SPEAKER_00: 0:03

You're listening to Reflections on Ordained Ministry. Drawing on the wisdom of clergy from across the country. We explore together the changing landscape of ministry and the huge variety of contexts for it. Well, welcome. Thank you so much for coming. It's lovely to have you here for uh this podcast and this uh episode on uh rural ministry and multi-parish ministry. So, uh, first of all, um could you just introduce yourselves, Hannah?

SPEAKER_02: 0:37

Uh my name's Hannah. I am a first-year curate in a seven parish benefice just south of Cambridge.

unknown: 0:46

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 0:47

And I'm Catherine. I'm um rector of six parishes in Suffolk. I'm also rural dean, and I've been in these six parishes for 15 years now.

SPEAKER_00: 0:58

Brilliant. Okay, thank you. So a conversation about uh multi-parish ministry. Uh it's uh sometimes uh, you know, people do it down a bit sometimes, don't they? So we are going to begin by thinking about what's exciting in rural ministry. What what excites you, continues to excite you in your ministry uh today? Uh Catherine, you've had 15 years in it, but still there's a there's a glint of excitement in your eye.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24

Yeah, I always feel sad when people do it down, that is, you know, it's as if it's somewhere just to go when you retire or something, you know, but and there's nothing happens. But what excites me is um how everything links to everything else. And I know that might be the same in any sort of ministry, but I think it's particularly um it shows very easily in parish in small parish ministry in small villages. Um and sometimes it links in ways that you don't expect. And so it's you're always being surprised, you know. And so you might have done something um, I don't know, at school or something, and suddenly something else c comes in from another source completely, and you find there is a link with the work that you've been doing at the school, and it totally surprises you. Um, and so everything looks like.

SPEAKER_00: 2:16

Tell me when this happened sometime for you.

SPEAKER_01: 2:18

Okay, okay. Um well the first thing that happened, well, the the thing that happened that I noticed first was this a funeral came along. Just an ordinary, you know, that wouldn't you wouldn't think that was anything particularly unusual. This funeral came along, but it was unusual because it was a funeral of a little girl and um she died of a brain tumour and she had just started high school. Um and I sort of knew the family existed in the village, but I didn't know them very well. They weren't regular churchgoers or anything. Um and so I had the phone call from the funeral director. I knew had known that the girl had been ill, um but the last I'd heard she was in remission and was getting better, so I was surprised to hear that she'd died. So, you know, with any funeral of a child, you sort of take a deep breath and think, you know, what am I going to say? And I went round there, um, and I couldn't believe the positive attitude they had towards the church because I didn't really know them very well. Um and they were definite that they wanted the um the funeral to be in the church. I'd thought maybe they would want the crematorium or something, but no, they definitely wanted the service to be in the church, and their words were because it was her church. And I said, Why do you feel so strongly like that? You know, she said, Well, because of the close relationship that we'd got between the church and the school. The school is a church school, and church schools in Suffolk are quite plentiful, primary schools. And um she'd been very much a part of her church school in our village, and she'd joined in all the things we do with the school, like experience Easter, experience Pentecost, coming up for you know, Christmas services and all the sort of things you do with the school. We've got an after-school club, um, all in ministry through the school, which I spend a lot of my time doing, and I'm a governor, and a lot of my time is spent at the school, but you're not always aware of the other impact somewhere else through one child. And so we had the funeral at the church, um, her whole class came, the children came as well as the parents. Um, and so I had to be very aware of the children, you know, in the service and so on. Um, but it was such an uplifting um experience taking that service because um everybody knew each other, the relationships are really close between the school and the um children and the church, and they were all familiar with coming in the building, and we sang songs that we sing at school in her funeral, and it but it just totally blew me away the the um strength of their feeling and their connection with the church. And I think in in village ministry or rural ministry, whatever you want to call it, people feel they belong to the church, even if they don't come.

SPEAKER_00: 5:40

It's it's so interesting. I I I remember really early on where I was, I uh remember standing up at a service and using that kind of phrase that's sometimes um repeated. I uh a particular welcome if you're new or visiting. And and then it suddenly dawned on me that that phrase was just completely inappropriate for this new context that I found myself in. You know, that people weren't weren't visitors, you know. They they might not have been in the church for the last 20 years, you know, but it was still their church, and they were still known by half of the congregation there. That sense of community ownership, whether it's from the school or whether it's you know other people in the community, I uh just really struck me when I used that uh entirely inappropriate phrase.

