By ANON (Views from the Pews)

“The House discussed the start of work on a review of the definition of safeguarding, to examine whether the Church’s structures and processes are established in a way that can best ensure everyone it comes into contact with is kept safe from harm.” (Minutes of the House of Bishops Meeting, York, 21 May 2026).

We have recently had another visit from the Archdeacon. Our parish is about to go into vacancy (the Vicar is leaving), so we have had the pep-talk about what an “opportunity” this time will be for our congregation and parish. We have no idea how long the vacancy will be, and the Archdeacon (helpfully?) said that the current gap between a clergyperson leaving and a new one arriving in the Diocese is about 18 months. Some vacancies take longer to fill, we were told.

We should be OK going forward. Our benefice comprises two parishes, with one Victorian church and one much older. Both have church halls. One of the parishes also has a mission church that was built on the new housing estate in the 1960s. So, we have five buildings to care for. The is also one JMI CofE school in the benefice. We do Messy Church too, and have a ministry to the residential and nursing homes in the parishes. Churchgoing numbers have been steadily declining over the past decades, and the pandemic (2020) hardly helped. But we have a nice Vicarage and also a house for the Curate in the other parish (formerly the Rectory), though, of course, no actual Curate these days, because far fewer people are offering for ordained ministry. So, like the rest of the Deanery, we rely on several retired clergy to help out. But they are getting older and not being replenished.

The Archdeacon told us that this “opportunity” we have before us – a long, 18-month vacancy in all probability – is a time when the laity can “discover their own ministry”.  At the PCC meeting, the Archdeacon reminded us that “every Christian has a vocation, and every baptised member of the church has a ministry”. We were told to renew our commitment to the Diocesan vision for “the ministry of the whole baptised people of God”. As we wait, pray and work for a new incumbent, we might be “surprised to discover how rich and fulfilling this ministry of the laity can be”.

Whilst I don’t necessarily baulk at such sentiments, I was left with an uneasy feeling about how things have been left. Sharing a vision for “the ministry of the whole baptised people of God” sounds OK (sort of), but I also know this is not a phrase found in the New Testament. I quietly wondered to myself if the Archdeacon knew that this overused soundbite wasn’t biblical?

Be that as it may, we will roll up our sleeves and get on with keeping the ship afloat, the show on the road, and the shop open for business. That, in essence, is what we are bound to do until sometime in 2028, when, God willing, the long siege of improvisation, burdens and duties is lifted, and we are finally relieved by a new Vicar.

Meanwhile, what most of us dread on the ground is the paperwork, administration, and responsibilities we will collectively be left with. Our benefice has two PCCs, both of which are independent charities. Our crumbling 1960s mission church has no PCC, but it does have several trustees as it is also a charity. We have to pay the quota to the Diocese too (there is no relief during a vacancy), and also handle the insurance, maintenance, and audits for the church hall kitchens, as well as contractors who handle health and safety.

We could probably manage all of this, though we only have one Church Warden for the Victorian church. Our other older church is about to lose one of its Church Wardens too, and we cannot find a replacement despite trying hard. There is one Treasurer for the benefice, but not one for the individual PCCs. We are not sure if this is legal, but the Archdeacon has been “taking advice” on this since last summer. Thus far, silence reigns on this query. So, we are just carrying on.

But it is safeguarding where the wheels look set to come off. Many denominations specify that any person with a recognised ministry should undergo DBS vetting and safeguarding training. On the assumption that anyone who has a role or responsibility that might relate regularly or frequently to a young person (i.e., under 18), vulnerable adult, or person who is ‘temporarily vulnerable’, we are struggling to make sense of how we are supposed to manage the next few years.

Frankly, we don’t know who should be covered by church safeguarding training, vetting, and DBS checks, and who should be included in the statistics and returns for the Diocese. To be honest, this wasn’t really any easier when we had a Vicar.

For example, when it comes to ministry with, to or from vulnerable adults, we accept that anyone involved in bereavement visiting, ministry and support should probably be listed. But quite a few people in our congregation offer this kindness and care just as good Christian neighbours might do, and it’s not clear to us that we can make people register with some Diocesan list and comply with their training just because they also happen to come to church. We think that laypeople who regularly help out at funerals or baptism visits, or anyone involved in supporting families, probably should be vetted.

