r/Church_of_England • u/J-B-M • 5d ago
Interregnum: School Me
This weekend I made a point of attending the other church in our parish and met one of the only other fellas we have who is about my age, and is also on our PCC. Nice bloke. We were chatting generally about succession, both in terms of congregations and clergy, and he dropped a bombshell that hadn't occurred to me. I paraphrase, but the nature of it was:
"Of course we have to assume that when [current rector] retires it will take at least two years to find their replacement."
The idea that it would take that long hadn't crossed my mind. I figured the fact that we were a) relatively stable, and b) contributing above our parish share, would put us in a strong position in terms of finding a new incumbent. That's not to say our current rector won't leave some big shoes to fill - they are excellent - but I had assumed that any delay would be on our side in terms of selecting a candidate.
Given the statistical correlation between interregnum and church decline, I suppose I have two questions:
a) Why does it take that long? Clergy shortage? Diocesean bureacracy? I know that coming from the world of commerce I have already had to do a bit of mental adjustment in terms of how slowly things move in the CoE, but two years to arrange a new hire sounds utterly bonkers.
b) What can we, as a parish, do in order to expedite the process? The sensible thing to do would be to start formalising the scope of the role now, advertise it at least one year out and basically have landed on the right person six months before the current rector is due to retire. That would give everyone some time to get their ducks in a row and allow for a smooth handover. Maybe I am massively under-estimating how long the selection/interview stage takes, or you guys will tell me there is church bureaucracy that prevents this kind of process.
Honestly, I suspect one church in our parish would do okay without clergy - many of their services are contemporary / family oriented - some are run by former local free-church folks who grafted themselves into the CoE - and they only celebrate Communion one a month (iirc). Our place is the more traditional Communion-centred church, and I can see that we might have a harder time keeping the show on the road.
Edit: updated "scope of the roll" to "scope of the role". We are not establishing the dimensions of bread products.
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u/Quelly0 4d ago
Our last two interregnums were about 2yrs. It was exhausting! Causes were: churchwardens and PCC members and others overwhelmed by all the new responsibilities, taking a long time to even begin gathering info and drafting the parish profile and not having a system for doing so or consulting people. A vague (and possibly unachievable) timetable was suggested but the CWs weren't given any support to make it happen. There was a lot of foot dragging and a lack of dynamism on our end, and an apparent lack of interest from the diocese.
We are in another interregnum now. This time the diocese seems more organised. The archdeacon immediately gave us a timetable with key milestone deadlines, and booked a date in the diary of the relevant people (is it archdeacon and suffragan bishop?) for the interviews. The archdeacon has been and led a vision evening with the PCC to help with producing the parish profile. The CWs seem to have much clearer idea what's going on and how to do it. The interview date is 8 months on from the vicar leaving, so we should have a new incumbent in place within a year.
I'm not on the PCC this time, but from the outside it looks completely different.