Annual Parochial Church Meetings & Annual Reports

The APCMs across this Benefice have now taken place, and the Annual Reports—including also the Accounts and Rector’s Report—are now available on our Documents page. Reproduced in full here is Fr Jonathan’s final Rector’s Report.

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My first annual report in 2021 opened with an observation of my wife’s: that she had never seen me happier in a job. I am pleased to report that, five years later, my happiness remains unabated. It has been among the greatest honours and pleasures of my life to serve as your parish priest, and to serve—with you—the needs of the people of this Benefice. When I first arrived, I was not persuaded that I really wanted to be a parish priest, let alone one in rural West Sussex. Whatever reservations you may have had when the Bishop presented me before you were, I’m sure, well justified.

Among the great gifts you have given to me is that you have instigated a change in how I perceive my priestly vocation, away from that of a “minister in secular employment” (as the jargon goes) to a parish priest proper. And you have taught me how to inhabit such a calling, and I am convinced this must be the best place in all of the Church of England for a first incumbency. You may quote me on that for the job ad.

As I now prepare to leave, it seems fitting that I spend some time reflecting on my tenure here, and give some thought to the future of this Benefice.

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In each of my annual reports, I have noted how we are doing in terms of financial and functional sustainability, Benefice unity, and—more recently—growth. Being a creature of habit, I’ll start here, albeit more briefly than usual.

Let’s begin with Benefice unity. Building on the good work of my predecessor, we are now more closely united than we were. We meet together more, worship together more, work together more. As a result, I believe we understand each other better, and have grown in affection for one another. And it will be important to grow ever closer together and be able to rely on one another without an incumbent priest, who would usually serve as an instrument of unity. An interregnum is a real test of the strength of our union, and demands it too.

Whether or not increased formal or structural unity is required—and what that might look like—I must now leave to you to discern together. Looking at our broader local context, it is my opinion that the Benefice as it is now, is just the right size. Any smaller, and financial sustainability would be difficult; any larger, and pastoral care would deteriorate. Whatever you decide, then, I hope you will hold these parishes together.

We are also in a better financial position now than when I arrived, though there are challenges ahead that I am sorry not to be here to help you to meet. All three churches are now aided by independent charities, whose objects are to care for our medieval buildings. I pray that relationships between the PCCs and these preservation trusts remain positive.

The PCCs themselves have enjoyed more surpluses than deficits these past five years, which is an improvement from the years directly prior. Nevertheless, costs are increasing and—as I shall note later—our congregations remain small, and this will cause some financial strain. Fundraising events might increase in importance, but these are usually onerous to run; online fundraising will likely be an important part of the strategy here, which I have begun to cultivate, but you will have to build upon.

Every year, I remind you that benefice unity and financial sustainability are related: and so, when you think about this parish’s finances, do not for a moment pretend that it is independent from that of the others in the Benefice. You literally cannot afford to do so.

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Functional sustainability remains this Benefice’s most significant challenge. A Churchwarden has not been found to replace Sheila at St Mary’s, who also served as Secretary and Deanery Synod representative. St Mary’s PCC will only comprise two individuals once I leave. I am very sorry, especially to Alan and Jenni, to leave them with the responsibility of growing the PCC during a vacancy. Benefice unity is relevant here too: I hope that St Mary’s can rely on the other two churches for help and support.

More happily, a second Churchwarden has now been found for St Catherine’s, and Ruth Nixon, the PCC Secretary has agreed to take on a broader role in Andy Keeling’s place as Benefice Secretary. It will be important for you all to know that Ruth also holds access to the Benefice’s digital assets, which she has been instructed to pass on to my successor. This includes, for example, access to the website, liturgical material, various document templates, and mailing lists.

In all three parishes, more thought will now need to be given to the longer term. Parish churches regularly make the mistake of ignoring questions of succession until necessity demands them to attend to the situation. Frankly, it is a mistake that we have made—and that I have made—especially at Bepton, but also across the Benefice. Do not replicate it. If you are a postholder considering retirement in the next five years, start thinking about your successor now—it is not, strictly speaking, your job to do so, but it is a great gift to the church if you do.

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Lay leadership and congregational growth are not unrelated things, of course. I count among my greatest failures here that the regular Sunday congregation has not grown during my tenure; quite to the contrary, it has continued to decline almost exactly as it had been before the pandemic. As with last year, I have included as part of the PCC’s annual report, an analysis of attendance figures, including graphs, which I encourage you to study. This year, my analysis is at the Benefice rather than the parish level, but the patterns across parishes are very similar, albeit with somewhat more stability (less decline) at St Mary’s.

The situation is somewhat better for Holy Week and Advent/Christmas than it is for normal Sundays, as you can see in the PCC’s report. Had I more time here, I would want us to think about how to build on the relative success of these services, and especially Christmas, which is the real success of my incumbency, attendance being 15% higher than it was before the pandemic. This would involve renewed focus on children and young families.

