The ability to reflect on and examine relationships in my life as a priest has, I trust, improved with age. Understanding difficult relationships with former colleagues has become much easier with the passing of time and the access to new insights. No one thought to teach us at college anything about the hazards of working with a training incumbent (TI) – the difficulties of maintaining a smooth relationship with the individual who has an entire career in their hands. I had two difficult relationships with TIs. The first was a work-weary priest of 71 who was desperately in need of a senior curate who would lift some of the burden of parish routine from his shoulders. He was not impressed when all that was on offer was me, a newly ordained deacon. At that point I could do none of the routine parish duties like baptisms, confirmation and marriage preparation. I lasted seven months before my misery reached the ears of the diocesan authorities and I was allowed to move to another parish in the diocese. In the time I served in this first parish, I had only seen the TI three times to talk about my training in the parish. When I mention that he used to make appointments for wedding couples for 10 pm in the evening, it might convey how utterly unprepared he was to make time for the important role of nurturing and encouraging a new deacon.
My second TI was an improvement in many respects since he found time for me. He also entrusted me with the range of parish responsibilities so that, at the end of three years, I could be said to be ready for independent responsibility. But there were problems designed to make sure that I was not allowed to escape the stress of being a curate, under someone else’s control. Looking back over fifty years I can see that a main stumbling block that existed was the TI’s jealousy of me. He was unhappily married, and the effect of this spilled over into all his relationships. I was then single and somehow he resented that I was not also caught up in an unhappy relationship. The accommodation provided were two rooms in the Vicarage and I shared a meal with the Vicar and his wife every day. His overall unhappiness caused him also to have a volatile temper with occasional outbursts of volcanic anger. To add to my sense of claustrophobia and overexposure to this priest, I had no access to an independent telephone. Few parishioners were able to contact me this way. Those who attempted it had to pass though the TI. I had to tell people not to ring me since it was so complicated and stressful receiving phone calls.
At the end of my time in what was effectively my first curacy, I knew I needed time out from parish stress. With the help of savings and grants, I went back to university to do two years full time research on a theme related to Eastern Orthodox studies. Eventually, after a second curacy, I found myself as an independent incumbent in a parish in Herefordshire with three churches. After my highly stressful period as a curate, I revelled in the independence that I now had. Working closely with other clergy had been fraught at best and totally destructive at worst. But there was a new aspect to my work and relationships with fellow clergy. The Deanery chapter actually functioned fairly well. Having our own areas of responsibility meant that we were never a threat to one another. When we worked together, we knew that, if things got tense, we could retreat back to our patch and remain unscarred by whatever tension had flared up.
Since ‘escaping’ from the volatile atmosphere of being a curate all those years ago, I have often reflected on the topic of how clergy can work together successfully. Although my own curate experiences were difficult, I can see that there is no reason why the TI/curate relationship should not work well. As long as the TI has a level of self-insight and is prepared to enter imaginatively into the curate’s role, the experience should be a rewarding one for both sides. The interaction must, however, never be assumed to be straightforward. Both sides need to submit to external supervision to avoid the stresses that I and many (most?) other curates in the past have had to endure. For those who work in team ministries or the newly invented mission teams, a different set of skills is required. Here clergy are almost randomly thrust together in a theoretical position of equality. They bring their churchmanship preferences, their personal traits and their possibly unresolved psychological wounds from the past into the mix. Do we really expect them to find mutual support and peaceful cooperation in such groupings?
The role of the Anglican priest is one that attracts individuals to its ranks with a variety of personal profiles. Although all potential candidates are now screened psychologically, that has not stopped some slipping through the system with less than honourable reasons for seeking ordination. Some of these will involve a desire for social status with a perception that to be a clergyperson will boost a flagging self-esteem. To put it bluntly, the clerical profession is attractive to someone high on the narcissism spectrum. Such a person will be using every opportunity to self-promote and enjoy the trappings of privilege and power without caring for the rights and sensitivities of others. If a clergy group has to work with someone fitting this profile, it is hard to see how this group will be able ever to function successfully as a team. There will be a great deal of stress for everyone. The profile of narcissism among church leaders is one that I have often mentioned on this blog. Narcissism typically combines a fragile core personality with a striving for power and status. The narcissist will be skilled at manipulating others and do everything required to fulfil a desire to be always at the centre of attention. If a narcissist with this profile takes control in a team or group situation, that will make the situation virtually impossible.
