Vicar not pulling weight

[feelingabitfedup]

As per name change I'm feeling a bit fed up as our new-ish vicar does not seem to be pulling their weight. They are a lovely person etc and I do like them but I'm sick of them trying to get everyone else to do their job. I know that everyone in a Church needs to work together as a team but surely the vicar should be leading us and encouraging us and doing something rather than palming off all their jobs on other unpaid people, most of whom are already working full or part time. There does not seem to be much flexibility in their life, and it feels like they are doing a job with rigid hours 8.30am to 5pm and time taken off that if they have to do an evening meeting and they have a fixed day off that cannot be changed unless it coincides with major festival (Christmas, Easter etc). Am I being unreasonable? Seems mean to be moaning about a vicar, perhaps I should just be grateful we have one unlike many parishes.

If only all they need to do is ask for help!!! I know of one vicar who was told "we all need help". Don't want to give any details out online, but its never as simple as just asking.

I'm a minister, but not a vicar, and my success rate on the few occasions where I've asked for help (and believe me I don't ask unless I've exhausted all other possibilities) is about 50%, maybe a little less!

And no, I don't believe anyone applies to be a vicar for secular reasons!!!

All our preaching is top class at our church, Mary, even at Christmas.

I have never heard the same sermon twice over the Christmas period in all the years I have gone to church. What I meant by the material being pretty standard for the season is that the preacher doesn't have to spend an hour a minute in preparation. The story, its meaning in its own context, and its meaning in our lives is well known to anyone with a basic grasp of theology.

Coupled with less sermon preparation, and no boring school governor meetings, etc., Christmas isn't as busy as people might think.

We have the same number of services over the Advent and Christmas, and some of them are completely taken over by church groups (eg the Nativity service is run completely by the Children's and Family's worker, the 9 Lessons and Carols by the Choir, the Youth pastor does another). The vicar just has to show up for those and say a couple of words of welcome, and perhaps the final blessing.

No indeed, people don't apply as if it were a secular kind of job, as MTG says there is a rigourous system in place, dh was seeing his ddo for 2 yrs before going for selection conference. And really, I don't think there are many 'half baked' vicars around, all I know are committed to God and to the vocation.

Asking for help is another thing - like Mary says sometimes it's there and sometimes not - the support system is supposed to be there but sometimes breaks down - but I guess it does in secular work too - we're all human. Sometimes we have to look to other sources for support as well.

Give a man a fish, feed him for the day.
Give him a fishing rod, feed him for life.

The clergy need to be equipping the church family to do the mission that needs to be done. My vicar is very good at asking people directly to do something.

Standing the front of church asking people to think about becoming a children's leader doesn't work. They need to be approached directly. Very few poeple turn down such requests, ime.

We don't have all those ministers available to us though, we are a rural group of churches with 1 vicar and 1 lay minister between 3 churches (and some benefices are even bigger). And yes, I still spent an hour a minute when I preached last midnight. Despite knowing the story well and being theologically trained. I am speaking from personal experiences when I say IT IS BUSY!

What about the priesthood of all believers?

I think any church that has problems with a vicar doing too much really should go through an interregnum.
Our church definitely works together better as a team now after an extended one (still going on!)
and we know how hard it's going to be going back to having "a boss". It's likely that when we get the new vicar (but it'll part of aTeam Ministry, so I'm assuming it'll be different anyway), we'll all fight hard to make sure that our current roles are protected, and that the vicar deals mostly with Cure of Souls, pastoral care and those parts of the job that we can't do.
We need a vicar to make us feel like we've got a proper direction, iyswim, but the day-to-day stuff, we can deal with ourselves now.

Mary - is that the one you sent me?
lovely sermons, you do, lovely.
Each one I've read of yours has been truly inspriational.

