going to step up our financial contribution. He thanked those who had drawn up the motion. Mrs Lydia Davies said that she had been involved with Barbara Nurse in wording the motion but that it embraced the views of several people. It was difficult to assess how well money from the Strategic Development Fund had been used. She thought it would be best if we concentrated on our own Parish Giving Scheme. We should also get the wording right so that it reflected the feelings of those in the pews. If any more clergy time and effort were to be withdrawn the parishioners already there would feel very uncared for and not valued. However well the laity cared for the sick and bereaved, at the end of the day families and parishioners looked for their priest. We needed the visible presence of the clergy in the rural areas. She thought it was possible for clergy also to have specialist roles. It was a question of getting the wording right, and to emphasise that Leominster Deanery were worried about the future and felt that cutting clergy was not the best idea. She doubted if any clergy would be sacked; it would be a matter of not replacing them if they retired or moved. Preb Jane Davies pointed out that she had a dual rôle – Dean of Women’s Ministry as well as parish priest. The number of clergy to be cut over the next few years was actually nine. This had arisen from deanery pastoral plans. In future pastoral plans were to become legal documents, and when we revisited ours we must be really on it as to what we wanted. The nine to be cut had been identified by the deaneries and not by the diocese. So there were nine deaneries not paying their way and deciding to reduce clergy. Our pastoral plan was vital. It must be a really good document, saying what we wanted for the future and how we would fund it. She wondered how we could encourage those deaneries that had gone down the clergy-reduction route to rethink and go more down our route. Could this somehow be worked into the motion? Mrs Barbara Nurse thought it didn’t make strategic sense to cut clergy. Parishioners would be more reluctant to give money and deanery payments would fall even further behind. 3

Mr Barry Forrester reminded us that he was our Stewardship Adviser and was ready to give advice. As a Lay Canon of the Cathedral, he was neutral in all this. He thought that hat had been said was spot on. From the diocese’s point of view, the pot of money was running out and so draconian action was needed. It was a health warning, and we could use it as a helpful thing. We should hear the warning, understand it, and challenge ourselves. We needed to ask for time to do so. The Parish Giving Scheme was having a very good effect, but it was a fact that Hereford Diocese was bottom nationally in giving per person and we needed to emphasise that message in a positive way. People needed to come to the mark, and despite the efforts of Richard and others they were not doing so. Mrs Annette Blyth said that when the Archbishop came recently, she had been to one of the workshops. It had been pointed out that Hereford had 780 people per church (lowest in the country}, the next lowest being St Edmundsbury with 1389 people per church. It was a big challenge for us. Mrs Barbara Andrew said that each church may have fewer people to look after, but they were spread over a huge geographical area. The style of management therefore had to be quite different to that in the metropolitan areas where people were squashed cheek by jowl, and clergy mileage was much greater. Also, the demographic of our county was both elderly and poor. This diocese had always been poor. It had been pointed out in the 19th century when the Victorian restorations were going on that this was the poorest diocese with the biggest number of medieval churches. We had to be careful, because many people were struggling to make ends meet and couldn’t give more. It was a shame because in those siuations people perhaps needed more pastoral care than in other places. Mrs Rose Jenkins said that if you only had 700 people per church there would be less synergy going on, less interaction between people, a smaller pool of people to do things. People wouldn’t want to come forward because they would feel trapped. With a larger pool of people there would be more ideas generated, more levels of activity and more people willing to get involved because they could see somebody else who might take over from them when they finished. There was an organisational problem we had. Preb Mike Kneen said that he had come from Methodist roots. One of the strengths of Methodism was their local preachers who were all lay people. But the resources had been inadequate and the ordained ministry had not been sustainable. So the Methodist church had declined dramatically. His colleagues at John Francis were looking after churches south of the Wye right up the Shrewsbury, a situation that probably wasn’t viable. We must not get into that situation. People had thought he was mad to expect to recruit a new Team Vicar to look after ten parishes and twelve churches in the Kimbolton group. But Rufus was rejoicing that he would be looking after only two and a half thousand people. He had been looking after 50,000 in . So we were not so badly off as we were sometimes tempted to think. The Reverend David Wyatt thought that we needed to consider where the motion was going. If it was going to Diocesan Synod there was the possibility that it could go up to General Synod at the national level, in which case its scope would be somewhat different and perhaps should be more concerned with funding streams. General Synod would not in reality be very concerned about stipendiary provision in our deaneries, but could be interested in the level of funding that concerned dioceses. He was saying in his letter to Church Times that in the past dioceses received a subsidy, but some didn’t use it to any good effect. So now we had targeted projects, and if you were not one of the chosen you might not survive. If our motion was going to get higher than the diocese it needed to speak to situations like they had in Birmingham where money was being poured ino someone’s pet project but everybody else was starving. Preb Mike Kneen replied that we would have both levels in mind. He thought that if our motion was sufficiently much about sustainable ministry it could fly further up. A two-sided approach could be good. He strongly recommended a book entitled Obliquity by Professor John Kay. Professor Kay held that to get the best out of various organisations and situations you had to go at it slant-wise. Mrs Jean Barbour said that they had struggled for many years at Kingsland. They had had Richard Jones, and they operated the Parish Giving Scheme. There had been some success, but not huge. They questioned how much they had to pay out. They wondered, as a group, whether the church needed to change its way of operating. Priests had to do 101 jobs and maybe we needed to change their role. We could not continue to operate in this manner.