A useful online discussion on narcissism that I came across yesterday, mentioned five factors about narcissism that fatally undermine relationships. I have reworded these points to allow them to apply to failures in team working where narcissism is present in a leader. Narcissism in any relationship will destroy it very quickly. Teams which have the misfortune of coming under narcissistic leadership also have little chance of successful working.
- The heightened core vulnerability of the leader with narcissism would induce a sense in the team of permanently walking on eggshells.
- The team members would be terrified of disagreeing with the leader.
- The miasma of fear in the group would repress spontaneity (and humour!).
- The forceful imposing of the of the will of the narcissistic leader would be corrosive on the sense of individual boundaries. Individual identities are supressed by the forcefulness of the narcissist.
- The narcissism of the leader creates permanent tension lest the team members have to witness periodic outbursts of narcissistic rage.
Team working in the Church of England has had a chequered history. I have attempted to locate a good example of successful team working but have so far failed. Team ministries that were so ubiquitous twenty years ago seem to have quietly gone out of fashion. Perhaps someone reading this will loudly tells us that the Team Ministry concept was a brilliant idea, and that clergy were and are extremely happy to work in one. Apparent teams seem to exist in many large conservative churches in our cities. Here the church can afford to pay for large numbers of assistant clergy. Young evangelical clergy appear desperate to be appointed to one of these flagship churches. Sometimes they can remain there as curates for up to fifteen years. They are unwilling to serve in any church outside this culture, so they quietly wait their turn to take over the running one of these important churches when a vacancy comes round. Some will compromise and accept appointment to another less prestigious church within the conservative network. The flagship churches with this profile, employing large numbers of clerical staff, are not strictly teams in a practical or legal sense. The assistant clergy remain technically and functionally assistant curates. The pattern for teams in the wider C of E work with team rectors and team vicars. This scheme first appeared in the 60s. The aim was to create a team parish incorporating several churches and parishes. These parishes might have a variety of traditions, but team staff would be expected to work right across the whole area. There was the expectation that this way of working would be preferred by those who had traditionally operated alone. It was thought that clergy needed the support of their peers to operate happily in the parochial setting.
Today we still have clusters of churches which call themselves teams, but they seem still to retain much of the old territorialism of the past. In other words, there may have been a change of name but the fundamental preference for neighbourhood-based churches remains alive and well in people’s expectations. Also, the bulk of clergy would appear to prefer to work a defined ‘patch’ which is in some sense theirs. Such territorialism is extremely tenaciously held by most clergy, and they are loath to surrender it to any new pattern. A sense of belonging to a place is also strong among the laity. They want, even need, to identify with a particular clergy person who acts as their vicar. They will simply give up if the areas of clerical responsibility become so large and diffuse that clergy and laypeople can no longer regard it in any sense as theirs.
Clergy have hitherto not been known for their skill at being part of genuine teams. There are many things that get in the way of easy working relationships – theological outlook, temperament, personal insecurities and ambition. For the Church of England to be requiring so many clergy to work in structures that defy tradition and clerical temperament, is risky in the extreme. Over the course of my ministry, I have watched clergy facing appalling stressful situations, caused by often having to work in toxic proximity to other clergy with problematic profiles. For a team to have a sporting chance of working, you need every member of the team to have a extremely healthy psychological make-up where narcissism is completely absent. That would appear to be a tall order. As far as I know, no one has studied the way that clergy seem to have long ministries when they are given independent responsibility. Conversely, they appear far less happy when they are forced to operate in structures that deny them any ownership of their working environment. Mission teams may look fine on paper, but, when they are strictly implemented, they will likely cause high stress and unhappiness within the Church as a whole. That cost will be hard to bear.
If the group of people involved is large, there will always be some, low status usually, individuals who are not in with the in crowd. Usually me! I was never part of any of the teams I was supposed to be in. Add in a wise retired cleric who made the incumbent feel inadequate, and a senior Reader who is the major theologian, and you have a recipe for a dysfunctional team.
Strongly recognise the jealous TI. My curacy was a nightmare and I know that’s pretty common.
