Are we treating clergy couples well?

Richard Moy writes:In 2007 the local BBC Television receiver station did a feature on Nicola and me as the youngest clergy couple in the Church building of England. Fortunately the footage has since been lost! Just what was withal quite rare in 2007 is now the new norm – at least for women in training. Apparently threescore% of women who are ordained will exist in a clergy couple, Emma Ineson reported at the New Wine Clergy Couples gathering, (although when she tried to bank check this statistic with the CoE they said that they don't keep those figures). Given that some ordained women will be single, this means that a very loftier proportion of married ordained women clergy are married to ordained men—and the converse is not true for ordained men.

This web log explores some of the opportunities and issues this raises, based on extensive conversations with clergy couples, seminars at New Wine and on-line date.

Included are: Preparation; ability dynamics; corporation sole; task-sharing and job switching; couples working in different contexts; remuneration, including the variation in remuneration betwixt different dioceses and the bug that causes nationally; local possibilities for remuneration and squad/cluster ministries. Information technology highlights how dioceses known to be couple-friendly might mitigate some of their recruitment problems through some creative thinking, encouragement and date.

The headlines are:

• Although in that location are patterns among clergy couples there is great variety in outworking calling.
• There is likewise a very unhelpful disparity between dissimilar dioceses (DDOs/Bishops) as to how they institutionally respond to a couple presenting for ordination, looking for jobs in their diocese.
• There is a recruitment opportunity for dioceses if they ready out to be clergy couple friendly.
• There are some learning opportunities for the wider church building as well every bit key things for couples considering ordination to reflect on.
• Life phase is a key determinant of how calling is outworked, as is whether calling came to both members of the couple separately or together.
• Overall there is an enormous energy and creativity made possible through clergy couples that pragmatic dioceses could/should capitalise on.

The issues are as follows:

1. Preparation routes

One college surveyed showed great versatility for training couples with children. Both partners had two-twelvemonth preparation routes, but the college enabled them to spread these over 3three years, so that i of them could take a atomic number 82 on childcare each yr. Several colleges were contacted just only this one was able to offer that bespoke flexibility.

ii. Power dynamics

The groups in discussions were enlightened of ability dynamics that might be unhelpful from having an ordained couple on a staff team, simply equally many have been part of a church where a couple positively exercised overall leadership together (even If one fellow member was not ordained), and some had previously worked together when one or both were lay members of a church staff team. At that place is sufficient good practise and function models now that a uncomplicated code of practice could be written, perhaps commissioned by Archbishop's Council. With appropriate guidelines and accountability structures DDOs, training incumbents and bishops should not fear placing a couple in ministry together.

Particularly within the evangelical and charismatic tradition a very significant number of churches take informally been de facto led by a couple in ministry for decades, ('who's in the room when they are non in the room'). In recent years several resource churches have described themselves as led by a couple (e.g. Gas Street, Birmingham), fifty-fifty when only one of the couple are ordained. Significant New Wine churches like All Saints Woodford Wells, and St Paul's Ealing have similar terminology. The new reality is that many couples in ministry are now both ordained or are open to both existence ordained. This means these ministry couples can now be selected, authorised and trained past the CoE. This should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat.

3. 'Corporation sole'

This idea was a 16^thCentury invention of Sir Edward Coke that prevented an incumbent squandering benefice property, whilst also enabling them to protect the asset. In the modernistic Britain church building corporation sole is largely superflous but was reaffirmed in the Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011, ss.34(2) and 37(5).[1]

The touch on on clergy couples however is anything only superfluous, and we would fence now is a major barrier to egalitarian ministry building exercised jointly and equally by a couple called together. In essence it means only 1 of them tin be the legal incumbent and the office cannot be shared as in law. The outworking of this is that fifty-fifty in a 'job share', one member of the couple will be licensed equally the incumbent, and the other will be licensed as the banana curate. At a local level churches (and even dioceses) may cull or allow other terminology, such every bit 'senior pastors', 'associate vicars' and so on, simply the licensing remains polarised and hierarchical.

This has implications when a couple is looking for further jobs. A clergy couple may take co-led a church, and merely simply i will accept 'prior incumbency status' when looking for next jobs. The group had specific examples of patrons and dioceses non willing to consider the 'non-incumbent' one-half of a clergy couple for an incumbent level next job in a church where the advertizing required previous incumbency experience. A majority of those entering into clergy couple ministry take niggling sensation of this legislation.

