Thinking aloud about what it means to be a 21st Century Priest .........

What does it mean to be a Parish Priest?

Reflecting on my past 50 years I have seen changes some good (of course) some not so good!

My curacy was stimulating and after four years at Theological College it was  refreshing to be putting into practice what I had managed to absorb from my lectures and practical studies.

My Vicar was an extraordinary and quite special first incumbent whose view was that I was doing OK because now there were two of us the congregation had in fact increased by around 20 communicants which is what he had expected.

I visited, I studied, I preached, I organised children from a local Children's Home to attend Sunday School ( I usually drive down packed them into my Mini and dropped them off at Sunday School and then took them home again) there was of course no safeguarding or data protection to worry about I just agreed it with the Matron of the home!

During my second curacy I visited and preached and took services, but at the same time, developed a Town Centre Ministry with young people and opened a work/skills centre: Workpiece, a Hostel for young homeless: Nightcap and a city centre discussion group: Mouthpiece, all in partnership with a lecturer from the local Art College and a local councillor.

In my first parish I visited, I preached and I took services. My day had a routine pattern. Mornings Study Time, Afternoons visiting, Evenings meetings. Woven throughout this weft were the weddings, funerals and baptisms.

During my time the congregation grew and I felt that my work was worthwhile. Highpoints were the Community Festival that I organised with a couple who came to ask for their child to be Baptised and the Worsley Churches Care Scheme employing young unemployed people which I established with the Catholic Priest and the Methodist Minister.

We became the largest employer in the area.

I moved to the Diocese of Newcastle in 1978 and worked there for nine years before first becoming a pseudo academic, then a civil servant running a drugs prevention project for the Home Office, then back to parish ministry as a rural Vicar, four years as a Cathedral Canon responsible for a £5 Million bid to the Millennium Commission and finally Director of a Charity and a House for Duty assistant curate.

Phew!

But I find myself still asking what is the job of a Parish Priest?

As I am now a House for Duty Priest in Charge in a rural parish appointed under Common Tenure, Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Measure 2009 with a contract and a job specification (which reads as intimidating as it sounds) is it enough to spend my mornings in the study, my afternoons visiting and my evenings attending meetings?

Should I perhaps take a leaf out of the R S Thomas poem Present:

I engage with philosophy 
in the morning, with the garden 
in the afternoon. Evenings I
fish or coming home empty-handed
put on the music of 
Cesar Franck. It is enough,
this .........

 Pope Francis has commented, (although when a Pope comments it is usually taken a lot more seriously than when anyone else comments!):

Being a priest is not a job or fulfilling an employment contract but is a gift from God ... 
For Pope Francis being a Priest is more than a job it is away of being, a way of life, a way of searching for the heart of what relationship means:

Anchored in a relationship with Christ.
Being close to people
Living a modest lifestyle
Admitting one's limitations, showing integrity 
Being joyful and affectionate
Preaching sermons of quality 
Monitoring clerical 'power' so as not to abuse it

As congregations continue to decline. As the 'power' of priesthood lessens. As the number of clergy continues to fall (my Diocese had 200 full time stipendiary priests in the 1980's, that is down to 80!). As the nature of ministry changes with NSM, Self Supporting, Retired and, as I am House for Duty so the nature and possibility of what can be achieved and offered changes.

So priesthood is a privilege. One that must be exercised as such and received and held as a precious gift.


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