Narcissistic team member (in my case the Rector) is also scarily familiar. With one person, I communicate as little as possible to avoid being ambushed.
I think the thing about identifying with a place is relevant to clergy as well as laity. One of the most difficult things for us in a previous post, was taking on a 2nd parish when we were already immersed in the first. We lived there, shopped there, our kids went to school there etc. Very difficult to find “room” for a 2nd parish.
Many thanks for these insights. Although the development of team ministries had been foreshadowed by Arthur Smith’s South Ormsby experiment in the late 1940s, it seems that Leslie Paul’s celebrated 1964 report ‘The Deployment and Payment of the Clergy’ lit the torchpaper as far as team ministries were concerned.
South Ormsby was significant: for the South Riding of Lincolnshire parts of Lindsey is (or was) one of the most densely churched, and thinly populated parts of the country. It was acutely problematic, especially in the aftermath of the war, for large amounts of clerical manpower to be tied up in minute rural parishes, when both Church and State were endeavouring to build a New Jerusalem with new suburbs and new towns that would need new churches with the personnel to go with them.
By the early 1960s much of that post-war optimism had evaporated, although it was not yet in freefall. Paul was anxious to highlight the inequities in clerical compensation and the malapportionment of manpower with the Church struggling to retain the allegiance of a prosperous middle class that was turning ever more of its attention at weekends to sundry leisure pursuits as an alternative to churchgoing (the period 1962-64 also being a decisive moment for the Church in terms of sexual politics, as S. J. D. Green, Hugh Macleod and others have noted).
Team ministries were therefore intended to break down the little fiefdoms/republics that had anciently characterised the Church, not least because this would enable the uneven returns from glebe to be redistributed amongst more clergy (glebe had not yet been appropriated by DBFs). It was also a defensive measure: teams of clergy would enable provision in thinly populated areas to be ‘rationalised’ (i.e., reduced) and, in so doing, savings would be generated for a Church that was starting to feel the pinch after nearby a century of furniture burning.
I, too, have heard a number of stories about clergy serving title. It really seems to be pot luck, but I wonder whether it is really worthwhile? It implies a 5 year long training period (if a residential course has been taken). That is not only very expensive, but is it even necessary? If much training is as inadequate as that experienced by yourself, why bother with it at all? Why not abolish the concept of ‘serving title’ or, at any rate, reduce it to something less protracted: 12 months instead of 36? Based on this piece, I am not certain that 36 months’ of purgatory was anything but pointless, save insofar as it would have given you feeling of particular elation at the end.
I am rarely moved to respond here, and I have always found Stephen’s posts to be rooted in pastoral good sense, but in this case I must respectfully disagree. Clearly many TIs are unsuitable for the trust given them. Too often curates are sent to a parish because of its size or influence and not because of the training skills of the incumbent. But surely the weakness of the system is not the principle of serving a curacy but a culture that assumes that ‘independence’ or ‘leadership’ is the normal state of clergy working. Why is the principle of collaborative ministry so foreign to us? Is not collegiality a sound model for priesthood? Not least because if clergy are reluctant or unwilling to work with one another, they are also unlikely to work collaboratively with their parishioners. It sounds to me like a recipe for each parish to be a miniature dictatorship. Formation in residential colleges and ministry courses should start from the assumption that it is good and desirable for clergy to work with one another.
Peter, thank you very much for your most sensible comment. Collaboration is key in any working environment. The secular world has been aware of this for a very long time. It would be good if the world of the church would catch up. The time of the “one man band” (I deliberately use sexist language) is well and truly over. English Athena’s comment makes sad reading. How fortunate the incumbent she mentions is to have a “wise retired cleric” and a “major theologian” in her ‘team’. If she feels inadequate, that is her problem and one that needs to be addressed by either her Area Dean or her Archdeacon. We all have areas of strength and areas of weakness in us – we are, after all, flawed human beings, who through the grace of God, are trying to follow Jesus and are forgiven sinners. I seriously wonder at the adequacy of training institutions in being able to teach putative clergy to work TOGETHER and not feel that they have to do everything without recourse to the help on offer. The Church of England is in crisis. I sit to it very loosely indeed these days. The first thing the C of E needs to do is teach ordinands, as a matter of urgency, how to work collaboratively. There is enormous strength in working together, using each other’s strengths. The total is indeed greater than the sum of the individual parts.
