Charles Moore revealed in a recent article in The Telegraph, of which he was formerly editor, that his wife is each churchwarden and treasurer of her parish church.
“Martyn’s Law is coming soon,” he wrote. “Named after Martyn Hett, considered one of the 22 murdered by the Manchester Arena bomber in 2017, the Bill has the laudable aim of higher protecting premises from terrorist attacks. Its consultation period, for those with ‘smaller premises’ corresponding to churches and schools, ends on 18 March.”
Lord Moore of Etchingham continued: “The churchwarden in our country parish, who happens to be my wife, has been looking into what this implies. All churches will likely be required to register with a latest regulator.”
He concluded: “The church has no paid staff, only volunteers, most of whom are over 70 years old, their numbers greater than decimated by Covid. As churchwarden and treasurer, she is overworked. Should she really be forced to grow to be a security guard as well?”Â
This prompted some recollections from my time because the vicar of a South Yorkshire parish. For the last five years of my time there until I left in 2019, I used to be acting treasurer for the church. The small congregation had been unable to supply a volunteer.
Fortunately, an accountant at a big evangelical church nearby, with which our church had recently formed a mission partnership, very kindly agreed to organize the annual accounts for the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM). She was a God-send.
But a lot of the routine administration landed on me – banking the Sunday collection; logging payments; leaving audit trails; keeping the Parochial Church Council (PCC) fully within the loop on the funds; liaising with the local diocesan board of finance; and paying (after obtaining the requisite counter-signature on the PCC cheque book) electricians, plumbers, architects, organists, window cleaners, roofers, builders and the pest control expert who advised the church after it suffered an infestation of squirrels.
I used to be fortunate to have had a really supportive churchwarden. I have no idea Lady Moore’s circumstances – she may, like I used to be, be helped by an accountant who prepares the annual accounts. Perhaps, unlike me, she has mastered online banking and so saves time from lugging across the PCC cheque book.
But if she is a traditional church treasurer and does the APCM accounts herself, from my knowledge of what a churchwarden’s role involves, my conservative estimate is that her combined role would take up a median of three nine-to-six working days per week.
But those hours are unfolded taking over many evenings, so I’d imagine Lady Moore struggles to get a full weekly day without work from her voluntary church work.
Elected annually by the APCM, churchwardens have particular responsibility for the church constructing and its other properties. They serve ex officio on the PCC. They are sometimes the primary to reach on Sundays to open up the church for the services and the last to depart. They often have practical responsibilities at weddings and funerals. They have, particularly in rural settings, a public role within the parish and are expected to attend various diocesan meetings.
The churchwarden role alone is a major commitment. Lady Moore is clearly dedicated to her parish and to its ministry of Word and Sacrament.
Her parish in rural Sussex is a component of Chichester Diocese. In the last 10 years of my ministry I noticed that the local diocese was becoming increasingly bureaucratic and centralised. I even have noticed in my role now as an evangelical journalist that my former diocese isn’t alone on this.
Some of this bloated bureaucracy is the results of increased government regulation over the past 20 years. But my statement is that many dioceses have been centralising control beyond the demands of laws and the mandatory requirements of higher safeguarding.
I get the impression that Chichester is more sensitive to the growing demands on frontline clergy and church volunteers than most dioceses. Meanwhile within the Diocese of Wokeshire, would it not be a stretch to reckon that the ‘diversity, equality and inclusion enforcer’, working from home little doubt and having laid yet one more heavy bureaucratic burden on the parishes, clocks off at lunch?
The Book of Common Prayer Collect for today, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, is after all a prayer for all Christian people. But readers minded to hope it would wish to uphold specifically frontline churchwardens and PCC treasurers corresponding to Lady Moore:
“We beseech thee, Almighty God, to look upon thy people; that by thy great goodness they could be governed and preserved evermore, each in body and soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
