Do we need to ‘Save the Parish’?

Frog Orr-Ewing writes: On Tuesday 3rd August, a gathering was hosted by Marcus Walker in St Bartholomew the Great, London’s oldest parish church, to launch a campaign to “Save the Parish”. This small conference was intended to begin a campaign for General Synod, expressly to stop resources being siphoned away from parishes, and to ‘resist any … Continue Reading

Why do churches manage people badly?

Jon Kuhrt writes: The church frequently has to respond to the scandal and upset created by safeguarding failures and other cases of serious malpractice. As we all know, these scandals powerfully undermine the integrity of the church’s witness. One key factor in ecclesiastical failures that is frequently downplayed is the poor state of basic ‘human resources’ … Continue Reading

Should clergy count their days and hours?

A few days ago, Donald Allister, Bishop of Peterborough, wrote to his clergy and talked about self-management in relation to time keeping and time off. It has garnered some interesting reactions. This is the extract in question: Clergy Care In a number of dioceses, bishops have started instructing clergy to take two consecutive days off … Continue Reading

‘Is the new Bishop of London any good?’

If nothing else, the announcement that Sarah Mullally was to be the new Bishop of London was entertaining in the way that it flummoxed all the pundits and predictors. As the inimitable Richard Coles put it: ‘In your faces, haruspices‘. But then followed the slightly predictable rush to judgement, with a number of comments made … Continue Reading

Can we survive the email onslaught?

Driving back from deanery chapter last week with a colleague, the subject of emails come up—I cannot now remember why, possibly in discussion of ‘What does the rest of the day hold for you?’ The mere mention of the word elicited a deep groan; who looks forward to dealing with their email inbox? It is … Continue Reading

How to manage emails

Driving back from deanery chapter last week with a colleague, the subject of emails come up—I cannot now remember why, possibly in discussion of ‘What does the rest of the day hold for you?’ The mere mention of the word elicited a deep groan; who looks forward to dealing with their email inbox? It is … Continue Reading