So here it is, the Diocese of Guildford from just below Heathrow in the north to
the Hindhead tunnel in the south - and from the market town of Farnham in the
West over to Box Hill in the east. We represent more than a hundred and sixty
parishes serving well over a million people more than 80 church schools and
numerous chaplaincies and community partnerships all joining together in the
twelve goals of transforming church transforming lives our shared vision.
Each week well over 20,000 of us worship in our local church and it's great to be
a part of this. Some of these people are clergy with around a hundred and forty
being paid for centrally. It's by having these people work alongside others in both
paid and unpaid roles that we can make a difference right across our diocese and
beyond. Doing all this costs some serious money: millions of pounds a year
and that's just a small percentage of all that goes on. So where does this
money come? from you might think that we get money from the government or the
National Church. We don't get any money from the government and we actually give
money to the National Church to help support parishes in poorer parts of the
country - and as a young diocese we get very little income from land, buildings
or investments - so the money has to come from us, the parishes. 95p in every pound
we spend together as a diocese comes from money generously given in church
each week. It means that today's people are paying for today's church and laying
strong foundations for tomorrow. This contribution is what we call our parish
share, and it's through this parish share that we are able to fund the work we do
together enabling growth in mission and ministry across our diocese. In 2016 you
asked us to carry out a review of parish share, and since this time hundreds of
people have had their say through surveys consultations and meetings, all
concluding that the way we calculate parish share needs to change. To understand
the change let's have a look at the basic principles of parish share. Every
parish pays directly for its vicar: we call that ministry costs. And every
parish mates a contribution to the other costs of running our diocese. We call
that shared costs. Together these make up parish share, and the total amount we
need to raise isn't changing. But within this, there will be changes to the way
these are calculated. Let's look first at the costs of your vicar, or ministry
costs. Under the old system, the cost of your vicar was a direct sum. We added up
their stipend and housing as well as council tax, national insurance and
pension contributions. Under the new system, all those costs will still apply
but we'll be adding in some of the extra bits which allow your vicar to do their
job. This includes the costs of their ongoing training and development as well as
supporting the welfare of your vicar and their family. And it even pays towards
the training of your next vicar but you haven't met yet but I'm sure is very
nice! so that's ministry cost think of it as what each parish gets back from
parish share. Now let's look at the shared costs. This
is what we give to enable mission and ministry elsewhere. This supports our
schools, chaplaincies, Synod the national church,
and our safeguarding work as well as the parish support teams based at Church
House Guildford which supports you through finance buildings and HR
expertise to name a few. It keeps them quite busy! Your shared costs
are calculated by looking at the number of people who go to your church, and how
affluent your area is, just like before. But now this picture will include
everyone coming to the church throughout the week. And to get a better picture of
the affluence of your area we'll be using new and sophisticated data
techniques. So that's how the shared costs will now be worked out and this,
added to our new ministry cost, gives us our parish share total. On average shared
costs will now be lower, meaning smaller increases as congregations grow. And for
the majority of parishes that's all there is to it.
But how does this new approach enable growth in mission and ministry across
our diocese? Well, using some of our shared costs we have created a fund of
around six hundred thousand pounds to invest directly into parishes that need
a little extra. This is going to help our most deprived parishes, those most
affected by the change and those with a higher than average population. So the
money will go to where it's needed the most and will make real change happen.
We're calling these mission investment grants. This is one of the real strengths
of our parish share system, that together we can make sure there is a Christian
presence in every community, not just those that can afford it. As with any
change, you'll need time to plan and get things in place. So when will the new
parish share system start? January 2019, with full implementation by 2021 so
nobody will see the changes all at once. Certainly, no need to panic - and don't
worry, dedicated help will be available to make sure you have a workable plan in
place for your parish. So this is parish share. Every church is asked to give and
every church receives. This way we can do more together than we could ever do
alone. All this is so that together we can be a Transforming Church,
Transforming Lives all across our diocese. To find out more about your new
parish share please visit cofeguildford.org.uk/parishshare
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