Balancing Act....

Last week at General Synod there was a discussion on clergy pay, conditions, disciplinary procedures, performance management and so on. Issues which have dogged public sector organisations for the last 10 to 15 years. In the NHS the conversation was called “Agenda for Change” while in higher education it was called “Role Evaluation” and a “Single Pay Spine.” At Synod someone made the radical suggestion that clergy should have two days off each week. I have to confess that I hadn’t quite clocked that VIT was heading for an employment arrangement which requires six days a week, even though I’m fully aware that weddings happen on Saturdays and you can’t predict when you need to run a funeral. It’s one of those things where you have all the available information but you haven’t quite processed it properly (or if you have, you’ve done so and filed it somewhere inaccessible.)  I’m also aware that I don’t work regular hours, nor regular days and that I’m away from home a great deal.

However, the church believes that, in giving clergy six weeks off each year (two of those weeks are usually taken immediately after Christmas and Easter) it is compensating a six-day week workload with a relatively generous holiday entitlement. In fact the holiday entitlement is only 7% more generous than the statutory minimum (from which the church is in fact exempt.)

There is a national problem with workaholic clergy who end up overtired and burnt out. A friend of mine who did some research in Northern Ireland with nonconformist ministers found that 10% of them were leaving the church each year for this reason.

At times, College seems to reinforce this – indeed the philosophy appears to be “you’re going to have to work like this once you’re ordained so you might as well learn how to do it now.” Theological Colleges are only servants of the Regional General Managers (sorry, Bishops) and the central Ministry Division, so they are limited to at least an extent in their flexibility. But I wonder how it would be if the philosophy changed to “it’s really important you have time to think, recuperate, read, pray – and maybe even play.” This week is College Reading Week – in many ways an attempt to do this. But it’s also half term for our three children and Ash Wednesday and although there is more flexibility than usual, it’s clear that this is not a week off.   And although college holidays are quite long, six weeks of placements and essays have to be fitted into them

Life is complicated: the juggle between VIT’s course, the need to earn a living, the need (and desire) to spend time with the children and each other sometimes seems hard and it’s difficult to get the balance right, and even harder to know if you are.