4. Job sharing in practice

Major discrepancies are apparent between dissimilar dioceses and even areas within dioceses every bit to how these may exist outworked. Some have required one of the couple to exist full stipendiary incumbent and the other an NSM assistant curate. Where this has happened a farther discrepancy occurs between those who treat the second member as an anonymous irrelevance in terms of training and other opportunities and those who, despite the legal terminology, are prepared to treat the second person as a full stipendiary clergyperson for internal training purposes and other opportunities.

Others have allowed a each person to have a 0.5 stipend, whilst having to designate one every bit the designated vicar under corporation sole. Although this option has an attraction for egalitarian couples seeking to work together, and at first glance it looks financially sound every bit information technology neither will be liable for much/whatever income tax, couples are at present finding that they are non deemed eligible for the Heating, Lighting and Cleaning Tax allowance if they are both part-fourth dimension, and then in a large vicarage this may be finish up being punitive, unless a way effectually that can be found by the national church building.

The two x 0.5 stipend selection leaves both members of the couple the option of earning additional monies outside of their parochial role. Anecdotally a clergy couple task sharing is likely to terminate up doing the equivalent of an viii-12 day working calendar week – commonly for i stipend. This partly reflects the ontological nature of priestly ministry, and the inevitable 'on-duty' nature of being a priest resident in a parish. Those who limited it to a conspicuously combined half dozen days a week were usually involved in other defined roles that occupied significant parts of their fourth dimension. But when not well managed/defined shared clerical roles can be all consuming for a couple, with conversations and life almost entirely centred around ministry building and parish.

5. Job switching

Some couples doing a longer stretch in one parish had attempted to swop roles half-way through their term with varied responses from their Dioceses. Job swopping is an alternate style of achieving a degree of parity in role for some, validating both partners in a clergy couple as 'incumbent' level. Information technology could work well for some couples when life stages / other ministerial opportunities mean one or other is more able to accept the lead role in a parish. Conspicuously due process involving the parish/patrons/Bishop is needed.

Consistency is again an result. Where one cleric had been headhunted to a national church position, the spouse had been allowed to take on the incumbency of the parish. Where another couple had attempted it within the aforementioned diocese they had been told it was non possible. Consistency and a lawmaking of practice is desirable.

6. Couples working in 2 parishes, or a parish and sector ministry building

There is a range of preferences, opinions, theologies and experiences among clergy couples with regards to working in two parishes. Some have a ascendant 'church equally family unit' model and find the idea of working in separate parishes problematic. Some cease upwardly working in separate parishes as the Diocese has insisted on it for a stipendiary curacy. Others institute it preferable or validating for their private telephone call and ministry to exercise priestly calling in separate parochial contexts (and some institute it better for their marriages).

When working in separate parishes has been imposed on couples they reported some significant costs of the policy. In that location was an unexpected loss of involvement in their spouses' life and ministry. Several reported feeling they were being treated as a single person or unmarried parent in ministry building. Having two parochial roles often led to significant diary clashes, including Sundays.

Couples in two parishes may or may not require ii vicarages. This partly depends on the agreement of vicarage being drawn upon, and partly on the geographical separation of the parishes. With regards to the erstwhile at that place is a question whether information technology is a mission base or retreat for vicar, or simply a home? With regards to the later some prominent clergy couples are separated by canton or diocesan boundaries and inevitably operate from two residential bases. This may provoke further theological reflection on ministry and marriage, and a possible distinction betwixt couples who are both clergy – only to all intents and purposes exercising entirely distinctive ministry building and clergy couples who see themselves every bit a ministry unit (with an assortment of variations in between the polar positions, and an acknowledgment that these may modify with life-phase in a variety of directions).

It was common where the couple had began in two parishes for one of them to take quickly taken on a sector job (diocesan/chaplaincy/parachurch) to achieve more life remainder. It is common for clergy couples to exist looking for one parish + one sector job.

7. Remuneration

This is part of a broader, and dissimilar conversation about the nature of stipends, but it does have a detail bearing on those for whom their entire earnings potential is (in the usual scheme of things) vested in the church building – i.eastward. couples where both partners are clergy.

