General Synod February 2026: They’re Speaking Our Language, But How Are They Spending Our Money?

Report on the February 2026 Group of Sessions, 9–13 February, London

The Church of England’s General Synod met in London last week for its February group of sessions, the first under the presidency of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally. It was, in truth, a rather thin agenda for those concerned with the future of parish ministry, spanning everything from clergy conduct reform to a debate about floral foam. But for those of us who have spent the last five years arguing that the parish must come first, the week offered both encouragement and familiar frustration.

The Good News: The Parish Is Back in the Script

There is no getting around it: the shift we have been pressing for is now firmly embedded in the language of the Church’s leadership. Archbishop Sarah used her first Presidential Address to recommit the Church to transparency, safeguarding, and, crucially, the flourishing of the local parish and communities. Five years ago, when Save the Parish launched at St Bartholomew the Great, the talk from the top was all about the Vision and Strategy, 10,000 new worshipping communities, and a “mixed ecology” in which the traditional parish was just one option among many. Today, the incoming Archbishop has placed the parish at the centre of her stated vision from day one. That is a significant shift, and it reflects the pressure that our movement, and the thousands of parishioners, churchwardens, and clergy who support it, has brought to bear.

We should also note with encouragement that the poverty debate, marking the 40th anniversary of Faith in the City, saw Synod recommit to ending poverty and heard powerful testimony about the struggles of communities served by parish churches. Speakers highlighted the disproportionate impact of poverty on Black and ethnic minority communities, on disabled people, and on rural and coastal areas.

It is parish churches that are on the ground in these communities, running food banks, visiting the sick, keeping the doors open. The debate implicitly underscored a truth we have been stating for years: without a properly resourced parish system, the Church’s pastoral care is hollow.

The Bad News: The Money Still Isn’t Following the Words

And yet, when it came to the debate that matters most, how the Church’s wealth is actually distributed and used for mission, we saw a pattern that will be depressingly familiar to anyone who has followed our campaigns.

The Chester Diocesan Synod Motion on Lowest Income Communities (LInC) funding, rescued on to the main agenda from Contingency Business following an impassioned debut speech on Monday by STP supporter Emma Robarts (54 minutes in here), went to the heart of the issue. It highlighted a mismatch between deprivation and current diocesan-level allocations, and called for parish-level analysis of need. Background material presented to Synod showed that significant proportions of LInC funding may not be reaching the most deprived communities. This is precisely what Save the Parish has been arguing: money earmarked for the poorest parishes is being absorbed into diocesan general funds rather than reaching the frontline.

What happened next? Carl Hughes moved an amendment to remit LInC funding reform to the wider review of the Church’s funding framework. The amended motion, asking the Archbishops’ Council and Church Commissioners to “report back” on alternative approaches, was carried by a show of hands. In other words, the substantive question was kicked into the long grass. Again.

Readers with even only short memories will recall that only last July a similar funding question was deflected by what we described at the time as a wrecking amendment from the Bishop of Sheffield. The pattern is consistent: the central Church acknowledges the problem, expresses sympathy, and then defers the decision to yet another review or working group. Meanwhile the Church Commissioners sit on an endowment now exceeding £11 billion, and our core demand, that a significantly larger share of that income should flow directly and unconditionally to parish ministry, remains unmet.

As the Revd Marcus Walker observed after the Triennium funding announcement last year: the Church has decided to give some of the billions it was left to fund parish ministry back to poorer parishes, but by making parishes jump through hoops for funding that is much needed and could be transformative, by tying it up in its questionable Vision and Strategy,.

The Last Mile Failure: Working-Class Vocations and the Disappearing Stipend

Perhaps the sharpest illustration of the gap between rhetoric and resource came on Friday afternoon, during the debate on Working Class Vocation and Ministry Next Steps. This was the follow-up to Alex Frost’s Private Member’s Motion, which received a standing ovation at Synod a year ago. The paper before Synod (GS 2435) reported on the national consultation and strategy work that had been done since then, and much of the debate was warm and encouraging. Archbishop Sarah herself spoke about the barriers faced by people in shift work when considering a vocation. But it was Andrew Gray’s intervention that cut to the bone (47 minutes in here).

His point was simple and important: we can encourage as wide a pool of talent as we like to come forward for ordained ministry, but will there be enough paid stipendiary roles at the end of it? Or are we in danger of what he called a “last mile failure”, building a whole strategy to attract working-class candidates into the discernment process, only for them to discover that the jobs have been replaced by unpaid posts?

