INCUMBENTS
On two occasions in the past decade and a half, the Church of England has expressed its mind on the vital question of the identification of appropriate training incumbents, initially in 1998 in a document entitled Beginning Public Ministry (BPM). This was
followed in 2005 by Shaping the Future (STF), itself a follow-up to the previously
mentioned Formation for Ministry within a Learning Church (2003) popularly known as
The Hind Report. Prior to BPM, there were no national guidelines and each individual
diocese used their own criteria for selecting training incumbents. This analysis will commence with Beginning Public Ministry, exploring how this has been adapted at local
level by the 23 dioceses of England and Wales which had produced written policies for the selection of training incumbents at the time of writing. The criteria listed in appendix 4 of Shaping the Future will be employed to conduct the evaluation. A dialogue between
national guidelines, diocesan policies and contemporary research will be essayed.
Thirteen criteria for appropriate training incumbents are listed in BPM.
(a) Is settled in the parish and will make a commitment to stay for the diaconate period of the curate and expects to be there for the majority of the three/four year training period.
Clearly, something of great significance is in view here: the damaging, sometimes traumatic practice of a training incumbent disappearing too shortly after a curacy has begun, at times with the blessing of the diocese. Tilley (2007:7) cites such an occurrence;
30
while in a diocese in the Province of York, a correspondent wrote privately to the author in 2010:
As CME officer, a recurrent concern is what happens when a curate is 'orphaned' by an incumbent moving on - sometimes in the curate's diaconal year, sometimes even before training is completed.
Where individual dioceses have adapted BPM (39% of those who have a written policy), the length of and need for a commitment from the training incumbent has occasioned more debate than anything else. However, there has been no consensus as a result of this debate: in some cases magnifying the commitment to the entirety of the training period (Coventry) and in others minimizing it to the diaconate year (Blackburn). In either instance, the act of commitment, however sincerely meant, is surely not much more than the expression of an intention – the best guess an incumbent can make at a given juncture about the shape of their ministry half a decade thence.
Interestingly, some dioceses have sought to supplement this requirement with the demand that Training Incumbents should not take annual leave during the first month of the curacy, a reasonable enough request, and presumably a recognition that most deacons are ordained at Petertide at the beginning of the summer holiday period.
Curiously, STF jettisoned all mention of this clause, possibly because the authors regarded it by then as a given; or more likely because the emphasis is on the qualities the training incumbent needs to possess. Nonetheless, it might well be argued that BPM
31
identified something essential in the nature of the training incumbent/curate relationship, using the word ‘commitment’ in the very first line signifies the importance of the mutuality of the relationship from the outset. On balance, it may be thought that the weight of this is about right. Those demanding a commitment to the very end of a curacy ask too much, not least overlooking that there may be merit in an incumbent moving on during a curate’s final year, both for the parish and for the curate, in terms of experience gained. In contrast, to ask for no more than a commitment to the end of the diaconate year potentially results in a curate being abandoned at a key moment in their training, immediately following their priesting. Two years, in my view, should be the minimum commitment, as signalled by BPM.
(b) is already engaged in in-service training and is willing to undertake further training associated with becoming a training incumbent, e.g. a course in the skills of supervision, and consultation days for training incumbents.
There are two extremely important expectations voiced here, the second by inference. No training incumbent is the finished article, having reached their maximum potential. As St Paul suggests (Philippians 3), the goal is to press on, recognizing there is much still to be achieved. Training incumbents may be teaching and imparting knowledge; but they are also learners. Few training incumbents will be qualified as adult educators, and although most will have picked up more than a smattering of knowledge of how adults learn best, there will still be more to be learnt. Burgess relates how one curate found his/her Training Incumbent sadly wanting:
32
To be fair, I really think it’s not the guy’s fault; he just wasn’t trained how to be a training incumbent. ...No idea about teaching techniques, or adult education, or management skills or groupwork. (1998:43)
More than this, the readiness – and preparedness is the key concept here – to learn implies there will be a dynamic in the curate/training incumbent relationship that allows learning to take place both ways.
Meanwhile, the specific reference to supervision is a timely reminder of the importance of this practice amongst professional workers. One helpful definition of supervision is “a method of working closely with an individual, for whom you have a defined responsibility, which is structured, creative, challenging and enriching and is based on mutual respect and trust.” (Wilson, 1996:1, quoted by Tilley, 2006:36). Burgess helpfully observes that ordained ministry demands the skills of supervision, but notes that it is too often assumed that time served alone provides the necessary techniques (1998:27). In contrast, Adams (2002: 2) notes: “Most incumbents have had very little training indeed in the process of supervision and how to manage it.” BPM does not quite go so far as to insist on the practice of supervision, but employs it as the quintessential exemplar of that which the training incumbent might still need to learn.
Significantly, STF develops these expectations in two directions. First, the report introduces the specific requirement that the training incumbent “will give time to supervision”. This is helpful in removing any doubt about the matter, and perhaps is a reflection that supervision for curates was still not universal; while the expectations of the
33
general public continue to rise in respect of the high standards to be achieved by professionals (Lamdin & Tilley, 2007:2).
