Diocese of Leicester: Trailblazer or Portent of what’s to come?

Over the past few years, the Diocese of Leicester has attempted the most radical reorganisation of its structure, since it was established as a new diocese in the late 1920s. As a member of the diocese, I would like to share some insights into what’s currently happening – both its weaknesses, and its possible strengths.

First, let’s begin with a fact: the process ‘Shaped by God Together’ should really be called, ‘Shaped by Finance’.

The simple truth is that the Diocese of Leicester faces a £2 million deficit in its budget, and it therefore has to create parish units, or multiple units, that are financially viable. This means that each minster community needs to be able to pay for the clergy ministry they receive. Attempts to increase giving to the required level have failed, so reducing clergy numbers is the only option.

In 2021, as part of the ‘Shaped by God Together’ process, the Diocesan Synod approved a motion to form 20-25 new ‘Minster Communities’

I speak as one involved in the formation of one such Community. A number of issues have arisen during the process that need to be addressed by those running it.

At the start of the process, each church is asked to draw up ‘a storyboard’, designed to define a church’s mission and character. This process is beneficial, as it enables the PCC and the wider church to focus on the church’s core values. The church is then asked to take their storyboard to a meeting with all the churches in the proposed community so they can compare their different storyboards.

Then comes the ‘Conversation Prompts Workbook’. The booklet’s introduction states that it is designed to help churches prepare for and navigate the community formation process.

It contains nine ‘dials’ graded from 0 to 9. The dials cover areas including discipleship and mission, growing faith and schools, pioneering new communities and many other aspects of church life.  For each area, the booklet describes what a church scoring two should look like and what a church scoring seven should look like and so on. The church then decides where on the ‘dial’ they are for that particular area of church life. However, as it is up to the individual church to score themselves based on subjective reflection, there is no way of judging whether a church is being honest in that reflection. So, while giving the appearance of objectivity ,this is effectively garbage in, garbage out data.

More importantly, perhaps, there is no place for the discussion of the theological perspectives held by each church.  In fact, every time that question is raised, the team running the process argue that theological differences are not issues that should divide or stop the formation of communities. So, the assumption is that future Minster Communities will contain those who hold the full range of theological perspectives currently held in the Church of England.