My plan to create a family area at St Catherine’s is part of this strategy, aimed to persuade families who live here that these churches are for them too. The idea is not to build a pen for children during services, but a library and play area for young families to use whenever they like, saving them the trip to Midhurst Library. A grant from the Lottery Fund has already been given for this project, which will therefore cost us nothing. I would have wanted to do something similar at St James’s, where the second altar is, which is never used. The theory is the same: building a dedicated area for children and young families is a clear signal that they are welcome here. Whether and how you move on with this vision, is of course your decision now. I realise that there is some skepticism about this plan; but I urge you to think critically about whether this is well-motivated or whether it is an irrational resistance to change and, indeed, an allergy to children, which is an illness that will kill the Church.

That said, I have no real advice to give you about growing these churches. I have expanded the liturgical diet of this Benefice, and there are certainly some people who only come to specific types of services, including our little meditation sessions on Mondays. And I have increased the pastoral attention paid to those outside of the church community, as well as the public visibility and accessibility of our parish churches. By all accounts, this has been warmly received. None of these have done much to grow the worshipping community, not that that was the point, of course. It is my curse to be, at the same time, opposed to utilitarian thinking while also being obsessively numerate.

All I can do is to encourage you to keep experimenting with ways to encourage others to join you in faithful prayer and worship. The only way to find out what will work is to try it. And we must not be afraid of failure, because ours is a resurrection faith, who must take heart and have hope in the face of the possibility of failure.

There is, however, only one way for a church to truly fail, which is for it to forget what it is about, and what it is for. The raison d'etre of the church is not to preserve or expand itself, but—always and everywhere, including here and now—to proclaim the love of God, in word and deed. Ultimately, our success is measured by whether or not our existence and presence in these villages is a faithful and powerful sign of the love of God. Our liturgies are celebrated to proclaim this love; our doors are kept open as a sign of God’s hospitality; we attend to the needs of others to show them that God loves them; we contribute to the flourishing of these villages for the same reason. The reason we want our churches to grow is to grow our work of proclaiming God’s love and living it out in these villages.

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No parish church looks forward to an interregnum, and I can quite understand why. It is hard work, especially for people who already work very hard. But it is also a good opportunity to think about what you need as parish churches, based on how you understand your place in the mission of God about which we have just been speaking.

I cannot—and indeed, ought not—tell you what you should look for in my successor. What I hope, and will continue to pray for, is someone who will love you, and will love these villages; someone who takes seriously the notion that to be your parish priest is not a job but a relationship, for which the most important qualifications are much more like the qualities that we seek in a parent or spouse than in a CEO. I don’t really know how you advertise for that: but you can select for it, and I wish you the courage to do so. I know it sounds crazy, but you should prefer to have no priest at all than the wrong one. By all means, be in a hurry to advertise; but do not be in a hurry to appoint.

Maybe you don’t feel like you’re in a position to be choosy; but you are wrong. The fact that this Benefice comes with half a stipend rather than a whole one does make a difference; I mustn’t pretend that it doesn’t. But it makes less of a difference than you might think, in an economic environment in which even a full stipend of £35,000 is often the lesser of the two incomes in a two-income household.

What does make a difference is you. Here’s a little trade secret, though this is really quite obvious stuff: on clergy support groups, by far the things that priests find most encouraging and discouraging, uplifting and depressing, have to do with the other people responsible for running the church, and especially the Churchwardens, PCC members, and musicians. When potential applicants try to investigate more about a post, among the things they are trying to figure out is whether the lay leaders are going to be supportive and enthusiastic and diligent and open-minded. Or not, as the case sometimes sadly is.

I will always remember and cherish, about my time here, your kindness and generosity, your faithful diligence and trustful openness, in our work together, which is the work of the gospel of Jesus Christ in this place. It is nothing short of a miracle that our small group of people manage to run three parish churches that remain, even in our rapidly secularising world, a crucial part of our villages, making them better, lovelier places than they otherwise would be. You are that miracle: you who keep the churches open and clean and beautiful and set up for worship; you who fill these churches with music, and even bring it out into the villages; you who deal with Diocesan structures and banks and insurance companies; you who organise events that enliven these villages and bring its diverse people together. Your persistent hard work has been a marvel to witness. And you will be what makes this post attractive to potential applicants. It is, many people say, a lonely job being a parish priest: that has not been my experience here, for which I am most grateful, and which will be a blessing to whoever comes next.

And so I thank you all for welcoming me, and my family, into your midst. We have loved our time here, and love you all. I shall not stop praying for you daily, and for whoever comes next to be blessed by you, and—God-willing—to bless you in return.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Jonathan