On 13th March 2011 I took up a new appointment in Canterbury Diocese as the first Archdeacon of Ashford along with a portfolio of responsibility concentrating on Local Church Development in collaboration with a multi-disciplinary team of friends and colleagues from across the Diocese.   I was collated at Canterbury Cathedral during Evensong. 

Changes to the structure of the Diocese.

As of January 2011, the Diocese is now divided administratively into THREE Archdeaconries: Ashford, Canterbury and Maidstone. The Archdeaconry of Ashford comprises a crescent shaped strip of four Deaneries in the central belt of Canterbury Diocese and runs up part of the English channel coast. It comprises the Deaneries of Ashford, Elham (Folkestone), Dover and Sandwich.  I will be the new Archdeacon of Ashford and we will be appointing an Archdeacon of Maidstone in the near future.

Sabbatical Project 2010

During 2010 I will be taking a period of sabbatical leave. I am planning to read and rest and visit with family in Australia for a short time. I have been preparing for this sabbatical with retreat and prayer and the support and guidance of a number of people. This is the year in which the Church of England is preparing to introduce new Terms and Conditions of Service for the clergy. This development has been in preparation for some years as the General Synod, with the support of lawyers and professional human resources personnel has written and passed new legislation for the Church.

We are now at the doorstep of the implementation phase.

The hope is that the church will become more polished in its approach to matters of employment especially improving on the employment ‘rights’ of individual clergy. Everyone is agreed that clergy should have the best chance of living positively and creatively with the stresses and demands of Christian ministry in the contemporary church and that they will be best equipped to face being, in a distinctive way, the presence and person of Christ for others in the world.
But ministry has long been understood as the outworking of a vocation under God. The practice of ministry traditionally in the Church of England has been lived out according to a threefold Ordering of ministry in Diaconal, Presbyteral and Episcopal forms. In this ordering of ministry Bishops have exercised their Episcopal ministry with a responsibility for the pastoral oversight of the church including those who share with them in Diaconal and Presbyteral Orders. We have long lived without the jargon or techniques of secular management in dealing with the clergy although this does not of itself lend any confidence that we have done well in caring for and using responsibly and appropriately our available personnel in ministry

I am trying to understand how workforce planning and the implementation of Human Resources management will sit with a more traditional pastoral oversight and how this juxtaposition of two very different worlds might impact on clergy-Episcopal relations. How will our ecclesiology need to change in order to accommodate these changes?

Will the introduction of a more secular approach to workforce planning and the management of our ministerial human resources help or hinder the ministry of the church of God and will our shared ministry to Christ be enhanced ?

I am planning to examine some of these matters by doing a comparative study of how six Dioceses of the Anglican Communion engage in workforce planning, the management of human resources and how these things sit with respect to traditional Anglican Ecclesiology and Episcopal ministry. I have arranged visits to The Dioceses of Melbourne and Ballarat in Australia; Chicago and Massachusetts in the USA and Bristol and Canterbury in the UK.