SPEAKER_01: 6:22

And in the way it's us that visiting. Right. You know, we're we're there for a little while. Fifteen years is maybe a long while, but one of the things that surprised me is that I've stayed 15 years because I didn't intend to when I first came. Um but it's like things take long time and people appreciate continuity.

SPEAKER_00: 6:40

That's that's a lot it's a lovely idea that in a sense that actually is as as priests and incumbents as close to we're we're the visitors in that kind of context. That's that that notion of um steward, yeah, it's in the ordinal, isn't it? But of being a steward of something precious just for that period of time that we are given stewardship of for those few years whilst we're passing through, and many other people are not, they're much more rooted there. Yeah, interesting. What about you, Hannah? What excites you in in rural ministry?

SPEAKER_02: 7:10

Well, yeah, I mean, I'm born and bred country girl, so it was it's always been in my veins and my growing up and my kind of my way of life. Um, but when I was an ordinan in training, people would say to me, Oh, rural ministry, why are you doing that? No one wants rural ministry. Oh, well, you can have the pick of the lot, no one wants that. And it was just like, yeah. And then it was just throwing it back at them, like, why wouldn't you want it? Because I'm ending up with seven parishes, and each parish, the diversity is immense and it's a huge blessing. So from each one of my parishes will nourish me in a different way. So I've got from one of my parishes is very BCP and quite high and traditional, and then I can go to my other parish, the other side of the benefice, and I'm completely doing um sausage sizzle around the bonfire with children and singing worship songs. I get nourished in so many different ways through rural ministry that it's a real gift and a blessing that I don't think everyone realizes is there or grabs hold of. And you mentioned it was interesting when you said about our church. Uh, we had a church, one of our churches in my benefice. Um, unfortunately, a had some vandalism. A chap broke three windows, but he dared to break our millennium window, which had we just the villagers were very proud of this window, and he smashed the corner of it. And the morning it was noticed, somebody who's not a churchgoer walked their dog through the graveyard, took a picture and put it on the village Facebook page. Within weeks, people were gift aiding money. They would there was a just giving page set up, and we'd raise the funds that we needed to repair this window because people see it as their church. Even though they don't always step in or they don't step in when you can see them. It's surprising how many people scuttle in and outside of our churches without us noticing. Um But it's to them, it's their church. Like your young girl, it's her church, it's our church, it's the heart of our village, and therefore we must look after it and keep it going.

SPEAKER_01: 9:23

So much of what we do is about um community, isn't it? It's about um nourishing that community and encouraging them.

SPEAKER_00: 9:32

Um, Hannah, is that is that sense of things being different in in different parishes, and and I I remember noticing that. And it one thing I always kind of wrestled with is what to call this kind of ministry. You know, so it sounds like you you were both or you're both in very uh rural ministry. Whereas I never called it that where I was, I referred to it more as village ministry, you know, as outside outskirts of a city, um, very influenced by that, lots of lots of commuters, only two farmers, you know, in the whole area. Um but but within that, the the different villages were also very different. So there was there was one which was more rural than another, for example. Uh, and one of the the things that I loved in that context was this real um connection with the land. You know, there was this um this this real emphasis on on the on the agricultural uh farmland, but also on the churchyard, on the on the common spaces, uh and a few wonderful projects they did that emphasised that connection. So one was called um this this spring feast, uh, and every year uh they would go beating a bounds and they'd drag half the community along with them, and then they'd go maypole dancing, and then they'd they'd go from the maypole dancing, uh walk down to the to the churchyard, and somehow without people really noticing, they'd just suddenly end up in church, you know, for this kind of service at the end of this this May Day uh kind of celebration. Uh and they also had this well-dressing ceremony, like it was Celtic in the extreme, yeah. Uh but but but wonderful and and engaged people with the land with that sense of of context.

SPEAKER_01: 11:17

This is sounding like Midsummer Murders.