Thanks Anne. Oddly enough, there was another benefice I could have described in almost identical terms. Except that the person with the problem was the incumbent’s wife! I did know clergy who would regard the wardens and the organist as members of the team. And others who thought it was just stipendiary clergy, and so excluded NSM s and retired as well. It does vary.
I too believe that good teamwork is essential for any good work to be done. However, I very much doubt that the Church of England is capable of fostering it. In my experience, people who work collaboratively – like good pastors – are not valued or encouraged. Pastoral work and collaboration both require the ability to listen to others, respect their dignity and autonomy, and adjust to their needs and abilities.
In theory these are also good management skills, but not in an environment where personnel are all doing the jobs of several people and quick results are valued above all else.
I don’t believe that training, alone, is sufficient. The Church needs to begin by selecting candidates who are team players rather than what are (misleadingly, in my view) seen as strong leaders. And here we have the problem that selectors are chosen by those who themselves are too often narcissists, and if they recognise those traits in others will probably approve of them. Training programmes for selectors and clergy, too, are designed and set up by people who are shaped by the existing dysfunctional culture.
I really don’t know where we go from here. What comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Janet, I think you’ve answered your own question by seeing the inadequacy of both alternatives! Surely it would be better to recognize that different people thrive in different settings, lead in different ways and respond differently – and see a broad spectrum of skills or gifts as necessary?
Counter-intuitively, I suspect that good team work comes from a strong leader who wants to be part of a team!
Of course. My point is that an unhealthy culture of narcissism, with false views of what constitutes good leadership, is so entrenched that I don’t see any way of changing it.
Some months into my first curacy in 1986 I received a phone call from a friend I had known at theological college asking me how I was getting on with my incumbent. It turned out she was having such a difficult time that she was ringing round everyone from our year to see what their experience was. She said that about 90 percent of us were unhappy, finding the relationship difficult if not impossible.
I have wondered since whether people coming out of college are full of vision, wanting to change the world, but what the incumbent wants is an assistant who will fit in. Rather different. A lot of grace needed on both sides.
Having a Training Incumbent with an explosive temper must have been a demoralising start to your clerical journey.
Anger is often a taboo subject and brushed over where it occurs. Because it’s a genuine emotion, some believe they have the right, the duty even to express it whenever they feel like.
Anger is intended to be destructive and usually is. The energy the fight response gives us, enables us to ward off others, flattening them in our paths and removing their impact on our lives. That’s great if you are defending your small child from a marauding mob of thugs, but not when you are maintaining a delicate personal or professional relationship, like a marriage or a coach.
And it is possible to control anger by careful work and professional help. But not easy.
At bottom, anger is a lazy way of getting your own way. It destroys intimacy and respect, both ways. Repression or internalised pretending isn’t the answer obviously. Rather get to the heart of it and sort out the past. A key component of bullying, the external world is slowly coming to grips with this, with the Church playing catch up.
Anger is a key pointer to disqualification for leadership, yet ironically is more common in leaders.
Interesting point about anger. Anger, or the propensity to it, destroys the possibility of good collaborative relationship which are so necessary for teams. Teams are a good idea in theory but there are so many potential inhibitors to them working well, that those of us who have tried to be good team members have grown disheartened over the years. My blog piece could be summed up in two sentences. Teams are good for clergy but let us have far better understanding of the many issues that can sabotage them below the waterline. Training is only a partial answer!
I honestly wonder whether people get to a point where we’re just too worn out to carry on the work that team work requires.
In a 25 year career in the NHS I have worked in nine teams and of them I would consider only one actually functioned at all. That was purely chance, that a team happened to have come together who could work together and any conflict could be contained within the team. Otherwise I have seen some spectacular childishness, actual sabotage, total failure of anything the team was supposed to be achieving and inability to face reality.
I am retired, have a chronic illness which is exhausting anyway, and have concluded that the idea of team work is an ideal which doesn’t work. I would suggest as a reason that humans are too contrary, selfish and self sabotaging to do this. I see team work as being intended to reduce the effect of flawed human nature however people seem hell bent on not getting on!
I have also witnessed the same in a number of RC religious communities, to the extent of monks who literally haven’t spoken to each other for twenty years!