(c) is possessed of a mature degree of self-awareness and understanding of his/her own:
- strengths and weaknesses in ministry - psychological make-up and personality
- ability to make appropriate relationships with a colleague in training
It is to be regretted that having inherited a criterion as apposite and clear in its expression as that cited above, the compilers of Shaping the Future should have substituted it for the
expectation that the training incumbent should be “self aware, secure but not defended, vulnerable but not fragile”. A cursory reading of this clumsy phrase immediately reveals a problem. Psychologists and sociologists might help us penetrate its meaning, but unless that meaning is plain to any reader: curate, training incumbent or director of ministry, it may breed confusion or worse, cynicism. It is perhaps significant that the only Diocese (Hereford) to have adopted an amended version of STF, in a written policy governing the
selection of training incumbents, deleted reference to ‘defended’ and wrote of a preparedness to be vulnerable, which is somewhat clearer, although it is possibly no different from what the authors of STF may have had in mind.
Further analysis of the focus on self-awareness by Beginning Public Ministry is
illuminating. An awareness of strengths and weaknesses leads naturally to the later requirement (j) that the Curate be allowed to develop in ways different from the Training
34
Incumbent, while also laying the ground for the mobilisation of resources away from the parish where the deficit left by the incumbent’s weaknesses may be addressed. The second bullet point concerning psychological make-up and personality may have in view the body of research into the effect of psychological type on ministry: Francis and Robbins (2004), Francis et al (2005) and Kelvin Randall (2005) suggesting this is the case. More recently, Lamdin & Tilley (2007) have explored how differences in psychological type may impact on the training relationship, differences that may either be destructive or creative. Self-awareness on the part of the training incumbent is clearly potentially decisive in moving towards a constructive relationship.
That STF appears to have dispensed with any explicit reference to the need for the training incumbent to have relationship building skills is to be much regretted. Burgess (1998:74) reports 50% of curates experiencing essentially unsatisfactory curacies, entailing great unhappiness, and ascribes much of this to the poor relationships that exist between the training incumbent and curate. Tilley (2006) finds that 61% of curates surveyed state that more consideration should be given to the selection of training incumbents; and quotes one respondent as saying that the quality of the training relationship is more important than the quality of the training (p. 52). Is it possible that the voice of curates and those who had recently completed their title post was not attended to when the Shaping the Future criteria were formulated, given the lack of any
reference to the importance of relationship? Only London Diocese, which appears to have the oldest written policy of the 49 dioceses of England and Wales, makes explicit reference to the importance of a training incumbent having a history of good working relationships with ‘fellow clergy, lay leaders and officers in the parish, and those outside the church’. This would seem to have much to commend it.
35
Correspondence in The Church Times (January 2010) suggests that there are still serious
relationship breakdowns arising between training incumbents and their curates. One anonymous correspondent, a curate reflecting on a curacy that had terminated two years previously, wrote:
As a curate, I had a bully for a training incumbent. It took 30 months of a 36 month curacy to realise this, and 34 months of 36 months to be seconded to another parish. ...Furthermore, the working relationship between curate and incumbent is unique and intense. This needs to be seriously reviewed at national level. ... My situation was not unique. There were many curates with muted cries for help. They refused to say anything to their continuing-ministerial-education officers or bishops for fear of retribution. ...My situation got worse, and two years on I am still recovering. (January 29th 2010)
Underneath this, there must surely lie a concern about gender dynamics. As a curate ordained at the very end of the twentieth century in Coventry Diocese, I was acutely aware from personal observation that 50% of those newly ordained were women, while there was only one female training incumbent across three year groups. Burgess (1998) reports a number of women curates who were recipients of “inappropriate personal attitudes towards them” (p. 87) and even “sexual harassment which is actionable” (p. 89). Tilley’s (2006) wider and more recent survey (89 respondents) highlights 3% who maintain that their incumbent displayed inappropriate sexual or emotional attraction towards them. This may not appear a large figure, but it ought to concern those with responsibility for placing curates that it happens at all. At diocesan level, only Canterbury, Oxford and Rochester dioceses, whose policies are identical, make any
36
reference to gender and the ability to relate appropriately being a factor in view when training incumbents are selected.
(d) has a genuine desire to be a training incumbent as distinct from merely wanting an assistant.
Again, this seems a very straightforward statement of a vital principle. There is a danger that those operating at the level of policy development can overlook the inevitable tensions that arise for a busy incumbent. The commitment to a curate, however solemnly undertaken, has to be weighed against the demands of the parish, and the commitments s/he has made in respect of her/his ministry there. Beginning Public Ministry (1998)
envisages that the training parish will present a “wide range of ministerial possibilities” (p. 10). This is not quite code for “will be busy”, but it is akin to it. An incumbent who presides over a “wide range of ministerial possibilities” is likely to face many demands upon her/his time. Burgess (1998) maintains that one pathology of training often encountered by curates is the incumbent’s lack of personal organization e.g. answering the telephone during supervision or failing to communicate effectively. In this light, it will be sorely tempting for the busy incumbent to see a curate in training first and foremost as an extra pair of hands.