SPEAKER_00: 11:21

Just May Day, just May Day celebrations. I wore a dandelion chain, you know, around what's in I was in my uh uh dog collar but with this, you know, big dandelion chain kind of dressing this well. It was you know, but the point is it had this kind of connection with the land. So I I wonder, you know, if if there are any similar similarities in in your context, this this this somehow deep connection with the land that you get in in rural ministry. Huge.

SPEAKER_02: 11:47

I mean, we have in one of our benefices, we have one of our parishes, we have plough sundae. Now, this is a huge, huge thing for our parish, quite unique in the fact that we do it. So you it all starts on the Sunday when the plough is brought to the church and it's presented within the service and it's blessed. This year we were lucky to have Bishop Dagmar was interested and came and blessed the village plough. And then so once the village plough is blessed and the seeds and the tool are blessed, and these guys, I mean, it's hilarious. It looks like the Wurzels. They're I mean, they're resplendent Wurzels, but they dress up in the old-fashioned finery, and you've got the farmer who dresses up as the Lord and the Master, and it it's just exquisite that they and these are people who come into church who maybe they don't every Sunday, but this is so important to them. It has to be part of the church programme, and it has to be within the service, and then from then they take the plough round the village on plough Monday. Um, it we literally, it's like an eight-mile walk round the village. We're there, they pull the plough along, we've got torches, and we're raising money for community projects. It's a huge again, we go down to that word community, it's a huge community project which is respecting the roots of the community, the agricultural roots, and where lots of these people and their families, that's how they that was their income and that was their their way of life. Um again, it's just it it's a huge blessing to have something like that and to honour the stewardship. I think the theology of stewardship is really important in rural ministry.

SPEAKER_01: 13:36

And I think um yeah, I know you're from a farming background, Hannah, yourself. I'm not, but I was surprised when I first came to these villages about how many farmers are actually on our PCCs. They're not just vaguely interested, they're actively interested. Um, we've got I've got six villages, but three of them have got farmers active on PCCs. Um I think I was telling you earlier that um one of our um churches is on a farm. You actually have to cross farm land to get to it. It's sort of a little island, you know, in a farm. And we're just having to um lay on electricity and water to it. But to do it, we need an easement from the farmer to be able to run the electric across the track because the track belongs to the farm. So um it's very practical um to have farmers on your PTCs because that they've got a sort of vested interest in the church to start with. And I remember one of them when I asked one of them once to be church warden, he was taken by surprise. I asked him, and the reader had said to me, Oh no, he won't say us because he doesn't come to church that often. But he was at a harvest festival, and afterwards I said, you know, we're looking for a church warden. Would you like to be one? And he stopped, he said, I'd love to. He said, My father was church warden. So sometimes these things um are rooted um not just in the land, but in the people in the land. You know, um, these things go on. Um, and they are really he was really honoured to be asked, and he loved it that he was following in his father's footsteps. And he m actually he made a brilliant church warden when he did it because farmers are practical people, aren't they? And they they know how to get things sorted if you need something sorted. Like they don't beat about the fush, so it gets done quite quickly.

SPEAKER_02: 15:34

Sometimes they get frustrated with how slow we might be.

SPEAKER_01: 15:37

But yeah, they are very practical. Found them a very um uh useful and uh good colleagues, really, because they also they know everybody.

SPEAKER_00: 15:46

You know, they're did we inform listeners that your husband Hannah is a farmer? Because otherwise that comment would have you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:53

So no, I I'm um born into an agriculture family from farming stock and then married. Married to a farmer who farms just next door to my benefice. So yeah, really not in the benefice, but just there.

SPEAKER_01: 16:08

So and it was also very useful when our bishop had a wonderful idea of um clergy on a combine. He wanted to do this publicity thing, and so and I had a farm knife next door, and he gave me a brilliant ride on a combine, and it was wonderful.

SPEAKER_00: 16:22

Yeah, that sounds like something I was almost tanking to do is I know it was great, but they're pretty amazing these days, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01: 16:28

Combine. Oh yeah, they're but that you know, it keeps us up to date with what what happens, you know, people don't realise.

SPEAKER_02: 16:35

It's amazing. And I think a really cool thing going on from there is actually looking at the season of harvest, these guys are on these chaps are on these combines and on these tractors for up to 12 hours a day. It's quite a lonely process, and it's seven days a week. And I found last summer I was hopping on and off the tractors on the farm and just chatting, taking an ice cream, taking a sandwich, and just sitting, just sitting with these people and being with them and holding that space. Actually, they said they felt really refreshed by it. Um, so this is another joy of rural ministry, it's being a presence. The presence of your presence within rural ministry is so important. Not that I'm belittling any other ministry, it's just very different and unique. Yes, and the places that you end up being are so wondrous and diverse.

