Summary
Beyond Calling? Addressing the Demands of Ministry workshop took place on 24 October 2024 in St Barnabas Church, Oxford, bringing together social science researchers and clergy to discuss relevant research and experiences around the demands of ministry.
The event was organised and reported by Prof Gillian Symon (Royal Holloway University of London), Dr Rebecca Whiting (Birkbeck University of London) and Dr Rebecca Taylor (University of Southampton) and sponsored by the ESRC Festival of Social Science.
The morning session focused on experienced demands. Talks from Dr Liz Graveling (Living Ministry Project) and Prof Gillian Symon (Pandemic Ministry Project) introduced various challenges and tensions experienced by clergy as they pursue their vocation, including the demands of formal and felt accountability (Graveling) and emphasising the importance of achieving a meaningful yet sustainable pattern of ministry (Symon).
Prompted by these presentations, each group discussed their own experience:
- A sense of vocation and meaningful ministry is a privilege but can also create unrealistic demands. Demands appear to be potentially unlimited, ironically leading to cutting down on activities that contribute to a sense of vocation. Support is urgently needed if demands mean clergy struggle to articulate their vocation.
- Invisible demands included existential and psychological demands such as ‘masking’ one’s own feelings and hiding concerns about the wider Church from the parish. Incumbents also identified various invisible tasks and unspoken expectations of their role from both parish and Church. Invisible tasks and expectations may explain some of the difficulties curates experience moving into incumbency.
- Digital solutions stemming from the pandemic can help manage demands but can also increase expectations of availability.
The afternoon session focused on support strategies. Gill Lovell (CMDA, Oxford Diocese) outlined the intentional conversations that enable a ‘thinking space’ for clergy and the Oxford Diocese system of ministry accompaniers. Prof Neil Conway (Royal Holloway University of London) summarised research that has quantified the amount of time clergy spend on administration and led to the introduction of admin assistants to help manage this commitment.
Prompted by these presentations, each group discussed their own experience:
- Coaching interventions are welcomed. Clergy also valued, for example, retreats, national support networks, training events, and the CMD grant. However, there were also concerns that interventions for individual clergy ignore more structural issues.
- Personal strategies for managing demands included: supportive social networks; overt appreciation; efficient internal systems; and regularly blocking time out, including for valued hobbies.
- There was ambivalence about administrative activities. While some saw admin as a distraction from more meaningful activities, others saw it as a welcome break from these.
Clergy also expressed some general reservations and limitations in relation to interventions to manage demands:
- It was suggested that the increase in demands was emanating from structural and cultural changes in the Church and could not be resolved without also considering interventions at this level.
- Concerns were raised that interventions are removed from the everyday experience of ministry. More “grassroots” consultation and interventions driven by clergy would be valuable and empowering may be more effective than top-down driven interventions.
- Having a sense of vocation may be a ‘hostage to fortune’, leading to feelings of “never being enough”. It is important to ask for help and not try to be a “superstar” driven by vocation.
- Role modelling by senior clergy would help in “giving permission” for self-care.
- There was an apprehension that those who most needed help were those least able or likely to ask for it so systems need to be in place to identify struggling clergy.
Looking across the concerns expressed, ideas for future actions are summarised in five areas: Training; Everyday Ministry Practice; Supporting Clergy with Overwhelming Demands; Bottom-Up Group Level Interventions; and Changes at National Church Level. These ideas are necessarily broad at this stage and need further discussion and detail.
Participants were very positive about the event and as a consequence intended to take a variety of actions, including engaging with some of the suggested interventions and contacting local clergy to offer support.
The organisers have provided a template for this workshop intervention for use elsewhere and this is outlined in the Appendix.