As in other areas, at that place is meaning deviation of exercise on this nationally. At cadre is the issue of stipend and what that ways in today'southward church building. The celebrated agreement of stipend was an corporeality of money that fabricated information technology possible to live without earning money in other ways. However, a stipend is in no mode ways tested. In a household where there are two working historic period adults in a couple the well-nigh mutual contemporary pattern in UK society is for both to earn a wage. These wages accept into business relationship housing and commuting as the major expenditure items. In a couple where accommodation is provided freely every bit ane person is a clergyperson with tied adaptation and the other in a professional person job the overall disposable household income volition be high. Average professional salaries in London in holding, 60 minutes, legal, accountancy, It, construction and consultancy range from £47,000-£63,500pa.[2]

Then a couple where i was clergy and 1 in a professional job, could hands take a total household income of £70,000-£100,000+ (including a £25,000 stipend and free housing). If such a couple had no children with a £70,000 combined income they would have a cyberspace household equalised incomein the acme 4% of the UK.[3][With 3 children this would withal put them in the top fifteen%].

By contrast a couple sharing a stipend could have a full household income of £25,000 (+benefits). According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies a family unit on one stipend with three dependent children have a internet household equalised income in the lesser twenty% of UK.[iv]

If they worked on one stipend between them for the full 43 years needed to exist eligible for full pension, then on current projections they would have a total of £12,500pa church pension & National Insurance. From this they would need to rent a home assuming the probable reality that they have not been able to raise a deposit/mortgage from their solitary stipend over those 43 years of service.

The primal question is: Is a stipend all the same in any way 'the coin that is needed to live off and not take on another source of income' if it does not have into business relationship i) other household income; ii) cost of living variations between regions; iii) number of dependents supported past that 'stipend' iv) ability to contribute into retirement housing – which is no longer routinely provided.

These are some of the realities that Dioceses and clergy need to think through when agreeing to a one 'stipend' task share.

8. Varying remuneration practices

If a stipend is not in fact a stipend it becomes a de facto wage or salary – at least in popular understanding, if not in police. Part of having a wage is to reimburse you the opportunity toll of doing other things. In vocational jobs it is mutual to accept that wages may be lower, as the task is closely related to what you lot want to practise – i.e. at that place is less opportunity cost. If either the wage or the enjoyment/vocational cistron drop too depression people will seek culling employment (bold they accept the skill set to exercise so). The level of remuneration is a way that people measure self-worth, achievement and so on.

If a Diocese ordain 2 curates and say: 'yous must work where we tell you, in two separate contexts, for one stipend,' it should not surprise them if this leads to problems. If a stipend is a wage and you are asking someone to work unwaged in a context they exercise non want to work in, y'all will be challenging their sense of self-worth. Similarly, if one of those curates is told to be non-stipendiary and the other stipendiary one will inevitably seem to exist more validated than the other.

Similarly, if stipend is in reality a wage, a candidate for a Diocesan officeholder postal service who is in a clergy couple where their spouse is a vicar in another Diocese may be affronted not to be offered a housing assart for his work, if another candidate whose spouse was not a vicar would take been offered housing + adaptation or accommodation assart. If the work is worth £25,000 + £12,500 housing allowance, to be asked to exercise it only for £25,000 feels like a relative 33% paycut. The same may be true for ii parochial clergy operating separately but not given the chance to operate from ii vicarages, so if they have a vision for ministry in each parish from a base of operations there, they might desire to utilise the 2d dwelling for workspace, hospitality, hosting interns, etc, and, in some cases, to save daily commuting over substantial distances.

9. Remuneration and local arrangements: opportunities and issues

Clergy couples / parishes where couples are willing and able to work together and one hopes to exist 'locally supported' would benefit from existence willing to negotiate on remuneration/pensions. In reality stipendiary clergy are more than expensive than they at offset appear as a huge pension contribution is added to the stipend to offset the historic issues in management of the Church of England Pension scheme. A premium of 38.2% of stipend is paid into the pension scheme – but twoscore% of this (fourteen.7% of the 38.2%) is simply to cover the historic deficit.[five]

So a parish inclined to fully fund a 2nd stipendiary post for a clergy couple will discover the on-costs of paying that boosted clergy person unusually loftier compared to other staff they may have the privilege of employing, fifty-fifty without giving annihilation towards a housing allowance. Instead of a £25,000 stipend & usual on costs that they might pay for a lay-worker (twenty-25%), they will be adding on around 50%. So the pension & stipend part of the salary packet would cost a parish £37,500 – and that is assuming no housing allowance. £37,500 is a substantial budget expenditure for whatsoever parish, and would fund loftier-calibre lay workers with a specialist ministry building in operations, youth/children's, worship etc. It is important to consider why the parish might need an additional clergy person as opposed to one of these other workers.