Christmas is always mad ime, there are more services, school assemblies and everything else, tend to be more funerals in the two weeks over Christmas and new year as well. And dh spends a lot of time preparing sermons too like Mary, he believes in putting time and energy into something that is representing God's word, he too is knowledgeable in theology but this doesn't make him some kind of supervicar who preaches off the cuff (although very occasionally he does )

Priesthood of all believers - all very well, when there are the people, and they are willing - not always the case. But I wholeheartedly endorse the concept.

PS, anyone on this thread who wishes to join the Religion Chat thread is most welcome

Agree nickel re Mary's lovely sermons :)

thinking about Christmas and schools coming in, that's one area we've really let slide without a priest - we used to have a Children and Families man, who wasn't a priest (or ordained), but he used to go into the schools and do assemblies, he used to organise the schools coming into the churhc, and during the time we had him, he made some very good links with the schools. We had noone to cover his work when he left (he was the lady priest's husband), so it slid. and most of those links have been ripped. we still get the schools coming in for their christmas services, but that's it. And it's not because noone wanted to do it, or noone could be arsed to volunteer, it was because there was just noone with enough time to dedicate to it.
Most of us are overstretched as it is, with extra bits here and there.
one thing that you don't get in interregna is new congregation - because there's no way to get them in. The vicar is like the point of contact, I suppose, so it's hard to persuade people to make a church their home when it's a different priest every week - they want stability, i guess.

I've been lurking on this thread for a while and read with interest as I did study for the ministry for a while but jumped ship.

Marriage breakdowns are not uncommon among priests/pastors and there are quite a few children of vicars/ministers and missionaries who will have nothing to do with God or church when they grow up because they feel God took their parent(s) away from them. Children do not necessarily share their parents' vocation and if they are made to feel that their needs and wishes always take a lower priority than those of the church and its members, often branded being God's work, then who can blame them for being angry?

I remember clearly a lecturer we had who said that, if they are not careful, vicars/pastors end up having as many bosses as there are members in his/her church. The way to handle this was to get your priorities straight: God first, followed by spouse and children. The church and its members come third.
"Although," he warned, "to many church members God and church is the same thing. They are not and any priest or pastor who forgets this will sooner or later have to pay for it. Unfortunately, so do often their spouses and children as well."

I don't think young people and new Christians have as much deference for the vicar as older members of the congregation have. I think that is definitely something from a different era. Some older members of the church do want only visits from the vicar or for only the vicar to pray with them, but I don't think you can say the same about younger people, or people from all ages who have not grown up in the church.

If I wanted pastoral care, I would probably approach our youth pastor, or one of our pastoral assistants rather than the vicar. That is because I have built up stronger relationships with those people (nothing against the vicar). Or I would stick to those in my Home Group.

We tend to have different people up front each week because we have four clergy, and several LLMs. You have to go about four or five weeks to see the same preacher (of course, they are doing their bit in the other services, not working just one week a month). I don't really think the face at the front is what makes people keep coming to church - it is about the friendships they encounter.

JME :)

Yes ginger we go with the God, family, church thing as well, it seems to make sense to me :) I get sad when I hear about clergy children being so angry and turning against church/God etc, but it does happen. I am a clergy child as well as wife and I am lucky as my DParents got it about right with balance and def put us before church I think but also always involved us actively, sought our opinion etc - and this is what we do with our dc now and they see themselves as part of it, as called too, as part of our adventure.

I thin you might have a point there - I'm still al lfor getting new people in, but at every turn I'm told that about a vicar bringing people in.
Although, it might be more that we don't have the resources to bring people in, whilst trying to organise everything else at the same time!
We just need more frontliners.

You don't need a vicar to bring new people in. I'm convinced that relationship building is the most important factor in mission - and we can all do that :)

:)
I think it's mainly because we feel like we're floating along. like we need that anchor.

We've certainly got more confident in the last few months (i can't decide whether it's because we know there's an end in sight, or whether we've just got so used to being on our own)
We're definitely not floundering and clueless as we were before.

iggi based on your own experience he is overworked because you have come to expect much much less.

Our pastor is a man how do you expect me to refer to him ? As her ? You have jumped to the outrageous conclusion that women are not welcome in our church, Our assistant pastor is a woman.

