from Religion Media Centre
Save the Parish, a group within the Church of England campaigning for parishes to thrive, will launch its manifesto for the 2026 General Synod elections on Saturday 25 July, setting out six commitments. It will be formally presented at the group’s annual conference at St Bartholomew The Great, London EC1.
Save the Parish is calling for the Church of England to put the parish first, to prioritise the Church Commissioners’ endowment to fund and train priests properly, so that every parish has a priest who knows and is known by their people.
It says: “Full-time stipendiary parish clergy have fallen to a historic low of 6,295, down 28 per cent since 2000.
The Church Commissioners hold an endowment of £11.6 billion, yet only 8 per cent of their planned annual distribution is specifically ring-fenced for parish ministry.
Dioceses employ an average of one member of staff for every 3.5 parochial clergy, against a charity sector average of one to eight. These are all problems to which STP proposes deliverable solutions”.