This may exist particularly problematic for curates. A good training parish/incumbent will invest significant time in a curate's training. A curacy is not designed to be primarily well-nigh output fulfilling the vision of the PCC, merely a necessary part of grooming to prepare someone for a lifetime of ministry in the wider church and hence in most Dioceses the costs of having a curate are absorbed by primal funds. When a PCC funds a curate that changes the dynamic, and expectations inevitably rise. Equally it is a preparation mail service Curates tend to be increasingly productive year on yr, but the trajectory is to grow and get out. Married curates will also (near likely) both leave at the same fourth dimension. Given a choice of funding a potentially long-term specialist worker or a 2nd curate with substantial preparation needs and a definite exit betoken, ordinands negotiating for funding from a PCC towards a 2d stipend should be aware that this is a big ask for the above reasons.

On the other mitt, if an additional clergy person in a parish is necessary, a clergy couple becomes fantastic value for coin, if they are willing to work without an additional housing allowance, due to saving in housing costs that would ascend from installing an alternative vicar. [Housing costs vary by region, simply if an additional vicar needed housing this could add an additional £fifteen-35,000 to parish costs / or loss of rental income if the parish already has property].

Where there is locally supported ministry it is worth noting local arrangements tin can also be made for pensions. Financial communication should be taken, but clergy tin can opt out of the clergy pension scheme, and may detect it prudent to invest in other ways, particularly with regards to retirement housing.

ten. Working locally in a squad or cluster ministry

Deaneries and Dioceses operating cluster/team ministries should be peculiarly aware of the opportunities of appointing a clergy couple. In such contexts a clergy couple where both are focused on leading a local church building tin can exist a viable way of sharing ministry building, whilst have a distinct vocation. In such a instance at that place will already by mutual fund positions that a couple can step into.

Life phase is again significant. Many clergy couples study a willingness to do 1.5 posts betwixt them, specially if raising children. Dioceses should continue to consider advertising for 0.five / 0.75 and 1.5 posts and indicate if they have a willingness to consider a couple in ministry building.

xi. Looking ahead

Clergy couples are one of the key strategic opportunities for the church building. There is a rapid increment of those offer more ministry building where both spouses volition be clergy.

'Clergy Couple Friendly Dioceses' have recruitment opportunities that are barely being scratched at. Clergy couples tend to have a very high combined vocation and a willingness to serve, often for very little recognition or remuneration. So dioceses, local churches and para-church organisations who offer better than average recognition and remuneration will notice a very loyal, skilled and trained workforce who take a habit of going in a higher place and beyond.

However, the national church building, through Archbishop's Council and General Synod, would be well advised to pursue this further strategically. The New Wine Clergy Couples Network are very happy to share our experiences and expertise.

Notes

[1]https://ecclesiasticallaw.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/ecclesiastical-corporation/

[2]https://www.totaljobs.com/salary-checker/average-professional person-salary-urban center-london

[iii]https://www.ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in

[4]https://www.ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in

[5]https://world wide web.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/gs%20misc%201010%xx-%20pensions%20and%20remuneration_Feb12.pdf

If y'all enjoyed this, exercise share information technology on social media (Facebook or Twitter) using the buttons on the left. Follow me on Twitter @psephizo. Like my folio on Facebook.

Much of my piece of work is washed on a freelance basis. If you have valued this post, you can brand a single or repeat donation through PayPal:

Comments policy: Adept comments that appoint with the content of the postal service, and share in respectful debate, can add real value. Seek start to understand, and then to be understood. Make the most charitable construal of the views of others and seek to learn from their perspectives. Don't view debate as a conflict to win; address the statement rather than tackling the person.

starkdereter.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.psephizo.com/life-ministry/are-we-treating-clergy-couples-well/

Share this post