This is an interesting post but is frankly extraordinary. In virtually every arena of life, teamwork is critical – whether in business, education or the third sector. Indeed, those that are not very good at it, simply don’t succeed. Similarly, there is little tolerance for explosive temper, jealousy or outright irrational behaviour. Flexibility and understanding of others positions/opinions is required and becomes second nature. Research suggests that for millennials and Generation Z, it is a prerequisite of a desirable workplace.
It is therefore perhaps a sad indictment of the selection and training of clergy, alongside the organisational culture that exists within dioceses, deaneries and teams within the Church of England. It is also concerning that the proposed remedy seems to be a return to working alone, which does not address the (deeply concerning) root issues.
My only criticism of the post is Stephen’s usual sideswipe at what he calls “conservatives”. I am not sure it adds anything to the intellectual rigour of this discussion, and perhaps could be seen as just trying to highlight his arguments from other posts. As I have countered consistently, there are deep misunderstandings and generalisations in some of his analyses.
Nigel, I agree with much of what you say,but your statement:
‘As I have countered consistently, there are deep misunderstandings and generalisations in some of his analyses.’
is surely a sweeping statement par excellence (and I should know). Perhaps you could be more specific commenting on the respective threads or propose, in this example, conservative churches with clear examples of good teamwork to support your statement?
I am not going to regurgitate several previous responses of mine – they are written there transparently under my name below several of Stephen’s other posts. Stephen and I probably disagree – but from my perspective, he makes unfounded generalisations about “evangelicals” and seems to conflate “conservative evangelicals” with “open” and “charismatic” evangelicals (using definitions of Bishop Graham Kings in the Anvil journal in 2003). I am not sure this is particularly helpful.
That said, Stephen writes well and makes many good points. I suspect that if we sat down for a coffee or glass of whisky we would actually have much in common!
Way back in the late 80’s I became a member of a ‘flagship’ urban team which was held to be a good example. The Rector and Team Vicars all got on well and we could minister across the range from anglo-catholic to open evangelical. That is, until we attended a diocesan team conference. Here our presentation to the others was universally panned: we were fiercely ridiculed as being highly dysfunctional. It seemed that all the other teams present needed somewhere to project their issues. The palpable anger which occupied the room from both sides remained over the course of the next two days (one of our team nearly left) and it was amusing in a banal sort of way witnessing the hapless facilitator trying to rescue the entire conference (he didn’t). During the next 5 years or so I would scarcely say that being a member of a team was a walk in the park. This was partly on account of changes of staff – a significant factor since different clergy are at different stages of their contract. Eventually I was even briefly on my own caring for the four churches, and it was then that the powers-that-be decided that the team had collapsed. There being no-one else to interrogate, the Rural Dean concluded that I, like the one green bottle left standing on the wall, must be at fault. The situation was ludicrous. But however unwanted, it nevertheless taught me an important lesson about how ill-prepared the C of E was to address team supervision and development other than by knee-jerk reaction. It was with utter relief that I spent the next 16 years (the main part of my ministry) in a single parish where I did what I could to develop constructive teamwork alongside imaginative laity. Two of the factors that I see as problematic in team ministries, as well as the narcissism Stephen identifies, are the problems of bullying and harassment (which can often be unidentified as such by clergy victims) and the drip-down effects of insinuation and undermining. If a safe atmosphere is not created, team members retreat into their individual satellites. In our case we were lucky that we had two; not only the churches for which we were personally responsible, but the highly creative sector ministries which functioned alongside them. Significantly when the team was subsequently reconstituted it was decided that these sector ministries – so important a feature of mission in the parish – were responsible (together with our ‘individualistic’ personalities) for the entire debacle. The experiment was duly ended and the new team had at its head a plausible authoritarian who instructed the team that they must be seen to be morally superior to every benighted soul who came under their spiritual care. Good luck, Church of England, with your shiny new future.
What a sad story. But what do you mean about unidentified? Could you unpack that?
Many of us groan inwardly with the latest “management missive” passed down from on high. Whichever walk of life we’ve marched along, these directives are increasingly hard to take, particularly when, with the years passing, we’ve seen them before however rehashed.
I admit to being very surprised how effective teamwork could be, and became an enthusiast overnight (on an ex-Marines training course). However it takes real captaincy skill to select and maintain a functioning team against continuing resistance, even when it’s working.