SPEAKER_01: 17:34

And that idea of loneliness um and uh has been quite a problem in agricultural circles, hasn't it? And there's various charities set up to help farmers deal with it, but it's also we're the people there on the ground that can actually talk to them and sit on a combine with them or just chat to them at I don't know, after a service or after a PCC or something about what their work is and what they're doing, and just showing an interest, as you would in any context where you're showing an interest in what people do and how they spend their time to reach out and what the problems of the business are and so on.

SPEAKER_00: 18:10

That ministry of presence is is is so crucial, isn't it? I mean perhaps in other contexts as well, but particularly in the in a rural ministry. I suppose that that makes me think that you know that that a number of these things are under strain, right? So the ministry of presence is under strain in rural ministry. You know, clergy uh uh uh have to be across six, seven, seven ways, maybe more. Uh that that's under strain. Um your your comment about the the rootedness and the and the history. Actually, that can also create some some difficulties and challenges, can't it? So so let's move there. And I I wonder what you would say some of the biggest challenges that facing rural ministry are.

SPEAKER_01: 18:50

I think that what you've just mentioned about the presence, uh that presence being under strain as benefices get bigger and bigger. Um, you know, I manage six. I wouldn't like to have to do an awful lot more, although I know that there's people in my deanery that have more and struggle with that ministry of presence. If you've got other clear clergy who can help in your benefice, that's fine, retired clergy or whatever. But um where I am, it's just me and a reader. And I think I would find it hard to be as present if I had more than six.

SPEAKER_00: 19:25

And so, how do you think ministry might be reimagined or or rethought in in in that kind of context in in 10, 15, 20 years' time?

SPEAKER_01: 19:34

Well, I I think that you can't just keep going down that path of making um benefices bigger and bigger. And I think there has to be a reinvestment in rural ministry and parish ministry. That is actually most of the parishes in our country are actually rural ones. Um they're um I haven't got the figures to hand, but apparently that is so.

SPEAKER_00: 19:57

Yeah, something like you know, um I I I looked into this and in the 1970s about 17, 18% were were in in multi-parish groupings, and by 2011 it was 85%. Yeah. Really extraordinary.

SPEAKER_01: 20:11

So, you know, this is where the Church of England is. Um, and we're extremely valuable um assets in those contexts because we bring people together. Um in some of our villages we're um we have other denominations, um, but it always seems to be the the Church of England that actually is bringing those other churches together, and then you can do something ecumenically or as a whole community. Um, maybe because we are the parish church, um, so we cover the whole community rather than just a congregation. So we're actually concerned for the whole community.

SPEAKER_00: 20:48

It's interesting. What one of the phrases that has been going around my mind in terms of real ministry is the priest as um community connector. Exactly that. You know, I I find that a number of times, actually, particularly post-COVID and during COVID as well. You know, uh during COVID, I became the the person who was the uh the the council uh link person, you know, that got a list of vulnerable residents, and then uh had a community of volunteers that went visiting and and so on. And then afterwards we had a a few projects, one that connected um the church to the GP surgery. We set up an initiative called Time to Talk, where um people uh who were going to the GP but really just needed a listening ear could be referred to this service and be listened to by some some trained trained listeners. A few other projects as well that were all about that sense of acting as a community connector, bringing different people together. That the oh, you knew this person over here and this one over here. Let's make that work. Or um this programme we ran with the school around uh hampers for for families, food hampers during the summer holidays. And that brought you know a a couple over here that had the the energy to run with it into partnership with the school and just able to make those kind of connections.

SPEAKER_01: 22:04

Well, we've been able to make those connections with um through another um denomination that's in one of our villages, and the leader of on that at that church is very involved with um the food bank in Bury and so on. And so then we were able, through working with him, we were able to get food banks in some of our local churches and then also links for people who needed food parcels. Um, so it's sort of bringing all those agencies together, like you say. And it's a bit like what I said at the beginning: everything connects, everything links, and you you always you're quite often surprised, you know, that something links to something else, but then it can bear a lot of fruit.

