Vicar's Family in Training » The CofE

This is the last and final stop; all change please

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:25:54 +0000

Today is VIT’s last day at Coverdale Hall. It seems an long time ago that she started the fairly surreal process of becoming a vicar. Indeed, it is a generation ago that she first offered the church her services – if the church had said “yes” then at that time she would not have been ordained, but simply licensed as a Deaconess.

But here we are, just three weeks away from the big day, and an opportunity to look back over 20 months or so at Coverdale. I am sure she’s learned a lot, but what have I learned about being a VHIT?

I have learned that being a vicar is not a normal job - it demands odd things of the person doing the job, at odd times of day. It demands that everything she does is mediated by belief or faith and a way of living which is 24/7. In so many ways that’s no different from simply being a Christian, except that much of what she will be doing will be done in the public domain. And that expectation, and the training for it, has an impact on the vicar and their families that is greater than a “normal” job. None of that is necessarily good or bad. It is just a thing.

I have learned that the church is very trying, and trying hard. There appears to be a genuine attempt to accommodate the needs of families, at least in some dioceses and by some people. This need has a different priority in different places, and depending very much on the bishops, selectors, DDOs and college staff that the trainees interact with.

I have learned that the process of finding a curacy stinks, even if the outcomes are often surprisingly good. I have written about this before, but I still feel pretty scarred by the whole business and it’s left me needing to remind myself that the individuals involved in the shittier bits of the process are also people whom God loves, because I find it pretty hard to love them. And I need to remind myself that maybe there are good outcomes from the shitty bits of the process which I am yet to see or understand. I still maintain that the process could be much better, much less linear, much less secretive and patrician. It’s no way to treat grown ups or their families.

I have learned that I have a pretty bipolar attitude towards change: sometimes I find it really exciting, and at others I find it profoundly anxiety provoking, especially when the change is outside my control. (See paragraph above)

I have leaned that, if VIT’s colleagues at college are anything to go by, then the future of the Church in this country is in pretty good shape. VIT has had a fabulous, ecclectic and diverse group of people with whom to train. Of course there are some whom she (and I) have become closer friends with than others. There are no doubt people there who will eventually become bishops and deans, while others will spend their lives in parish ministry. But the energy and passion to tell the transforming story of the carpenter from Nazareth is writ large in everyone. I am proud and genuinely honoured and privileged to have had the chance to meet every one of them and their diverse families. (And the youngest VKIT has found the ready made community of adults and children an immensely attractive and “safe” place to be.)

And now back to the title of this post. As they used to say on the fabulously branded Great North East Railway “this is the last and (tautologous) final stop.”

However, just as a train pulls out of the station to begin its travelling again less than an hour later, so the end of the Coverdale Hall leg of this journey does not mark the end of this blog. There’s now two and a half weeks of a slightly strange limbo, followed by ordination, followed by three years of curacy. The Vicar is still in training, and so is her family.

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Accessorise, accessorise, accessorise

admin — Fri, 13 May 2011 21:36:19 +0000

So the day approaches when VIT will start to wear her collar backwards. Or rather, wear a collar, since she not a buttoned-up sort of person normally. The diocese kindly gives her an allowance to buy some of the shirts, surpluses, cassocks and other things with less familiar names. The stoles are very beautiful and the pink lining in the cassock is rather lovely too. Apparently the surplice is tax deductible since canon law requires it, although the tax people are less generous about other bits of clergy tat according to their website.

Quite understandably, VIT has put considerable effort into what, and what not to wear. Here’s something she won’t be doing: it’s the LHOTP look. (Little House on the Prairie)
Then there’s this one whose web site designer wasn’t really paying attention.. VIT has done much better than this with some nice things. Funny seeing her with a dog collar on though.

Anyway, this exploration into clergy wear can be closed off with three things. Firstly the advice contained in the title of this post, and based on Mommy Priest to any women clergy – namely Snappy shoes and lots of accessories. Second, there are some well designed clergy clothes for women. Here’s one take on clergy women’s fashion from Sweden.

Finally, there is, of course a Facebook group for everything. Including clergywomen’s clothing. Here it is.we demand better looking clerical shirts for women

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Am I just completely paranoid and selfish?

husband — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 23:27:00 +0000

Difficult to know the answer to this question.

I was talking to a friend the other day about the way in which the C of E places its curates. It’s completely serial. Normal jobs are filtered by looking at the ads, deciding which ones look appropriate and which don’t and then applying for the ones that look like they might fit. But not in the C of E where a combination of prayer and discernment is used instead. No applicant can look at more than one job at once and no “employer” – i.e. training vicar can look at more than one curate at once. If the aspirant trainee turns something down they have no idea what may be offered next – it could be much more appropriate or much less so. The trainee is completely dependent on the goodwill, skill and intuition of the intermediary in all this, the Diocesan Director of Ordinands.

I was telling my mate John about this, who responded “good grief, the banks stopped doing this 25 years ago.” Now I don’t want necessarily to hold up banks as models of good practice at the moment, but I did find it an interesting comment. (The logo by the way is that of a now defunct UK bank.)