Shaping the Future retains reference to the dangers of merely ‘wanting an assistant’, and
this is to be commended. However, it may be thought that it has unhelpfully muddied the waters by contrasting this expectation with the ‘desire to be part of the training team’ and a willingness to enable training experience that makes use of prior experience. The point
37
about being part of a team is a vital one, and will be addressed later, but its appearance here seems forced, while an ability to make use of previous experience in no way necessarily militates against treating a curate primarily as an assistant. Indeed, a curate with significant prior experience may well be more vulnerable to being treated as a worker first and trainee second.
The challenge remains real. Tilley (2006:111) found that 30% of curates surveyed could not endorse the view that their training incumbent did have a genuine desire to be training
incumbent rather than merely wanting an assistant. In light of this, it is encouraging that most individual dioceses reflect this criterion in their published documents. However, there are exceptions. Four dioceses (Bristol, Canterbury Oxford and Rochester) appear to have consciously omitted reference to the need or otherwise for an assistant, despite adopting BPM for the larger part. If this is deliberate, it perhaps reflects a reality rather than an ideal. A skilled curate who is making a genuine contribution to the ministry in a parish is almost inevitably going to be of significant assistance to her/his Training Incumbent. Thus, when s/he moves on, the need for further assistance arises. Nonetheless, there remain dangers here. Lamdin and Tilley (2007:29-30) cite the training incumbent who questioned the vocation of his curate on the grounds that he worked insufficient hours, taking no apparent account of the curate’s family situation. Given that Burgess (1998) found that the average number of hours worked by the curates in his
sample was 58, this criterion should not be dismissed lightly.
e) is prepared to take into consideration a curate’s experience in terms of previous employment and responsibilities.
38
The wording is curious here, and in my view reflects either a sloppiness of style or a half- hearted commitment to a vital notion. The average age of curates continues to rise. Tilley (2006) notes that in one year, 2003/04, there was a 30% rise in the number of curates over fifty years of age being ordained. Therefore, the life experience they bring with them, often of demanding jobs with heavy responsibility, continues to grow in richness. Perhaps the authors of Beginning Public Ministry felt that ‘considering’ this
experience was better than ignoring it altogether. Burgess (1998) cites ‘unwillingness to share tasks or recognize curates’ abilities’ as one of the pathologies of training that his research highlights. As he says: “A significant number of interviewees gave instances where they believed incumbents had underestimated their skills, or simply gave them no space in which to learn or exercise their judgement” (p. 82). Given that the publication of Burgess’s research coincided with the issuing of BPM, this assessment, albeit of a small cohort (only 20) must be weighed very carefully. The authors of BPM may have taken the view that if only incumbents would at least ‘consider’ their curates’ prior experience, they would inevitably want to incorporate that experience into the learning process. This optimistic outlook neglects the tendency some clergy have to ignore anything that happens prior to ordination as being immaterial, in many cases drawing on their own experience of having been ordained in their mid twenties. Tilley (2006) found that less than 70% of curate respondents felt that their individual gifts and needs had been taken account of. Interestingly, and there may be some correlation here, he also found that at the end of their training, only 65% of curates felt that they themselves had acquired ‘an ability to equip others to share responsibility and to develop their own skills’. Elsewhere, he records a positive response:
39
One stipendiary curate, experienced in human relations wrote, ‘[Some had] assumptions that I am young and naive and need a great deal of help. My training incumbent made no such assumptions. (2007:9)
However, Tilley (2006) discovered that this sensitivity was not universal:
A curate, formerly a minister in another denomination, complained that his incumbent did not recognize his experience and skills. Another whose ability was not recognized wrote powerfully: ‘I could have given much more in terms of creativity and ideas – and I was stifled in that area – and frustrated...I could not give of my gifts unless my gifts happened incidentally to fit into an already established way. (p. 10)
What one searches for in vain in this document is the word ‘value’ or a synonym. This would go rather further than simply ‘considering’ experience, for it would employ it, using it as a foundation block for training. In situations where curates are doing many things for the first time, and can feel deskilled and insecure, the opportunity to do something they are already good at is vital. One director of training opined confidentially that training incumbents need to learn to cope with envy, the envy that arises when a curate demonstrates that s/he is better at something than the training incumbent.
Shaping the Future redrafts this criterion in a curious way. It speaks of seeking training
incumbents who have ‘a genuine desire to be part of the training team rather than wanting an assistant and is therefore willing to agree to enable training experience that makes use of prior experience’. This is somewhat clumsily worded and marries two concepts that do
40
not necessarily belong together. Moreover, it is disappointing that the Church, apparently, still cannot bring itself to ‘value’ the experience the newly ordained bring.
In contrast, two dioceses (Blackburn and Bristol), both adoptees of Beginning Public
Ministry, have incorporated in their written policies the expectation that training
incumbents will indeed value the prior experience of their curates. This may be regarded