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The Training Parish

The bishops seek to place curates in parishes which will recognise that the curacy is a time of continued formation and training.

The following extract from the Curates and Training Incumbents Handbook gives the following guidelines:

 

The following Guidelines for Parishes Receiving a Curate should be considered by the PCC in advance of the arrival of a curate

Introduction
The three or four years following ordination are a crucial time in a person's life and ministry. The parishes to which curates are licensed share with the incumbent in the great privilege of helping someone in their formation and development at this crucial time. These guidelines seek to ensure that a parish's expectations are in line with those of the bishops of the diocese, and the Church of England's Ministry Division, and indeed with the incumbent and curate themselves.

Expectations
A person's initial training is not completed at the time of ordination. Rather, the full period of initial training is now viewed as running from the time of entry into college or course until the completion of the curacy. At the end of the curacy all should be competent to continue in responsible priestly ministry. Many will progress to incumbency or equivalent responsibility posts, while others will continue to develop a priestly ministry in the work-place, with part-time parochial involvement. To that end, there is a clear expectation that personal growth, development and learning continue through the curacy time.

A parish and its PCC must therefore recognise that they are not being given a curate merely as an extra pair of hands to assist a busy incumbent. Rather they have been identified as a suitable training parish with a suitable training incumbent who will enable training and ministerial formation to continue. In fact, having a curate will, certainly initially, entail the incumbent making a significant extra time commitment to working with his/her curate in supervision meetings and other aspects of training.

Criteria for Identifying Training Parishes
Your parish will have been identified as a suitable parish for a curate because:
• It can offer a suitably wide range of ministerial opportunities;
• It has a sense of vocation as a training parish, and will seek to help the curate in (a) the role transition from lay to ordained status; and (b) developing ministerial competence;
• It is willing to grant the curate, ungrudgingly, the time to take a full part in Post-Ordination Training (POT)/ Continuing Ministerial Education (CME) Years 1-4;
• It is willing to pay the curate's working expenses.

POT/CME Years 1-4
The Diocese of Chelmsford provides a diocese-wide programme of training, while in the Diocese of London each Episcopal Area arranges its own. Progammes are likely to include eight to ten days each year, and an annual residential weekend. A monthly evening programme is provided for those who hold full-time secular jobs. This is in addition to other such training and study that a curate may undertake.

Diocesan POT/CME is a priority for curates. Parishes must aim to avoid facing a curate with a clash between POT/CME and parish activities; and where such a clash occurs POT/CME takes priority.
The Working Agreement
All curates must have a Working Agreement. This will address issues such as
• Working Arrangements, in terms of days off, holidays etc.;
• For curates in secular employment, the time available to the parish;
• How many Sunday services each week;
• Frequency of preaching;
• Meeting pattern with incumbent for prayer, business and supervision;
• Professional approach to ministry and conduct;
• Parochial Support, including payment of working expenses;
• Grievance Procedures.

The Working Agreement will reflect the nature of the curate's ministry in terms of whether it is wholly parochial, part-time parochial, or mainly in secular employment with some limited parochial involvement; and whether or not it carries a stipend. Each Episcopal Area will have someone available to assist the curate and incumbent in writing a Working Agreement. The PCC (or its Standing Committee/Churchwardens) will wish to see it.

The Annual Training Plan
The purpose of the Annual Training Plan is to enable the incumbent and curate to map out a phased programme of experiences over the title post years. For example, experience of and training in the conduct of funerals may come in the first period, while familiarity with church management and budgeting may come later on. The Annual Training Plan allows objectives to be set for the coming year, and for these to be reviewed from time to time, and especially in an annual review which the curate and training incumbent can undertake. In preparing the Annual Training Plan the incumbent and curate will take note of the expectations of the Church of England as set out in the Learning Outcomes in the report Shaping the Future: New Patterns of Training for Lay and Ordained (2006) and the "Work List of Training"/"Gifts and Competencies Required of Ordained Ministers" in Beginning Public Ministry (1998).

In the Diocese of Chelmsford the CME team arranges a day each September for deacons and their incumbents, to assist in getting the process under way.

As well as the incumbent, skilled members of the congregation may be able to assist the curate's training through:
• Offering a ‘lay-eye view' of public ministry such as evaluating preaching, leadership of worship, etc.
• Enabling the curate to understand areas of work in which lay members have special skills and involvement, for example the work of parish treasurer or children's and young peoples' leaders and, outside of the direct church environment, the aspects of ministry lived out in the world of secular work.
• Offering particular skills in, for example, adult learning and training and other practical fields

The PCC is encouraged to note these Guidelines and discuss their implications before a curate takes up post. The Area CME Officers/Directors of POT are willing to come to a PCC meeting to discuss these or any other related matters.

 

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