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Mrs Serena Askew said that we had benefices with many churches, and this kind of organisation had a big impact. Preb Mike Kneen said that sometimes it was necessary to close churches. Burrington was an example of where closure was a clear-cut issue. He asked if it was the will of the meeting that the draft motion should be revised in the light of the meeting’s opinions and then be brought back next time. There was general assent.

Other Foyers – formerly known as SHYPP (Supported Housing for Young People Project) business Mrs Rose Jenkins said that there would be 45 homeless young people in Herefordshire at Christmas who would be in Foyer accommodation. There were Foyers in Leominster, Ross and Ledbury. If any parishes would like to leave Christmas presents for them before December 21st at the Forbury, it would be really appreciated. Statistics for Mission. Preb Mike Kneen reminded the meeting that Statistics for Mission should please be in by January 31st

Meditation The Reverend Matthew Burns led us in an Advent Meditation

Presentation Lydia said that this would be Prebendary Mike Kneen’s last Synod as Rural Dean. She thanked him for all his great help and humour and made a presentation to him. (Warm applause)

The meeting finished at about 4.20pm

COMING EVENTS DATE VENUE Court Farm, Canon Pyon Standing Committee Thursday 23 January 2020, 12.30pm Light lunch provided Thursday 13 February 2020, 2.00pm Deanery Synod Speaker – Mark Simmons, on The The Forbury Chapel Community of the Cross of Nails

Letter published in the Church Times

The fruits of the ‘magic money tree’

From the Revd David Wyatt

Sir, — I read with interest the article on the Strategic Development Funding (SDF) scheme (Features, 15 November). I would hope that there are few in the Church who would decry the growth of the Body of Christ. It is good to see that churches are being revitalised or placed into new areas. The history of the Church is full of such examples. The planting of churches in the Welsh Valleys by the Cowley Fathers is one that comes to mind.

There are two snags, however. First, the enthusiastic publication of some numbers without transparency about the way such projects measure up against what was promised: namely, what is working, and what is not, perhaps, turning out as hoped. I do not get a sense that learning points are being sought so as to develop and modify future projects. This could lead to the conclusion that church money is being spent blindly — making it highly possible that mistakes and bad targeting are repeated time and time again.

The second snag is the restructuring of the Church outside the funded projects. Comments by some of the clergy interviewed expressed this well. I have to confess to taking comments by archbishops and suchlike regarding austerity and welfare reform with a heavy pinch of salt; for SDF funding replaced the Darlow funding. Dioceses, in the main, can now fund parochial ministry and central administration only from their own funds. Some can. It would seem, as regularly reported, that many cannot — just like the withdrawal of central-government grants to local authorities. Inevitability, rural bus routes, libraries on suburbs and estates, and family-support work all had to go, as they were not cost- effective or sustainable. Likewise, clergy numbers and support to parishes in the villages, estates, and outer suburbs are being reduced for much the same reason. Mission is hampered in those areas which are not “the chosen”.

The hands of diocesan bishops and secretaries have been tied, and austerity has been forced on rural and northern dioceses. That which is for the common good is not necessarily also that which is financially viable or sustainable. Subsidiarity is required. The architects may not directly experience what they have implemented. Yet, as the rumour of God goes mute in places where it has been maintained for generations past, so God’s Church suffers.

DAVID WYATT

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