Whether or not the system works in the end, it undoubtedly causes considerable stress for the people going through it. So in responding less than generously to VIT when she talked to me on the phone about the latest offer (I called the process cruel and unusual) I wonder if I am being overly paranoid and selfish or just normal. I am not quite sure.

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Threat or Opportunity?

husband — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:09:41 +0000

In the peculiar process that is finding a curacy, a diocese can “release” one of its sponsored ordinands. Without being “released” the ordinand has to look for a job in their own diocese and can not move (see earlier posting.)

This is a polite C of E doublespeak way of saying one or more of the following:

your request to be allowed to apply for a job in another diocese has been approved
we have run out of money
we have no job for you
your face does not fit
the demands you (the ordinand) have placed on us in respect of your curacy are such that we have no job for you
we forgot you were being ordained next summer and we have no job for you

Guess what the letter which arrived this morning from the local Regional General Manager (see http://www.vicarsfamilyintraining.org.uk/archives/32 for explanation of this term) said….

OK, now you’ve guessed. I wonder whether this is a threat to all that is comfortable about living in the lovely house and city we’ve been in for 23 and 29 years respectively; or an opportunity to enjoy pastures new. I suppose it depends on our sense of adventure.

And does it mean I can finally write to the Regional General Manager and tell him what I think of his HR processes?

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Spot the difference

husband — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:42:38 +0000

Do you remember those “spot the difference” pictures you used to do as a child? Two similar pictures with a number of differences, some of which were fairly obvious and usually two or three which took a while to find.

Here’s an updated version of one of those, except that we have two ordinands instead of two pictures. We still have to spot the difference between the two. We have to imagine that it is a year till ordination and conversations are beginning about where the ordinands might go to do their curacy. You also have to bear in mind that no ordinand is permitted to look at more than one curacy at once. Nor is any vicar allowed to look at more than one curate once. Nor can an ordinand from one diocese look outside that diocese without it being “released.” Essentially this means you have irrevocable permission to bugger off. So it is entirely possible that jobs which are geographically close by are not available because they are in a different diocese. (It’s a bit like living in Berwick-upon-Tweed and wanting to go to school in Scotland) This is not remotely like a normal job recruitment process. It is supposed to allow for “discernment.” This may allow God into the situation, or it may just be a fancy way of dressing up an outmoded process with a spiritualised word.

Anyway, here are the two ordinands whose differences we have to spot.

Well, you might notice that one is male and the other is female. The one left is in black and white while the other is in colour. Still not got it? Perhaps you could try the thought that the man was probably inside when his photograph was taken where is the woman was outside in the country when she was painted. No, that is not it either.

You want a clue? There are some other people in one of the pictures. Does that tell you anything? You’re getting warmer now. yes, the female ordinand has a family (and in this case three dogs, a harp and a large Greek vase.)

So, what does this have to do with the Church of England and our two ordinands? Well, the answer of course is deployment. Who is going to find it easier to up sticks and move? No prizes for guessing.

One then has to ask whether the Church of England, or at least some bits of the Church of England, have noticed this? It sometimes feels as if they still think all their ordinands are young, single or recently married, and either childless or with preschool age children.

If the church wants to train married people with families, it has to engage with the question of whether and how to deal with the idea of moving those families around the country. It is a very long time since anyone from the dioceses asked this VHIT what he thought about this, and so far the signs that any of this is being taken into account are not very good.

Of course, in a normal job recruitment situation the occupation, ties and other factors surrounding the spouse of an applicant are strictly off-limits, and rightly so. But this is not a normal job recruitment situation.

I am hoping that God is in there somewhere.

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Balancing Act….

husband — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:59:12 +0000

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.

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Parties in Breweries

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:59:15 +0000

There’s a well known phrase about those who can not organise parties in breweries. The observant amongst you might have noticed from earlier posts on this blog that I have formed a less than favourable opinion of the ability of certain parts of the Church of England to manage anything.

So it was with great delight that I listened to VIT telling me about the Management Module she has just been doing on the MA part of her training. Our conversation sparked all sorts of interesting ideas, not only for VIT’s future management style, but for the company of which I’m a director as well. Issues of power, authority and control, and who exercised which and in what way, and how are they linked.

I’m genuinely reassured that this part of the C of E is taking these things seriously.

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Ground meat formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine

husband — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:31:17 +0000

Imagine a Tesco supermarket fifteen years ago, or maybe Gateway, Hinton’s, or Fine Fare. Now think of yourself next to the sausage counter. You might have found two or three different varieties, maybe thick or thin, and maybe 6 or 12 in a pack. But that’s about it. Now think about what’s needed to make those sausages. You only need one set of raw ingredients, and some wide sausage skin, and some narrow sausage skin. Pretty simple business then.

Go this week to any supermarket, farmers’ market – maybe even a butcher – and the number of varieties is only exceeded by coffee combinations in Starbucks. The sausage industry has diversified: there are mass produced sausages, hand made sausages, long sausages, short ones, Finest sausages, Taste the Difference sausages, chilli and beef sausages, cranberry and venison sausages and so on. Although (to be fair) you can probably make these all in the same machine, the ingredients vary wildly, and so do the resulting sausages.

