If money talks, let’s listen together to what it’s saying to Lichfield Diocese
Ever noticed? People who are at ease about big money talk about ‘a sum north of …’. Although confusingly mixing compass and currency, it reveals a deep truth: a large sum of money might bring a polar chill: the burden of choices and the risk of temptations and dissension. It needs skilled handling to bring blessing.
The additional £400 million extra over three years across 42 dioceses being released from the Church of England’s historic assets, an amount of arctic proportions according to the popular yardstick, could, rather should, bless us. A good first response might be gratitude, caution and reaching for a calculator. Caution is valuable because it stops us from falling into two traps: imagining where we would spend the money for our own benefit rather than for the Kingdom, and, worse, imagining where we would spend the same sum twice. Thankfully, the calculations are being done by Lichfield Diocese’s very skilled finance team.
Gratitude to God is the gateway to asking God what divine and loving purpose it is there to fulfil, because money calls us into a future plan. This money also comes with wonderful timing. The ten goals of Seeking the Kingdom can guide our efforts, there is the opportunity to use the extra money to fund new activities, especially in parishes where there are identifiable possibilities for growth but resources are short. Much of our focus in Seeking the Kingdom is rightly on our parishes.
We are relieved of some choices but have to make others. To ease the costs of a substantial 11.1% increase in clergy stipends to support the well-being of clergy and their families in every parish, part of the extra money is specifically for our 25% least well-off parishes. We can all warm to this proposal: well-being, financial and otherwise for clergy, is our collective responsibility. Better still, the whole church family and all those who contribute so generously the lion’s share of the costs of clergy, buildings and mission will benefit too: more funding for less prosperous parts of the diocese gives us the opportunity to reduce the amount of mutual support needed. Well-being is at the heart of the direction and goals of Seeking the Kingdom, our plan for 2025-2030. Churches that flourish and people that flourish do so because they are immersed in the common activity of building the Kingdom of God and building the Kingdom brings more flourishing: it’s a virtual circle.
Questions will arise about how the rest of the money that we will receive is to be used and our diocesan decision-makers will be taking a look at next year’s budget starting this Autumn with consultations in each Episcopal Area, taking proposals to Synod in October. The additional money over which we have a choice has the power to call us all into a new future. It is tapered over nine years, so we can’t simply spend it on business as usual as it won’t last. Can we all gather round the idea that it is there to give us hope in a sustainable future and to address the challenge posed afresh that we are sustaining ourselves at present using a diminishing pot of reserves?
Arun Kataria is the Diocesan Director of Communications, helping share news around the diocese and working closely with colleagues on staff and synods to promote our diocesan goals – www.lichfield.anglican.org/our-vision
Over the next few months, the whole diocese - parishes, clergy, lay leaders… everyone - is invited to explore attitudes to money together, looking at ‘Gratitude, Opportunity and Hope’.