Suggestions for Supporters

This is information is to help supporters and volunteers of Save The Parish with ideas on how to help your own parish, support or participate in your PCC and keep an eye on what is happening in your diocese.  If you are unsure or want to raise the alarm on anything, please email us at help@savetheparish.com.

There are some printable leaflets available which volunteers and supporters might like to hand out at meetings such as deanery synods.

Here are some more specific suggestions for you: 

  • Read the Parish Pack and How to Object and let us know if you have any suggestions for improvements of either document.  These documents are full of advice from contacting MPs to making a representation.
  • Build up knowledge of pastoral re-organisation in your area.  There are currently 12 pages of them on the CofE website. Some of these may be sensible, for example where there are two church buildings in a small parish, but others will be part of diocesan schemes to build ever larger benefices into mega-parishes, sometimes with a hub or minster church at its centre.  See if you can find a supporter to keep STP and others informed about each scheme, and to make a representation if appropriate.
  • Anybody in the country can make a representation to the Church Commissioners about a pastoral reorganisation in any diocese (although the CofE have it in mind to dilute this right).  It can be done online by going to the web page for a particular scheme.  The easiest representation to make is to quote from two CofE reports –  From Anecdote to Evidence and Going Deeper – http://www.savetheparish.com/research-evidence/   Both of these identify that fewer clergy per parish leads to decline and more clergy per parish leads to growth.
  • Please collect and encourage (good or bad) Parish Stories for our website -New stories do not need to be edited (although you might like to help check they make sense and are consistent with our messages) and can be uploaded here They will be checked for suitability before publication.  They can be anonymous, but much better if they are not.
  • In particular watch out for mega-parish schemes.  Some of these plan to make a deanery into a single parish, with a single PCC.  This would almost always be a disaster for affected parishes, since individual congregations would be deprived of their voice and formal rights.  Typical schemes that will collapse parishes into mega-structures are ‘On the Way’ in +Truro – https://trurodiocese.org.uk/about-us/on-the-way/, ‘Shaped by God Together’ in +Liverpool – https://www.leicester.anglican.org/about-us/sbgt/shapedbygodtogether.php, ‘Time to Change Together’ in +Lincoln – https://www.lincoln.anglican.org/ttct and ‘Fit for Mission’ in Liverpool – https://www.liverpool.anglican.org/fitformission.
  • Think about forming a local group, or groups by diocese – whatever works in your region.  The +Truro ‘branch’ of STP are off to a flying start – https://savetheparish.blogspot.com/. If you plan to set up your own blogs or other web activity please consult with Jacob Groet – help@savetheparish.com over domain names, and make sure STP nationally is kept abreast of what you are doing.
  • Join in on social media (and/or get other volunteers to do so).  We are on Facebook – https://m.facebook.com/savetheparish/ and Twitter – @SaveThe Parish – https://twitter.com/SaveTheParish ‘Likes’ and ‘Retweets’ are really important for our profile.
  • Make video clips for our website with stories and information.  Images of much loved churches in trouble are very powerful.  See this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOqYVc9GhkA 
  • When the elections come around, stand for election to Deanery Synods and Diocesan Synods and use them to challenge developing plans that do not support the established parish structure.  We will be building co-ordination arrangements so that questions on similar topics can make their way up the synod system to the General Synod.
  • Write letters highlighting the plight of Parishes, and challenging proposals that are not in their interests. You could write to the local press, to MPs, and directly to bishops.
  • Get articles about STP into Parish magazines, and (with permission) place STP literature in churches. There is a printable leaflet on the STP website.
  • Develop an understanding of your diocese’s finances.  There is a lot of financial information on the STP website to help you see what is happening financially diocese by diocese.  This should help where dioceses are claiming financial pressure (There Is No Alternative – TINA), when in fact there are options other than cutting clergy, such as cutting diocesan staff.   Please ask your volunteers to become familiar with these figures for dioceses in your area.
  • Finally (for now!) and in many ways most importantly, build your local supporters into a team so you can help each other and struggling parishes with their arguments and protestations when their parish is in trouble.  Just having a conversation with someone with a little knowledge and experience of church processes and behaviours can be an enormous help to the beleaguered.