I am increasingly convinced that most parts of the C of E recruitment and training machine – the system - can really only cope with recruiting, making and using standard sized and flavoured sausages, which is unfortunate if you want to be a sausage, but don’t quite fit the standard recipe (i.e. male, under 30, no kids, little experience in doing the kinds of things you might have to do once ordained.) I used the word system deliberately. In this context I mean a construct put together with the best of intentions which attains a life of its own, is hard to change, and risks failing to serve both the purpose for which it was intended and the values with which it was created. Individual components of the system can still be profoundly good, and some individuals may have a good experience of the system, but taken as a whole, it does not seem to be set up for variety or with imagination. There is no one accountable person or body looking at the whole system. Things (and people) fall through the cracks, and it’s no one’s job to sort it.

A system built to make interesting sausages – to take the raw ingredients – the skills, the talents, learning, life experience as well as the hurts, foibles and tender areas, would say “wow, what an amazing sausage we could make out of this.”

But my observation so far is that it can’t do this: MinDiv centrally, Bishops, DDOs, Selectors, PTE advisors and training courses are either too knackered, too poor, too scared or too busy to make interesting sausages. The system would much rather have safe sausages.

Of course, I must not forget the ultimate creativity and integrity of the Holy Spirit. But He works through humans and the systems they create, and I can’t help thinking that at times the system makes that really really hard. What can be done? An integrated system with a compelling vision in which everyone involved was treated as an equal would be a good start, since that would respect all the ingredients of the sausage to be, and that includes their families too.

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You are a Towel

husband — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:00:24 +0000

I have left VIT at home with the family to come away with our company to a remote part of Scotland. We are having what would normally be called a retreat, but since Michael Wolff, one of our facilitators, does not do “retreats”, this is a Company Advance. We are here to work out “Who we are” and “What are our values and our qualities.”

Michael has written a pamphlet entitled “You are a towel.” His premise is that if you go to a hotel and the towel in the bathroom is dirty you will blame the hotel. Then you will see everything else that is wrong with the hotel, the city and maybe even the country. You form opinions, unaware that all the way along you are editing them and making subconscious assumptions about everything else connected with that towel. However much the hotel might claim to be interested in customer satisfaction, if the towel is dirty and no-one is bothered, then you know the claim is rubbish. The vision and the practice do not coincide.

He then suggests that in our organisations, each of us is like a towel. The values and qualities each of us brings to our organisation have a huge impact on the organisation and on perception of the organisation. If that perception is not glorious, then what can be done? The solution, Michael argues, is not to sort the towel, since there will always be another dirty towel. Instead he argues it’s the vision and value of the organisation which needs to be understood and shared by and with all the people in the organisation. ‘Passionate companies engage everyone involved in their organisation by inspiration. Everyone knows that they are the company…. there are no bits or parts of the company, and no unimportant people. They have moved from “top-down” fragmented organisations to “centre-out” holistic ones.’ That’s what our little firm is – imperfectly – aiming for too. This way, even if the towel is occasionally dirty, the ethos shines through, and the dirty towel is forgiven for being dirty, because you understand how that happened, and anyway, someone will care enough to sort it out.

The Church’s ethos – its value statement – is surely the command to love God and to love one another. Without this, everything else is pointless. But so far, my perception is that there are a lot of dirty towels in the C of E priestly recruitment process through which VIT has travelled so far, the system is very poor at working out whether or not they are dirty, (despite the perception created) and has little idea how to clean them if it wanted to. This suggests to me that the vision and the practice are some way apart. What has Mr Wolff to say about this?

“If you don’t see consistent experiences, clarity and integrity, you are not realising your full potential….”

So there is work to be done: a start might be for this organisation, the Church, to have recruitment, training and personnel placement and management processes characterised by consistency, clarity and integrity. If Michael is right (and I think he is) then this should give us something to pray for.

And, by the way, the towels in the remote house we are staying in on the Cowal Peninsula are excellent.

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Love, Honour and Obey, with red shoes

husband — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:26:36 +0000

When VIT and I got married she promised to Love, Honour and Obey me. (Yeah, don’t laugh but she did, wearing her red shoes and looking fabulous.) I had just promised to Love, Honour and Worship her. Whether or not you like the idea of a woman promising to obey her husband, there is a mutuality about this promise – she has to obey me – but I have to worship her. Hold on to that thought for a moment.

No one tells you when your other half becomes a VIT quite how much control is surrendered. Their own control over their life, and the VFITs over theirs. It’s partly practical – “you shall be at Morning Prayer” – but that’s really only a sign of something much bigger.

When someone is ordained (or when they’re licenced as a reader) they have to promise to obey their bishop “in all things lawful and godly.” Most parts of the church take this promise very seriously indeed. This requirement for obedience appears to extend to ordinands too, although VIT (as an ordinand) has never formally had to swear any oath of obedience.

So, here’s a question. Has the church thought about the mutuality of this obedience? Will the church, and its leaders in particular, worship their ordinands in return?

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