We also have vulnerable adults (including people who are registered disabled) in our congregation who are actively engaged in various ministries (e.g., leading worship, music, intercessions, reading lessons, etc).  But we don’t know if they need vetting for any risk they might pose to others? Or, for any harm they might come to whilst they are ministering?  According to the Diocese, technically, it is the person who is offering the ministry who has to be risk-assessed.  But the ministers in this case are vulnerable adults, so what do we do?

We have similar quandaries with our young people. Some youngsters help out in Sunday School and support the crèche. Some of our youth group lead services with the worship band and even give short talks at the all-age services. Again, we don’t know if our young people need vetting for any risk they might pose to others? Or, do we vet the people they minister to for any harm the young people might come to whilst they are ministering?

More generally, with worship, we have lesson readers, welcomers, sidespersons, and folk leading intercessions. We assume that as these are all involved in regular ministry, they should all be vetted, trained in safeguarding, and subject to DBS checks. But that is a very large slice of our congregation. We do actually have a lot of lay participation in our worship, and wonder if everyone in the music group needs to go through the safeguarding vetting and training processes too? The guidelines from the Diocese stipulate that “anyone involved in ministry” should be, but that would be dozens and dozens of people. It might include most church members.

We also have some elderly retired clergy and lay readers sitting in the congregation, but they no longer have an official licence to minister, and so they don’t preach or take services. That’s fair enough. But people still look to them for pastoral care and occasional spiritual counsel. After all, they are experienced, kind, gifted and pastorally wise. We don’t know whether we are in breach of diocesan guidelines by allowing this to happen, though we don’t see how it could be prevented.

Finally, the issue that really perturbs us is hospitality. Our last Vicar was lovely, but their spouse was not a Christian and didn’t go to church. Despite that, the Vicarage was endlessly hospitable to the congregation and wider parish. Do we need to put all of the members of a clergy household through safeguarding training and vetting even if they are non-churchgoers? What about retired clergy holding an official licence and entertaining at home, but with lodgers in their house who are not vetted? Or what about vulnerable adults and under-18s who are part of a clergy household and involved in supporting events at official or casual church events, including hospitality in a Vicarage, but have not been safeguarding-trained or vetted? Are they at risk, do they pose a risk, or is it a case-by-case matter of resolving the queries?

We genuinely don’t know, and when we raised this with the Archdeacon, we were told that the Diocese would “take advice” and get back to us. That was last year, and nobody in the Diocesan safeguarding team seems to know the answers. As almost everyone in our churches has some responsibility, and we try to model a holistic vision for and approach to lay ministry, we think that everyone in the congregation should potentially complete safeguarding training and be vetted through DBS. But that would be silly, wouldn’t it? The Archdeacon has promised “to clarify the position of the Diocese”. Meanwhile, we are apparently meant to carry on as before.

These days, the Church of England talks a lot about “every member ministry”, but it doesn’t have any watertight definitions of ‘minister’ or ‘ministry’, or even precise legal demarcations. These terms can mean almost anything, and they vary from parish to parish. In our church, the team that serves the tea and coffee each week after worship and supervises the drinks and snacks for the children has a ministry (according to some definitions of safeguarding). Some say the team should all undergo DBS checks and safeguarding training. But it will be different at other churches in our deanery, where high numbers of laity involved in numerous ‘ministry teams’ won’t be vetted at all, and neither will the leaders of the home groups or Alpha Courses.

Meanwhile, our diocese has been busy collecting enormous amounts of personal data from laity across the parishes so everyone can be ‘processed’ for safeguarding vetting. Unfortunately, the diocesan IT systems were recently hacked, and a lot of personal data was stolen, so some churchgoers have had to apply for new IDs. So, it looks like our data is not safe in the hands of the diocese, which, quite frankly, comes as no great surprise. Yet the diocese still insists on collecting our personal data to allow us to have any kind of role or ministry (even if we are just talking about the team making the tea and the coffee).

I can foresee a day when anyone who does anything in church can expect to be vetted and trained. At that point, the only way to avoid such unwarranted personal intrusions and this overbearing scrutiny will be to promise that you will make no contribution whatsoever to “every member ministry”. Increasingly, that is the vocation beginning to stir in me.  If any readers can offer advice or share experiences on how we can manage this going forward, we’d be grateful.