When your vacancy eventually ends, the problems won’t necessarily all go away. Or they may be replaced by new ones. Timothy Lee encourages us to be flexible in our thinking.
[This article is from our Summer 2023 back issue. To read back issues dating back to 2015, please activate your subscription]
A new incumbent arrives – it’s a particularly difficult time for Readers or Lay Ministers. The new incumbent has so much to think about. The Reader’s needs may not seem all that important in the grand scheme of things. Often she or he has been virtually carrying the church in the vacancy. Suddenly we feel sidelined, and no-one seems to have noticed. It might look a bit like this.
Difficult adjustments
Clive has been a Reader for twenty years at St John’s, now licenced as Lay Minister. His preaching is respected. After a long vacancy, the parish now has a new young incumbent, Reverend Becca. Throughout the vacancy Clive and the other LLM, Sue, kept services going at St John’s, and found priests for eucharistic services. Clive looked after the family services. Sue took care of most of the others in the church as well as services in the local care home. Now Becca has arrived, she has taken the lion’s share of preaching. While Sue is content to work with the older people, Clive has found himself almost left out of the rota, preaching mainly at evensong. Then there is St Jude’s. St Jude’s is a traditional country church that the bishop asked Revd Becca to take on. Apparently they have not had a vicar for a long time and, the word is, they are ‘a bit of a handful’. Sue is alright about going there but Clive feels his place is at the main services at St John’s, as he is well known there. He is annoyed that Becca has barely mentioned his hard work in the vacancy, and she doesn’t seem interested in his ministry now. He doesn’t think she really understands the way they do things at St John’s. She seems really slow to get going as well. He has been talking to people about her and several seem to share his concern.
From another viewpoint
Let us take a look at the situation from Revd Becca’s perspective. She had a wonderful time as a curate, and couldn’t wait to get her own parish. St John’s shows great promise for family services – numbers have grown since she arrived. Apart from Clive, most of the leadership team are very supportive of her. Her old incumbent told her just to listen and observe for the first six months, and try to really understand things before making any big changes. The bishop asked her to take on St Jude’s because of a reorganisation. Apparently there was a problem with their previous vicar – many people there seem still to be very hurt by what happened. St Jude’s seems to demand a lot of her time and prayers. But St John’s is the town church with many young families, so it will have to take priority. After four months, Becca feels she is only just beginning to understand the scale of task confronting her. It is so very different from being a curate. But she has just started on the diocesan incumbency training course, and she now has a peer group of other new incumbents to share ideas with. She has two Lay Ministers. Sue is a dream, so helpful, she has been down to St Jude’s, bringing love and calm. What a blessing. Clive … well – he only wants to preach at St John’s. He really seems to have a high opinion of his own preaching – but his gifts are really not with young families. He would probably be fine at St Jude’s. But he seems contemptuous of their faith and tradition, and refuses to go. Apparently he is stirring up trouble with a few of his friends. We seem to be having problems all round! So how might things have been different?
Imagine if …
What if when Revd Becca arrived, Clive had noticed her style was different – how, he wonders, does she ‘tick’? We can understand more about personalities through Myers Briggs, the Enneagram or the Insights colours:
- ‘Fiery Red’ people are positive, assertive, decisive, deal quickly with the present situation.
- ‘Sunshine Yellow’ – are creative, social, expressive and have masses of ideas.
- ‘Earth Green’ – are calming, sharing, patient, focus on caring and growing relationships.
- ‘Cool Blue’ – are cautious, analytical, use logic, plan things carefully, and think before they act.
You can view more on Insights colours on YouTube.
But we have to understand ourselves first. How well do you know yourself? How do others see you?
For by the grace given to me I say to every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. (Romans 12: 3).
Becca is clearly different from the last incumbent. Clive decides to pray for her. He begins to notice her strengths, her gifts. She is attracting new families to the family service. Her preaching is actually not bad. She seems to know what she is doing. He arranges a meeting with her. He talks about the vacancy and his working agreement, and what he likes doing best. She listens patiently. She explains her priorities – and about St Jude’s. That is quite an eye opener for Clive. Sensing the need, he offers to go and preach there. When he goes there, he is warmly welcomed – to his great surprise – and his sermon goes down well. After a few weeks of this he begins to realise they do indeed have a faith, perhaps more often expressed in deeds rather than words. He gets a book on rural ministry and starts to understand them a bit more. Clive and Becca work together on a plan to restore confidence at St Jude’s. Becca really appreciates his contribution; at the same time Clive is sensing a new direction in his ministry.
- Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust.
- Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. (Psalm 143: 8).
A new incumbent can bring huge challenges to Readers and LLMs. Our needs may not be top priority in the great scheme of things, but our ministry and gifts are valued more than we may realise. The first need for Readers and LLMs in this is prayer, openness and positive engagement – not moping on the sidelines. At such times we stand at a crossroads in our personal journey: where is God calling us now?
Timothy Lee is an LLM (Reader) in Chelmsford Diocese.