The Diocese of Coventry

Pastoral Care of the Clergy
Many different expectations.
Tension between Pastoral Care and MDR (Ministry Review)
Role of R/A Dean in pastoral care of the clergy needs to be clarified


OLM / Reaers / Lay Ministry / Chaplaincy
Lack of joined up thinking
MLT Review
OLM Review
Readers reviewing General Synod report
Chaplains do not feel party of the diocese
Need for a comprehensive, joined up review of all areas of ministry
Fixed term Working Party to carry this out.

I think what is needed is a ministry strategy which locates different initiatives and forms of ministry and enables of ease of communication between them. This is rather different from something which is 'joined up' if by that is meant something neat and tidy. A way of developing or refreshing a ministry strategy is to revisit the 1997 Patterns of Ministry Working Party report - could this be posted on the diocesan web site? - in the light of the research which was commissioned from Canon Paul Wignall last year (which is on the web site at www.coventrydiocese.org/upload/file/fin ... 020308.pdf ) Paul has considered ministry teams in particular because that was what the 1997 report proposed although it has some important things to say about ministry as part of the divine economy in a changing world. What is usually called 'local ministry' seems to be me to a useful framework in which to locate the ministry issues which arise out of Bishop Christopher's Signposts document and I support the suggestion that a group of people should get to grips with the issues and then bring them to us for debate and resolution. And incidentally (!) if we want to have a ministry strategy we also need to say what it costs and what resources (people as well as money) are needed to sustain it.

Our noble Moderator has encouraged me to contribute here a comment that I made at our recent Pensions Roadshow. It was simply to suggest that before deciding whether we are in favour of a defined benefits or a defined contributions scheme (or a mixture of the two) it seems important that we recognise that different ways of funding pensions imply different attitudes to the nature of stipendiary ministy. Are we to be set free from concerns for our basic material needs so that we may give ourselves wholly to serve God and those to whom He sends us? Or are we to take responsibility for ensuring that we have all we and our families need before offering what we can to the ministry? My own view is that we are in danger, as ever, of falling between two stools but ending up closer to the latter. This means that there will be an ever stronger incentive for potential young ordinands to delay ordination until they have earned enough to support themselves adequately, and/or to marry someone able to support them and their families financially because the church is no longer able or willing to. I have no complaints about my own situation, but I would hesitate to encourage anyone person with a young family into ordination (which I love and long to see refreshed) unless they have adequate financial resources to supplement what the church provides.