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.

we don't have quite so many groups!

Baptisms are currently arranged through the church wardens (but people have to ring the parish office, and are told to attend a service), and we hold them on the 4th sunday of evey month, so that the rostered priest can do them (we're lucky to have the same rota every month for clergy)

Are you sure you don't have that many groups? You maybe have lots of unsung heroes in your church who quietly get on with jobs like doing flowers week after week, year after year.

Wouldn't it be nice to have an appreciation dinner for all your volunteers one Friday evening?

We do this sporadically, with PCC and clergy doing all the serving. It is lovely and people really feel loved and appreciated.

well, not ones that have rotas!

We have one big rota that sorts out who leads the service, who reads, who does the prayers, who is sidesperson, and who does the teas.
the same people do the flowers all the time, so there is no rota for that.
We're all responsible for our own bits like cleaning the church - I know that the choir (well, one of us!) cleans the choir stalls, and the church wardens clean the rst of the church. The servers have a rota, but there are only 6 of them, andthey need a rota because one of them has a job that he has great difficulty getting out of! two of them are in the choir (so they often take turns carrying the cross), one is a churchwarden, so does church wardeny things at the same time
wedon't have a rota for youth work, but St Mary's might -I know they have a youth group, andthat the same person takes, and they have sunday school (ish) that again, taken by the same person every time.
All of our jobs are undertaken either on the main rota, or by people who always do the same job - that way we don't have so many problems as you do with being on too many rotas!
noone is allowed to touch the sound system!

because we're all in charge, as it were, everyone knows who does what and when.
We couldn't have an appreciation dinner because who would pay for it? we have no spare money (actually, we haven't any money at all!) and on a Friday night??!!! That's Choir practice!

oh, and the flower ladies are annoying me at the moment, because one of them managed to get something liquid and brown on top of the choir heater, and it got on my surplice, because I didn't see it (nor did I expect there to be residue on something like that!), and I can't wash it out.
also, they've decided that the best place to put a permanent tub of flowers is on the stool I use to stand on to put the hymn numbers up - and then tuck it at the back of the cosy corner, so that I have to lean right over other stuff and move the tub just to get the stool out (and i have to put it back agian)
I've done it deliberately in their full view, but it didn't make them move it. (annoyed, because being this heavily-pregnant, I shouldn't have to be made to clamber over things!)
(ooh, that was a bit ranty, sorry )

Just gonna say that I have never come across any church where Christmas is not a hugely busy, bust-a-gut, shatteringly exhausting time (more so than Easter, though that is also very tiring). In fact the whole run-up begins this week with All Souls, then Remembrance, Christ the King, Advent/Christingle and doesn't stop - then all the groups and events in December leading up to a manic final week and lots of services over a small number of days (plus the expectation of stunning "new idea" sermons on the same story and readings year on year).

I don't get the whole thing about clergy should do the same hours as a professional person. It isn't a profession, nor a job, so the job doesn't stop when someone conveniently says they're "not working". There is a difficult balance to be struck, to recognise the space for family and time away from the role, but it is not what you do but who you are. I think I would be concerned if a vicar could count hours and do more of a work-to-rule.

There is a difference between a church being busy at Advent/Christmas and the vicar being personally overwhelmed with work.