His evidence was telling. You only have to open the Church Times jobs pages, he told Synod: “House for Duty, House for Duty, House for Duty, House for Duty.” Those roles, where a priest receives housing but no salary, can only be filled by people with independent means: a pension, a spouse’s income, or private wealth. They structurally exclude poorer, and many ordinary working-age, candidates. Gray warned that the Church is drifting its clergy into, in effect, a voluntary pursuit. His challenge to Synod was direct: are we going to put our money where our mouth is? Not just in resourcing the process of encouraging people to come forward, but in making sure there are enough paid roles at the other end.

It was a moment that brought together everything Save the Parish has been arguing. The working-class vocation strategy, the LInC funding debate, the poverty discussion, and the question of how the Church Commissioners’ billions are spent: they are all, in the end, the same question. Do we believe that the parish system, staffed by stipendiary clergy who can afford to live among the people they serve, is the future of the Church of England? If we do, then we need to fund it. If we don’t, then all the warm words about encouraging working-class vocations are just that: warm words.

Parochial Fees: A Church That Wants to Serve Must Not Price People Out

The debate on the Parochial Fees Order (GS 2434), which sets the fees for weddings, funerals and burials for the next five years, proved significant. The Archbishops’ Council had proposed a substantial increase in burial fees of around £1,000. Synod rejected this overwhelmingly, by 262 votes to 3. The debate lasted nearly three hours, with 20 pages of amendments tabled. The Bishop of Blackburn, Philip North, acknowledged there were deep questions to be had about how fees should be set, including the accessibility of occasional offices to low-income communities.

This matters for Save the Parish because weddings, funerals and baptisms are the frontline of the Church’s engagement with the wider community. For many people, their first or only encounter with the Church of England is through an occasional office. If we price people out of a church funeral or make a church wedding feel like a luxury, we are cutting ourselves off from the very communities we claim to serve. 

The strength of Synod’s response suggests that members understand this instinctively, and that is encouraging. We want a Church where the occasional offices are an integral part of what we offer, not a revenue-raising exercise.

Clergy Conduct: A Welcome Reform

On a more positive note, Synod gave final approval to the Clergy Conduct Measure, following rejection by the Parliamentary Ecclesiastical Committee. Importantly, Synod agreed to an amendment reversing the presumption of private hearings, so that tribunals and courts will normally sit in public. This is a welcome step towards the transparency and accountability that our parishes deserve. The Measure passed comfortably across all three Houses.

Safeguarding: Progress, But Watch This Space

Synod overwhelmingly endorsed the direction of travel on establishing a new independent oversight body for church safeguarding. This is important and necessary work, and we welcome progress. We will, however, be watching closely to ensure that the new structures do not become another layer of central bureaucracy that adds cost and complexity without making children and vulnerable people meaningfully safer at parish level.

What Was Missing

Several issues that matter profoundly to parish life received no dedicated attention. The continuing haemorrhage of stipendiary clergy posts from parishes, the sale of parsonages and church buildings, the unsustainable pressure on rural and small-town ministry from ever-larger multi-parish benefices, and the growing burden of compliance and administration on volunteer churchwardens: these are the daily realities that animate our supporters, and Synod had little to say about them.

Looking Ahead: Stand for Synod

We should be clear-eyed about where we stand. The language has shifted, but are the arguments being won? The number of bishops willing to vote with parish-first motions has grown from zero to nine in the space of a few years. The incoming Archbishop of Canterbury is speaking our language. Our Synod members were quoted in the debate on LInC, which hardly anyone had heard of when STP was formed, on the front page of the Church Times. But rhetoric is not the same as redistribution, and warm words about flourishing parishes do not pay for a vicar.

The fundamental question, whether the Church’s vast financial resources will actually be redirected to sustain parish ministry on the ground, remains unanswered. The institutional machinery continues to defer rather than decide. The financial debate is due to return to Synod in July 2027.

That is why the Synod elections this summer are so important. We need more members who will turn sympathetic rhetoric into binding votes. If you care about the future of your parish church, if you believe that the Church of England is local or it is nothing, then we need you: 

1. Ensure your deanery representation is fully met – these are the voters for General Synod. 
2. Consider standing to be a deanery synod representative if not.
3. Consider standing for General Synod. If you want to find out more about what this entails look at our website, or get in touch. 

We will be putting out a call for candidates in the near future. If you are interested, please get in touch.

The parish is worth fighting for. And the fight is far from over.

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