Month: March 2025

With a friendly mixture of applause and pushback, I want to flag up Fr Mark’s observations on burnout, and to add some complementary observations.

First and most importantly, whatever Mark and I agree or disagree about, we are on one page with regard to the desperately vital importance of supporting clergy in doing what they’re called to do — in most cases, that means providing spiritual and sacramental leadership for a given community. This is the sine qua non of the vocation, the thing that having a savvy churchwarden or a compassionate archdeacon or bishop can’t replace. This is what clergy [should be] [are] called and trained for. Not maintenance, bookkeeping, IT troubleshooting, or any of a platter of useful skills that other members of the community can help with.
Re: ‘decline’: I’d be interested to see a report on the correlation between ‘decline’ and the quality of the match between clergy and congregation. You can take a healthy, thriving tuna and put it on land, and it will decline — not cos it’s an unhealthy tuna nor because fresh air and earth are bad, but because they don’t belong to one another. Likewise some ‘failing’ or burned-out clergy are quite possibly misplaced, or given an impossible task (Mark’s two-congregation benefice separated by mountains and no public transport). I would wish that DDOs and bishops played a fuller role in match-making (and that DDOs and bishops were called to those roles with that in view, obvs; some are poor at this discernment, and they shouldn’t have that responsibility). A role for ecclesiastical headhunters.
It’s not the houses. Yes, they don’t always suit, and they should often be renovated for contemporary patterns of climatic and vocational needs, but living in the parish, in church housing, provides a deep sign of inhabiting the life of the vicar (or whatever other role). And plenty would envy clergy housing.
It’s not the buildings, either — or it shouldn’t be. PCCs and diocesan/national officers should be responsive to matters of upkeep and adequate renovation. If you don’t like a church, don’t take the call with a sledgehammer in your hand; these buildings are a precious gift from generations of the faithful, imbued with the hallowing prayers of thousands of parishioners over the years.
But yes, the parish system needs reinforcement and support. The relentless shuffle of clergy around a multi-point benefice, and Mother Agatha moving on and Fr Stavros arriving and Just Call Me Fred popping up once every six weeks does no good to a congregation that’s trying to pull itself together and grow.
Email. (I will say no more, except that it can take thirty minutes of scrolling and backtracking and reading follow-ups and new messages to figure out a problem that could have been resolved in five minutes of conversation.)
Isolation: as an introvert, isolation is not a big problem for me — but I combat the temptation to hunker down alone by spending as much time as I can in public, in clericals, greeting people and sipping coffee or a pint. The responsibilities of executive parish leadership are isolating (as is the role as repository for much non-public backstory for all the people); but there are other clergy and other professionals with similar roles. Your mileage, of course, will vary; horses for courses.
Families: Your fam didn’t fully volunteer for this, and few outside agencies will appreciate oddity of life in a clergy family or the stress that falls on spouses and (especially) children. The church needs to step up here as well.

There’s more. But I want to wind up, for now, by noting that the single greatest impediment to clergy flourishing is the demand on their time. The church needs clergy who are not running at full speed fifty hours (plus) a week. Spiritual leadership absolutely requires more leisure than neoliberal economic models will countenance. But that’s not the worst aspect of neoliberal policies; they bear down on most members of the congregation, too. If anyone wants a pastoral leader to help strengthen people out from political-economic immiseration, though, they will absolutely have to allow that leader slack time. With no carping.

My miles this morning called back the good ol’ days of non-timed runs: a good pace, comfortable stretching and exercise, no desperate strain to go faster. Then coffee and fruit, shower and Morning Prayer for the Feast of the Annunciation, home for another cup and some parish duties, service booklet writing and editing, and a couple of phone appointments.

I walked my miles this morning. I mean, several times I tried jogging, but even the lightest push toward forward motion sent a message from my groin muscles saying ‘No’. Most of the day yesterday, and certainly this morning, my timed run yesterday cost me a lot of energy and some flexibility.

Coffee and fruit, cleaning up, Morning Prayer and an appointment, then home to any empty house (except for the dogs). Soup for lunch, work on homilies and Lenten lesson, and looking forward to seeing everyone back for dinner.

Another best time for my morning run — though I was sure I’d fallen way behind my recent good times — takes my rolling average down to 17:52. I notice that theere’s a community mile run on 5 May in hoour of Roger Bannister; I’m thinking of giving that a go, since I have copious evidence that I’m capable of running a mile, whereas I have only tenuous evidence of having a fair shot at 5K, and 10K sounds like a pipe dream.

I’m preaching twice on Sunday again (next rota I have to work harder to avoid those days), and I need to hammer the Palm Sunday service book into shape. Those are my main tasks today, after my coffee and fruit, shower, and Morning Prayer. Margaret and I will stake out a place at R&R after Morning Prayer.

