• Significantly more leadership and teamwork elements need to be included in both pre- and post-ordination development for clergy.
One respondent articulates the experiences of several Anglican rural clergy, talking of no strategy, no training, no preparation and no joined-up thinking concerning the introduction of MPBs in his diocese. Other respondents suspect that alongside the widespread adoption of MPBs there must be now be examples of good practice and a wealth of experience, but these have yet to be collated.
f. Conflict and Priorities
Lay people from all of the focus groups represent congregations in multi-church groups, and virtually all of them identify inter-personal and inter-church conflict as a very real issue. One training provider from the South West talks of the need to address these within groups of churches where tensions exist between different parishes, as well as between individual personnel in the teams. Our past tendency has been largely re- active (and not very good at that), and we need to be much more pro-active – equipping [benefices] before major problems break out. A number of other trainers and clergy feel there is a need for guidance and training in priority management for the MCM context.
Information, Guidance and Access The second major gap involves access to information for rural church practitioners.
a. Signposting and Evaluation
Signposting and evaluation belong together, as one URC training provider from the East of England says: Telling us where to find good stuff is no use if you don’t also tell us what it is good for! The need for such a rural tool has been highlighted by numerous ministers and training providers from all five major denominations in the survey. Also, something well-known to certain rural practitioners or even a denomination may be unknown to others, even close neighbours; in the words of one Methodist minister, one person’s gap is another’s everyday resource. There are not just gaps in signposting but connectivity; valuable knowledge and experience not shared across certain ‘boundaries’. In filling these specific gaps, the key elements are felt to be: • Sharing rural knowledge and experience between different church regions (e.g. dioceses) and different denominations.
• Effective signposting of key resources and training for rural church contexts. Page 66 of 111
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