SPEAKER_00: 22:47

We were talking about challenges, so let's let's get back to that. Hannah, what what would you say some of the big challenges are?

SPEAKER_02: 22:55

It's making sure, it is just making sure you are presence in each paris. It's very easy because I live in one of my parishes, so it's ridiculously easy for me to walk out of my door every day, which I do on my dog walks, and I then I go to the post office and I go to the school and then I w walk to the pub and I'm at the pub. That's my village, so I'm very present there, and but then it makes me very aware of the fact that I really need not so much to make an effort, but I do need to be recognize that I need to go and do that in another one of my parishes. Um, so that I'm it's just being there and making sure that you're setting out and being fair in a way, because it would be very quick for one of my parishes to say, Well, we hardly ever see you. You're so busy doing this and that, and because that's the biggest parish, and that's got the most going on, you're always there. So I think it's it's spreading yourself out evenly but not too thinly. Um, but I take great solace here in Jesus' Galilean ministry, in the fact that actually he he could have gone to the busy bustling cities where he could have hit loads of people at once. But for him, he focused on those smaller rural communities, and for him, making those small ripples in those communities was really valuable, and that's what I see. It it's a challenge, but it's and it's almost an exciting prospect that I need to make sure I I'm dipping my toe in each of my parishes every week and creating a ripple that will just go out to somebody, and like we just said, make that connection, be that connected to someone. Uh the other week I was um in one of my parishes, bumped into somebody who's chatting, how they're just looking for a new job, they're looking at the redundancy's coming up, these are their skills, but they don't really know where to look, they can't travel too far, they've got family commitments. Took it all in, listened to it all, went home and prayed, as I do for prayer marbles, that's a whole new story. Um, might get onto that if we've got time. Prayed with my prayer marbles, and then literally two days later, at the Sunday, we have the Sunday worship, and then at the the biscuit and coffee chat and attach which I think's valuable, so almost more valuable than the worship. That's where you get to see people and hear the need. One of my local farmers, like, oh my goodness. So my secretary, after 22 years, she's gonna she's gonna retire. I knew she would, but she's gonna retire. I don't know what I'm gonna do. What did I do? I know just the person, and I've connected those two people. So now the lady that I met in one bat parish is now looking to be the secretary for the uh farmer in another parish. So the challenge is being everywhere, but the blessing is when you do and you learn and get these ripples.

SPEAKER_00: 26:09

Is that like community connecting? It's sorry, we go back to that. We literally I love that image as well, you know, being a priestess pebble, you know, you just drop in and see. And the ripples work. Ripples there are.

SPEAKER_01: 26:21

Sometimes so it can take time, and it can also be you're connecting sometimes different parishes in your benefits because they can help each other. It's not necessarily us that can help them, but we know somebody who they can work with actually who's going to help that particular church if it's struggling with this, that, or the other. You know, particularly um we've found that church wardens can help each other, you know, in in um whatever it is that they're doing, any project that they're working on. But there'll be somebody who's done something about that before, and they can actually support each other, and that's been really useful.

SPEAKER_00: 26:56

Yeah, one that's um had to do a big bat survey in order to do some roofing works, and then another that that was having to do that, and so I connected those wardens together and they were able to share that knowledge, and I think they they found that really helpful, exactly that that sense.

SPEAKER_02: 27:11

We started to do kind of little evenings, just little soare evenings, the drinking and nibble, come to the pub. We met at one of the parish pubs, which was more central for everyone, and it was for the church wardens and the PCCs. Oh, it was amazing just to get everybody into one room, because they don't normally do it. I don't know about you your benefits, but there are definitely boundaries between my villages, even though they're next door. Oh, yeah, we don't go over there and we don't cross over the main road. Um oh that's not how we do it, just because they do it in that village, we don't do it like that. We've never done it like this. But to get them all together and to almost break down their own little barriers and boundaries that they've created is really rewarding because you just see them bounce off each other, find ideas, share ideas. And I think we touched on this earlier. I don't know if we said it in the podcast or we said it as we met. Having six parishes, seven parishes, that means you've got six PCCs. You've got to find six church wardens, six treasurers, twelve twelve and the church and the treasurers and the secretaries. And that's where the hugest challenge is is finding that many people who are willing and able to commit because it's a daunting thing.

