St Luke's Church Eccleshill - Articles from "The Link"

The Deanery Pastoral Plan

Every Deanery is supposed to have one. "Pastoral" means "like a shepherd". Jesus is the chief shepherd of his sheep; but the bible talks about other people being his under-shepherds to take care of his flock in various places. It might not be clergy, but it usually is.

So a "pastoral plan" is all about "How are we going to look after God's people, and where are we going to put the clergy to do it?"

In Calverley Deanery we have 15 clergy (not counting five curates who are in "training posts"), and by chance we have 15 parishes. So let's put one cleric in each parish - problem solved.

Except, a plan is supposed to look to the future, and in the future we will have fewer clergy.

At the Deanery Synod meeting in June, Paul Walker (our Rural Dean and the Vicar of Wrose) gave a presentation on "Rethinking the Deanery Pastoral Strategy". The essence of it was that the allocation of stipendiary clergy to the deanery will fall from 15 at present to 14.5 in 2005, 13 in 2007, and probably to around 11 in ten years (2014).

We are the last deanery in Bradford Diocese to have to make these hard decisions: all the others have had to adapt to sharing clergy between parishes, to team and group ministries, and to cooperation between churches which used to go it alone. Now it's our turn.

We could just wait until clergy left, and then leave the empty parishes to struggle. Paul suggested this was a form of suicide! Instead, he suggested five principles on which we should agree:

There's no chance we'll be able to have a priest in every parish,
Ministry and mission are jobs of all, not just of clergy,
Each congregation has the potential to unlock its own ministry and mission,
To put clergy in the strongest / wealthiest / loudest / oldest parishes and say the rest can make do, is a strategy for decline,
We must be collaborative, creative, ecumenical and imaginative.

Paul then invited synod members to look to the future, and consider these two questions:

If there are to be 11 clergy in 2014, how should they be best placed / used?

What steps should we be taking in the next few years to reach this best position?

Synod members then divided into groups to discuss these, and ideas were reported back at the end. At future meetings there will have to be some formulation of ways of working together. So our positive ideas about this would be welcome now. It's up to us to take an active part in discussions - and not just leave others to sew it up.

John Hartley

	*St Luke's Church, Eccleshill - The Link* magazine** The Link is published monthly at 40p (Senior Citizens 35p), and we deliver free within the parish and post copies (at the reader's expense) to those who request it. Please contact us if you would like a free copy for a trial period. September 2004, Page 6.
Home Page. Index of articles: by subject, by date. In this issue: (September 2004) Alpha, Infinity (2), Jeremiah, Deanery Plan. More on this topic. Other articles on church organisation and government.	The Deanery Pastoral Plan Every Deanery is supposed to have one. "Pastoral" means "like a shepherd". Jesus is the chief shepherd of his sheep; but the bible talks about other people being his under-shepherds to take care of his flock in various places. It might not be clergy, but it usually is. So a "pastoral plan" is all about "How are we going to look after God's people, and where are we going to put the clergy to do it?" In Calverley Deanery we have 15 clergy (not counting five curates who are in "training posts"), and by chance we have 15 parishes. So let's put one cleric in each parish - problem solved. Except, a plan is supposed to look to the future, and in the future we will have fewer clergy. At the Deanery Synod meeting in June, Paul Walker (our Rural Dean and the Vicar of Wrose) gave a presentation on "Rethinking the Deanery Pastoral Strategy". The essence of it was that the allocation of stipendiary clergy to the deanery will fall from 15 at present to 14.5 in 2005, 13 in 2007, and probably to around 11 in ten years (2014). We are the last deanery in Bradford Diocese to have to make these hard decisions: all the others have had to adapt to sharing clergy between parishes, to team and group ministries, and to cooperation between churches which used to go it alone. Now it's our turn. We could just wait until clergy left, and then leave the empty parishes to struggle. Paul suggested this was a form of suicide! Instead, he suggested five principles on which we should agree: There's no chance we'll be able to have a priest in every parish, Ministry and mission are jobs of all, not just of clergy, Each congregation has the potential to unlock its own ministry and mission, To put clergy in the strongest / wealthiest / loudest / oldest parishes and say the rest can make do, is a strategy for decline, We must be collaborative, creative, ecumenical and imaginative. Paul then invited synod members to look to the future, and consider these two questions: If there are to be 11 clergy in 2014, how should they be best placed / used? What steps should we be taking in the next few years to reach this best position? Synod members then divided into groups to discuss these, and ideas were reported back at the end. At future meetings there will have to be some formulation of ways of working together. So our positive ideas about this would be welcome now. It's up to us to take an active part in discussions - and not just leave others to sew it up. John Hartley
Top of page.	This web page was last updated on 26th September 2004.