Since Tim Fletcher left his post as Priest in Charge at Stannington, the Churchwardens and PCC have been in discussion with the Diocese as to how a replacement is to made.

As you may know, Tim’s role as Priest in Charge was a half-time appointment with the other half of Tim’s role being in training Curates for the Diocese. Tim has now gone on to do the training role as a full-time appointment.

After Tim was appointed in 2014, the Diocese published a strategy for clergy within the whole of the Diocese, which provides funding for a half-time only appointment for Stannington. The Diocese have confirmed that this remains the case and ordinarily we could expect only a half-time minister to replace Tim.

This presents a difficulty. The PCC are aware that we have not been able to do all that we would wish to do with only a half-time minister – being Parish priest is a big job in itself. Also there is a limited number of people who would be willing to take a half-time job (the Diocese have confirmed that they are not able to offer an additional half-time role as they did when Tim was appointed).

We have also looked into the possibility of sharing clergy with another Parish, but there is no obvious opportunity to do this locally and, in any event, this would not address the resource issue – we believe there should be a full-time Priest in Charge in Stannington.

So, what has been proposed to us by the Diocese is what is called a “Graft” whereby a large well-resourced church known as a “Resource Church” offers to provide resources to support another church known as a “Receiving Church”. The PCC have spent some time looking into this type of arrangement including meeting members of a church who have received a Graft.

We have now been made an offer from St Thomas Crookes (STC) which is:

The STC council have unanimously given their support to the idea of a graft, subject to approval from Christ Church PCCSTC have agreed to provide 50% of a clergy stipend for a three year period, at the end of which we fully anticipate that increased giving, both from the graft team and also through church growth, will more than cover this deficit.STC will recruit and provide a graft/partnership team, probably of around 30 people, mainly, but not exclusively, consisting of STC members who already live in Stannington.

What this means is that it will be possible to appoint a full-time minister for Stannington for at least 3 years in anticipation that this will be sustainable into the future. The PCC believes this to be an extremely generous proposal, which offers a real opportunity for us to deliver our Mission in Stannington, and have therefore agreed to go ahead on this basis. The next stage in the process will be to start the recruitment process for the new Minister. The appointment will be made by the Bishop of Sheffield, but the PCC will be involved in the recruitment process and naturally, STC will also have a say as provider of 50% of the funding.