by Tim Wyatt, The Critical Friend
The C of E pours money into vicar training to try and turn around the numbers, while conservatives continue to try doing it their own way
Just over a decade ago, in the early years of Justin Welby’s time as Archbishop of Canterbury, a massive sweeping programme of change was unveiled in the Church of England. It was called Reform and Renewal (although the branding was swiftly switched to Renewal and Reform for reasons I could never fully understand), and aimed at shaking up how the C of E was organised. There were elements focusing on the funding of theological education, a push to simplify over-complex bureaucracy, something on unleashing lay discipleship, and an ultra-controversial new approach to ‘talent-spotting’ and hothousing bright young clergy destined to become the next generation of bishops.
But the bit we’re going to remember today was a clarion call to boost the numbers of people entering ordination training to become vicars. This was all happening just a year or two after another landmark report called From Anecdote to Evidence, which was the first modern-era attempt by the C of E to rigorously research what makes churches grow (or not grow!). One of the things the researchers concluded was that churches which were amalgamated into larger and larger groups under one overstretched priest were more likely to decline. And, when churches have a single leader with responsibility just for them, they are more likely to grow.
Now, none of this was exactly rocket science, it’s probably what almost anyone in the C of E could have predicted, but it had now been proven by the data. If we want churches to grow, then we will really need a lot more clergy. Especially as there was a looming wave of retirements on the horizon as baby boomer clergy hung up their cassocks.
And so among the more technical bits about changing how money flowed around the church to pay for ordination training, Renewal and Reform included a bold target for the C of E: increase ordination numbers from their 2013 baseline by 50% by 2020. In practical terms, this meant going from about 500 people starting training as vicars each year to 750.