Ok, my question is cheeky, so I hope you don't mind! What would attract you to a post? My (lovely) rural benefice is looking for someone, having just said goodbye to our wonderful, charismatic vicar. On paper we are a lot of the things that people worry about - rural, elderly congregation, probably quite conservative in some ways, multiple beautiful churches with attendant issues of disrepair, etc. etc.
But it is also a really wonderful community. My partner and I are a same-sex couple (in a rural area where this is certainly unusual), and they welcomed us in. My DD and another little girl do altar service and genuinely enjoy church, I think the more because they're treated like important participants rather than being shunted off to do some colouring in and read watered-down Bible stories. There's a youth group with a dedicated youth worker. There are energetic people who do lovely things like choir and social events. I'd say there's usually 20-30 people in the congregation each Sunday, which is not bad.
Our biggest problem is that the 30s-40s generation (my generation!) assume church isn't for them, and their children won't be welcome. There is a more general issue of the older generation not mixing with the younger one in several of the benefice villages - often non-church events end up being 'segregated' too. So it's a tricky one. Our former vicar was making a lot of headway with events that drew in younger people; obviously we can carry on trying to do that as a congregation, but it'd be great to get someone who'd be keen to do this.
I just feel as if so often, you hear of the C of E being intolerant or fuddy-duddy, and I'd love more people to realise that there are congregations where people are accepted - even if those congregations don't look like the young, urban churches you'd perhaps expect.
Sorry, that was so long ... but I'd love to have your perspective on this, and on how we might best get our message across to potential candidates.