Plus, our dear visitors return from London this evening, so more delight again tonight.

[Later: Oh, and a talk on the Holy Week liturgies, too. Wheeee!]

Took a good non-timed run, coffee and hot breakfast, gave my homily a once-over and spotted a coiuple of places to expand ex tempore, then went in to Morning Prayer, Holy Communion for St Joseph, and home to a restful afternoon. I worked intermittently with the Palm Sunday liturgy and pondered several mysteries of the universe with my eyes drooping.

The house was a veritable hive of activity this morning before 8:00, as first I ran my miles (good pace, physically comfortable), then Margaret made her way to a bus stop to catch a train to a teaching day in Nottingham, then our US visitors took a taxi to a train to the Big Smoke for the peak sight-seeing part of their trip to England. I had my coffee and fruit, cleaned up after everyone left, went to Morning Prayer and then a visit to R&R to do some office work. I stopped at the Cooperative for groceries, came home to the ladies, and spent the afternoon trying to concoct a sermon for tomorrow.…

Two miles at a leisurely pace — my legs were positively leaden for the first mile or so, and when they started to move more freely my adductors were tight and resisted my hitting a good pace, or stretching out for longer strides. No worries: I pushed hard yesterday, one can expect a day-after effect. Coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, and we’ll see what else the day holds. PCC meeting in the evening.

We had a wonderful first afternoon (and evening) together with Laura and Shannon and Ayres, and this morning I ran my two miles in an unpleasant personal best time that pulled my rolling average down to 18:08. It’ll be hard to push it below 18:00, but that’s going to happen eventually; for now, though, I’m very very glad to be making timed runs only once or twice a week.

Then coffee and fruit, a shower, and made my way to St Michael and All Angels for the 9:30 service, then to St Helen’s to give the post-service Lent ‘Spiritual Snack’ talk on Lenten Spirituality, then to the Nag’s Head for Sunday roast with Margaret and the Exeter (NH, USA) family, and now I am shedding vast waves of stress, sitting still on the couch and deliberately not doing anything useful, unless you think blogging is useful (in which case I’m doing only one useful thing).

I didn’t preach this morning (Fr Paul did), but this is Three Lent Year C and the readings include the Covenant Between the Parts, which was one of my favourite homilies from my last year at St Stephen’s House. I’ll tuck it in beneath the ‘More’ option so that uninterested readers don’t have to look.
Continue reading “Sunday in Lent Vac One”

I mean, it should be ‘Lent Vac’, shouldn’t it, since most of the vac comprises the last five weeks of Lent, and Trinity Term follows hard on Easter Day? But call it what you will, it begins today and to celebrate it we will welcome Shannon, Laura, and Ayres for a week’s visit.

Two decent miles this morning, coffee, and in a short while I’ll shower and make a hot breakfast. One or both of us will go in to That Oxford to meet the travellers, and the rest of the day will focus on their needs and interests.

I have some essays to mark, I promised to send my prelims students some guidance on gobbets, and I should talk with Sarah about setting the collection — but I’m through with tutorial teaching now for a few weeks. Indeed, I don’t expect to have tutes in Trinity Term, so it’ll be October till my next tutorials.

I took a very leisurely run this morning, followed as usual by coffee and fruit. I’ll feed the dogs and make tea for my better half, clean up and go to Morning Prayer, then I have a veritable mountain of emails to try to clear. I should prepare my talk for Sunday about Lenten spirituality, and after lunch will go to Oxford for the NT Seminar. I’ll join with Margaret in last-minute cleaning and arranging for a visit from Shannon, Laura, and Ayres tomorrow….

Merciful heavens, I’m relieved to have gotten through this four-week interval. In Hilary Term, I continue teaching whatever tutorials I usually offer, plus I take up the last four tutes for the Introduction to the Bible class for first-years. It’s a lovely time with wonderful students, but the sudden influx of essays and marking and tutes puts a lot of extra pressure on my late winter/early spring. Today’s the last day of that double fortnight. My preliminarians have been wonderful, and Sarah (my HB colleague) and I are hoping to give them a little extra coaching before they sit their exams, but today marks a real turning point for my diary. Oh, and I have the last Gospels tutorial for my Year 2 student as well.

So I started the day with a timed run, expecting that it would mark a real fall-off from my personal-record last two miles. I think I timed my energy-burning a little better, but it was still a few seconds off my previous timed run. No worries, though; it was my second-best time, and pulled my rolling average down to 18:22, with which I am well pleased.

So my day shapes up as run, coffee and fruit, shower and dress, Morning Prayer, rush to the bus, coffee in Oxford while I read essays, tutorial, lunch, two more tutes, then home to unwind and toast the end of Hilary Term teaching.