Absolutely, madhairday. It is up to all of us to tell others about Christ.

If we struggle with the words to say, perhaps the vicar could give some pointers, but at the end of the day, we are all the hands and feet of Jesus.

Nickelbabe, interregnums are like that. It is a time for taking stock, and sometimes that means doing things differently (even in the Church of England, lol).

It is like pruning away old wood and letting new growth appear.

I was on the PCC during our last interregnum, and the main thing I remember from that time is the interminable PCC meetings where we would go round and round in circles. It was so refreshing when the new vicar arrived and took charge of the meeting so that we finished well before 10pm. :)

Nokissy you say I've come to expect less as if I've personally made up some unusual idea of how much work a person should do. I am basing that on average working weeks, I don't see why being a vicar should mean you're on a completely different scale time-wise than any other profession. That's all.

I don't think a vicar should have to do any more work than any other professional. What is unusual is that their hours and not typical of other professionals and they need to be flexible.

If you think about what a vicar has to do, it is the Sunday service, which probably takes about a day's preparation - plus a midweek service - so make that 2 days' worth of work right there. If they have have a different sermon at an evening service, then you might be adding on another day's worth of work.

Add a couple of evenings taken up with committee work - there's another day's worth of hours. We are now up to four days' worth of hours.

Then add school's visits, day centre visits, work place visits, funerals and weddings.

Then all the pastoral work - visiting people in need, meeting up with new families, baptism candidates, funeral preparation, confirmation classes.

Now add any non-Sunday training/bible study/courses, as well as their personal study.

And then all the behind the scenes stuff that is not known to members of the parish.

It is clear that there is far too much work for one person. It has to be delegated.

PCCs are a bind.
We do spend a large amount of time going round in circles - partly because we're not sure whether we're allowed to change things.
now we're further in, we're better at making decisions and acting on them, because we know there's noone to offend.

regarding sunday services - the lectionary sorts out the readings, the servers sort out the bread and wine and make sure the altar's ready, the rota sorts out who's doing what (reading, praying) other than leading the service.
One would hope that when we go back to having avicar that s/he'll let us cary on with that , and just sort out his/her sermon and being there to do the communion.
and hopefully not interfere with the music, because the lady priest drove us mad with that! ringing DH on saturday asking/demanding certain hymns/songs for that sunday. No, we've had the music published for weeks, and we've already practised this! (or the worst one was when she changed the hymns on the Sunday morning because DH dared to choose hymns that reflected the whole lectionary for that day, and she wanted them to be specifically on the gospel reading, and the ones she chose were all happy-clappy, and one had 4 more boring dull verses than the one in SoF, so noone knewthem, and noone sang them, and we couldn't help because we didn't know them either! so were sight-reading, the organists nearly died because they were all quite complicated, and they had to sight-read them too! And she's musician herself (guitar) so you'd think she might have thoght of that!!)

Baptisms and weddings are complicated right now - we still have them, but there's no vicar to approach, and I think it takes the sparkle off a bit.

But at least we kow what we can do to help the new vicar - we all have more of aclue what it entails, and what the important bits are, and what bits can be doled out to the rest of us. :)

We don't use the Lectionary, so have a sermon series each term. The clergy get together to figure this out and then to carve up who teaches what.

The music group and choir pick the music for their respective services.

The verger and his wife sort out the Lord's Table when we have communion services.

One of the wardens works out rotas for sidespersons (who also read the lessons). Then all the other groups work out their own rotas (welcome team, intercessions, prayer, flowers, audio-visual-webcastl, worship leaders). We also have rotas for children's and youth work, coffee, creche and anything else you can think of. Sometimes the rotas clash because the leaders don't really communicate with one another - I was on three rotas the other week!

Baptisms are arranged on an individual basis, after a discussion with clergy and possibly classes.

I think during an interregnum, baptisms are initially arranged through the church office and, possibly, rural dean (but not for church family).