You can’t simply impose a new way of working on a vast organisation and expect the majority to “come on board”, and even if they do, for it to work. What are the “management” thinking of?
Of course they actually do know (arguably) that it won’t work as described, but they go ahead anyway. Typically behind this attitude is a desire to disrupt. That certainly works.
One thing I have repeatedly observed, is the undervaluation of existing service, faithfully and quietly rendered over many years.
Well said Steve.
Teams, teams and team-work. In the C of E there are formal Teams of parishes, which in effect are historic parishes grouped together (for various reasons, some maybe good, some maybe not so good). There are also, I hope, teams of people doing all sorts of things ,together and for, the wider community in any moderately healthy local church, whether a choir, a lay-ministry team, the wardens working with their incumbent, the Sunday School team or whoever. Within the average parish the incumbent is normally the only full-time paid person, and is looked to as the “leader”. In a Team, the Team Rector may hold the “leader” title, but they have little actual power. and there are other clergy who are also paid.
I am never too sure if a Team is primarily a team of clergy and ministers supporting the ministry and mission of several parishes, with shared enterprises and services, or whether the congregations should feel part of a “team”. A similiar-ish question can be asked of the actual purpose of a deanery, but on a bigger scale.
I suspect that many stipendiary clergy assume they are appointed as the “leader” as well as the expert and the senior priest. Accountability is not built in but we take criticism personally as we put a lot of our person into our work and preaching etc.
I am now a Team Rector, so maybe should not comment, but I hope we have a vision for all the parishes / local churches to flourish, to keep individuality while aware that quite a few things can be done better together, it is good to share, we can learn from each other, and – especially if there is a problem – we can support each other. Four parishes and six church buildings – most people who go have “their” church that they go to but we are building a greater sense of shared identity and concern. We may have to face bigger challenges at some point.
I am fortunate in that I have been appointed into a Team where I have very good colleagues, most non-stipendiary.
I hope this team enables individuals to flourish, the local churches to flourish, worship to happen and always with an outward focus to and for our communities. It is certainly not perfect, and I am very aware that I can make it worse for others.
For smaller suburban and rural churches to survive we need to work together.
Teams can easily be dysfunctional and drain energy, but autocrats are dangerous, some brilliant (for a while but then irreplaceable) and some terrible, with most in between! A work consultant may sound like a modern jargon character, but Jethro was such to Moses, and they can help us evaluate how we are doing.
It is a worrying issue if clergy do not seem to work well together – existing structures, patterns of training (away in a residential college does not help in my view), selection processes, and the theology of ordination all contribute for good and ill, and of course the various tribalisms we have grown up with.
Of course you must comment! And it’s great that you want to build a team mentality. But many don’t. And you do have power. If you don’t recognise that, it can get difficult.
I’d simply comment that I’ve never worked alone in my (so far) 33 years of stipendiary ministry and for most of that time I’ve been in some sort of team. Without that I’d have become completely unstuck years ago. Teams don’t necessarily make things easier – indeed I’d suggest that they do and should take a lot of working at. For me an absolute minimum in terms of practice has been daily prayer of some sort in common and typically a weekly meeting that may have some business attached to it but whose primary purpose is fundamentally non-instrumental.
Fine if all the members of your team are stipendiary. People who have to go to work, or take children to school can’t get to morning prayer every day! That, I’m afraid is how people like me get left out.
You seem to have had the advantage of working in reasonably functional teams. My early experiences of daily prayer together and weekly staff meetings were so crushingly destructive that I’ve never wanted to repeat them.
Really you know, churches are teams even if they don’t realise it. No incumbent manages a parish without retired clergy covering services, churchwardens, Readers, organist, cleaners, PCC, PSO, volunteers running groups & activities. Even the smallest parish in my rural Diocese has most of those, and is usually part of a benefice.
Teams, like families, are hard work and can be dysfunctional, as well as supportive and creative. Certainly we can do much more in training to equip clergy to be team members, and perhaps team leaders. Maybe the clergy don’t have to be the leaders?
As well as training, I think the biggest change we should make is professional registration and supervision for clergy, like for therapists and social workers. Also teaching group/peer supervision processes. These work well in other settings, in my experience.