SPEAKER_01: 28:36

But you were asking earlier about um the connection with the land and thinking about um things in you know, stories in the Bible that link with that, and I think a h a useful image um is the parable of the mustard seed, is that lots of things in rural ministry start very small, and you could be very worried that it's too small, that you know you have too small a congregation, or you know, you can't do this because you're you know things are it's all on a very small scale, but actually it can grow into great things, and and it it's it starts with those very small inquiries as well. Like um I had a I had a message, it wasn't even the person didn't contact me directly, I had a message from one of the elders in our church that this particular man who'd lived in the village all his life, his grandson was interested in being baptized. And I didn't know him. His grandson was 13. So anyway, we arranged a meeting. I went round to talk to him, and I just and his parents were there as well, because they'd all come to Granddad's house to hear this little boy talk to the vicar about being baptized. And so um I started to talk to him about baptism and what it meant and why he was, and it turned out that his grandma's funeral had made a big impact. On him, because that's where I'd last seen him was at this funeral. And again, it's how things connect. Um, and then I said, Well, at your age, if you're going to be baptized, you know, you would normally be confirmed as well. So we started to talk about confirmation, and then the whole family started to get involved in the conversation. Um and I said, Well, have have you been baptised? Talking to the granddad and the parents. They said, Yeah, we've been baptized. Have you ever been confirmed? No. So it ended up with the whole family being confirmed. When it was absolutely amazing. Um, but it's this old boy who'd been to he's been connected with the church through his wife's funeral, but he's always lived in that house in that village, he would regard that as his church. He's one of these people who'd been sort of on the fringes, as it were. But now, since his grandson's confirmation, and since his confirmation and his the parents' confirmation, um, he's getting more and more involved with the church and coming to our afternoon teas, which are for people who are on their own, and now he started helping when we do events, he helps put the stage up and things like that. And it's it's really changed that family and made their relationship with the church much bigger and deeper than it would ever have been. But it was all that little mustard seed of this little boy saying, Could I be baptized? You know, and it was lovely.

SPEAKER_00: 31:32

Well the mustard seed or the pebble imagery isn't it? That ripples that can just go out. There's something about in rural ministry of of needing to own that small can be beautiful or small is beautiful. You know, my my smallest congregations. I remember working with them so hard to try and help them have confidence in who they were. Of you know, you're you're you're eight people gathered here and you do these three things a year, and it's beautiful and it's wonderful. Yes. And and be confident and joyful in that rather than simply always pining for kind of something bigger and more. Yes. And I was desperately trying to instill that in in that in that little community. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:08

Um when I was training, it was you know, we were told that mission is everything that we do. And and that's really, I suppose, what I have discovered in rural ministry that actually everything we do is to do with mission. It's not like we're gonna have a mission now and this is what we're we're gonna bang on about this for the next fortnight. You know, is is actually in everything that we're doing with people in our communities all the time.

SPEAKER_02: 32:34

It's kind of mission mission on the margins, isn't it? It's making sure that we're there on the outskirts. Because I think sometimes rural villages, rural places can be overlooked. They're overlooked communities. Um I think where we're sitted with seated with Cambridge just behind us, that's a huge, bustling, multi-faith community that does get a lot of attention. And when you say you're near when anyone says, Oh, where are you from Cambridge? Everyone knows where Cambridge is. And then you say our little village, like, oh okay then, okay. And then like, oh okay, yeah. But Cambridge, it's like don't overlook us actually, because there's a lot of we matter.

SPEAKER_01: 33:18

Yeah, and people need to know that they matter, don't they? And they do matter to God, and they matter to us, and we can show that God actually cares for all these little places and and the value in one, mission on the margin, and the value in one.

SPEAKER_00: 33:33

So I think that's a great place to end. Thank you so much. The value in one. It's been a it's been a wonderful conversation. We talked about all sorts uh community, land, stewardship, pebbles, uh, and the the value uh in each individual. Uh so thanks so much for joining. Um thank you. You've been listening to Reflections on Ordained Ministry, a collaboration between Ridley Hall and Ely Diocese, hosted by David Newton, produced by Matt Cooper, and funded by the National Church of England.