St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Dear friends

I’m writing this the day after Rev Steve’s welcoming service – he now finds himself the incumbent of two parishes and three churches. We have a tendency in church to use a lot of churchy words that mystify anyone who has never been involved with church leadership, so let me do a bit of explaining. Wherever you live in England you belong to a parish, and you have the right to expect pastoral help, and to have your wedding, baptism or funeral in the parish church. Confusingly, our parish is called St Margaret’s, but that includes both churches, St Margaret’s and St George’s. The priest who is responsible for the parish is called the incumbent, and is either the vicar or the rector (vicar and rector are equivalent – the difference is historical). The incumbent is expected to live in the vicarage – they are only given permission to live outside the parish in special circumstances. Steve already lives in St Gabriel’s vicarage, which suits us fine, as it’s great to have Helen in the St Margaret’s one!

Steve has three distinct roles. He works for the bishop as interfaith adviser, as well as being vicar of St Gabriel’s and now also vicar of St Margaret’s. It was lovely to meet some of the congregation from St Gabriel’s at the welcoming service, and although the parishes could in theory continue to function quite independently, we are three friendly and welcoming congregations, and I think that pretty soon we will begin to get to know each other better in informal ways.

You may have also wondered what was happening when Christine and I were commissioned as focal leaders. Until fairly recently the most common way of doing things was “one parish, one church (or a parish church and a second one), one Vicar”. There are two changes that have come about of recent years. Diminishing church attendance almost everywhere (and therefore fewer financial contributions) has meant that the model is no longer viable. But on the plus side, there are a lot more people who are taking part in church leadership as volunteers as priests (me), readers (Christine) or ALMs (Carol Porter, Carol Olive, Andrew Ginn). So there is now a new model. Most incumbents have several churches, and are spread more thinly, so each congregation needs someone who is the person who is a key leader for each congregation. How that works varies from church to church. I will be the Focal Leader in St Margaret’s, Christine in St George’s. In many ways this is an acknowledgement of what is already happening. We will be the people whose job it is to know what is going on in the lives of each church, to work on the rotas and calendars, to pick up when individuals are in pastoral need, or when congregations as a whole are feeling a bit down. St Gabriel’s will have a focal leader, too, but they weren’t quite ready for that to happen at the welcoming service. Christine, incidentally, has just a few more months to go as Reader, before at the end of June becoming Rev Christine and having to buy shirts with white collars! (Maybe I should write a part 2 on readers, deacons and priests!). She has worked extremely hard this year training and will have the time to do a bit more in the parish once she is ordained

How will things look in the future?

• A new energy in the parish from Rev Steve
• A sense of security as the interregnum (gap between incumbents) has come to an end
• More variety in style as another person takes turns to lead worship and preach
• Another person (Steve) to share the workload, Helen becoming a priest (and so able to take communion services) and Christine becoming a deacon. All round we should be able to be a bit more available.
• An incumbent we already know and love who can help us discover what God has planned for our churches and the communities we serve.

We can’t turn the clock back to the days when the churches were full and had thriving Sunday Schools and parade services, but we can see what happens with a new way of doing things that involves not one vicar working alone, but a team of clergy and lay people (i.e. anyone not clergy!) with varied talents and backgrounds working together. I’m looking forward to it – and there’s a role for you, too, if you want to join in!

Rev Sue