Re supervision I came here to say the same thing! Clergy do a difficult and pressured job and supervision would give a place to explore situations that can otherwise fester.
Or coaching. Amongst my friends leadership & executive coaching is a key and valued part of their promotion ladder; and this is for people who are managing teams who are paid and with job descriptions. How much harder clergy have it, without the same support in place!
General (for want of a better word) coaching has been one of the best investments I’ve made in myself and my relationship with God, and I can only think how much of a return the church would get if it provided this to all clergy in place of some diocesan structures.
Thanks Hal, for this and other comments you’ve made. I can see virtual “wincing” from many for the idea of coaching, which is of course a valuable one.
One conviction to be overcome in many serving in church, including clergy, is that they are the finished article and improvement is not necessary. Yet in other walks of life, self development in the service of others is not just an imposition, but actually sought after.
There’s something life-changing about believing you’re called by God to serve – both in a good way and in making people think they are the finished article and only those around need help.
A cursory reading of scripture should be enough to warn people to open their eyes and put away their ego, but as this site touches on so many times that doesn’t happen.
I hold that most people feel no calling to the job they’re doing and/or don’t really want to do it, so are more open to self development because the job isn’t linked to their identity (or it gets them time out from doing the job)
I’ve seen the “finished article” conviction most in my contacts who became clergy, medics or teachers. The masochistic working conditions of medics and teachers seem to address it quickly, but it’s taking longer to work out in the clergy (‘”I need God to change me as much as anyone”, says the clergyman who’s open to no views but his own’).
In my job I see it in entrepreneurs, who in many ways are the non-religious equivalent of a subset of clergy. Passionate, evangelistic, out to change the world, sounds familiar? The last 5 years though even for them coaching has become more “normal”, thanks to a combination of Silicon Valley normalization and clever marketing of coaching as how to be more effective and better entrepreneurs. Positioning matters!
Sadly I can’t see the CoE being that smart at selling it, even to ordinands-in-training…
Obviously there will usually be some variance between how you see the effectiveness of your team as leader, compared with the opinions of your charges. Come on let’s be honest!
In the rest of the world upward appraisal has been in use for decades, with varying degrees of success. It can come as a nasty surprise to discover your management ability may not be a widely appreciated as you realise, speaking from experience.
Jane’s idea of someone else leading the team from time to time, is a good one, if the head honcho has the confidence to cede partial control. The very best leaders can do this, but most can’t or won’t.
For 10 years I was chair of what I felt was a very successful experiment: a Group Ministry. This worked as a wider federation of six parishes – not unlike a minster model though with no suggestion of which of the churches actually was a minster and with one stipendiary or NSM per parish. The lay/clergy council devised quarterly major joint activities/services and the clergy had their own built-in support group which met every two months. Disbanded now as Mission and Ministry Units take over and Teams look like they will be re-instated, this unique combination of parochial autonomy and collaborative ministry will be lost to the sweep of history. It was much less claustrophobic and inward-looking than team ministry and had many strengths.
Thanks Stephen, a really interesting article.
I’m part of a team in a rural benefice of 12 churches. At full strength we have a team of 6 Clergy (3FT, 3 SSM) 3 LLM, a Youth Pastor and 2 admin staff, and several other authorised lay leaders, It is by far and away the best team I have ever worked with. High functioning, gracious and loving.
The key to its functioning so well is, in my view, that everyone is a ‘grown up’. By that I mean secure in their gifts and who they are, aware of their weaknesses and failings, and happy to accept that we need each other to be all that God calls us to be.
We are able to laugh together and cry together, and when things are tough we rely on each other to keep going. We’re very different characters and we belong to a range of theological traditions, but we rejoice in each other and what the other brings.
We’re also really careful about who we allow to join the team. No pathologically insecure, fragile and high maintenance sorts, as in my experience the easiest way to undermine ministry is for the team to become an energy vacuum and a place of unhappiness.
Ministry teams can in my experience be a source of huge joy and encouragement.
That’s really good to hear. How do you manage to identify and screen out the ‘pathologically insecure, fragile and high maintenance sorts’, though? That’s not always easy, as they can be so plausible. And what if the bishop insists on appointing someone the rest of you aren’t sure of? That happens in some dioceses.