Important General Synod motion - please email our Truro reps to ask for support

An important message from Save The Parish founder Marcus Walker:

We need your help. The General Synod is about to meet and there is one item on the agenda (first thing on Saturday) which could transform the finances of the Church of England and its parishes and I would like to ask you to write to all of those who represent you on General Synod and ask them to support this - the bishops, the clergy, and the laity. We have six General Synod reps from the Diocese of Truro - please do email them. Their names  are listed here  https://trurodiocese.org.uk/resources/policy-governance/general-synod/gsreps/  Let me explain the situation. Back in 1997 the Church Commissioners faced potential insolvency with £3.48 billion assets against £2.2billion pension liabilities. The settlement transferred future clergy pension obligations to dioceses via the Church of England Funded Pension Scheme. In short the parishes (and dioceses) bailed out the Church Commissioners and by 2020, the Commissioners’ funds had grown to £9.05 billion against reduced liabilities of £1.48billion. Five years later, they now stand at a whopping £11.1 billion. The Commissioners’ crisis is well and truly over. The same can not be said of dioceses and parishes. Official Church figures reveal a devastating picture: 83% of dioceses are running deficits totalling £62 million in 2024, forcing parishes to sell clergy housing, create "mega-parishes" where single priests serve 10+churches, and extend vacancy periods that accelerate decline. Nearly 300 parish churches closed between 2016-2021, with 300 more planned. There is an obvious solution to this and we, in the Save the Parish, have been collaborating with a number of bishops and diocesan secretaries - and negotiating with the national church and the Church Commissioners - to work out a new financial settlement that could, if implemented, reverse so much of the decline of the last thirty years. What is the plan? To bring in a Measure (a church law, with power of statute) allocating 1% of the Church Commissioners’ endowment annually - out of its distributable income (so we’re not dipping into the actual endowment) - to Diocesan Stipends Funds. This would mean an extra £110 million (at this year’s value) available to fund clergy stipends, salaries, and pensions. At a stroke this would obliviate diocesan deficits, allowing dioceses to get back to healthy growth, and would not allow them to blow the money on wasteful central schemes. So what is happening? On Saturday, the Bishops of Hereford and Bath and Wells are moving a motion (which was originally planned to be debated in February, before the next three years’ funding was agreed, but it got shunted by clever moves from the centre), which will call for a measure to be introduced ensuring a transfer into Diocesan Stipends Funds of income to the value of 1% of their endowment each year. If you click the video below, you can hear the Bishop of Hereford explain his motion. What can you do? We need as much support as possible for this motion. We need to pass the Bishop of Hereford’s motion (with a friendly amendment from the Bishop of Bath and Wells to give it teeth) it in all three houses of Synod - that means bishops, clergy, and laity. In the two weeks before General Synod we get sent hundreds of thousands of words in documents spanning all of the workings of the church and very few members have the time to wade through it all to know what is actually being proposed. If you could send them an email asking for their support, this might raise their understanding of the issue and, hopefully, persuade them to vote for it. This article from the Church Times helps explain the debate. If this motion passes, it could absolutely transform the Church’s ability to preach the Gospel across our nation. It will allow dioceses to recommit to having priests in parishes ministering the sacrament and preaching the word and being pastors to the people of their area. As reports are coming in across the West of a revival of faith among young people, we need the Church of England to be ready to minister to anyone who turns up in their local church saying, like the Greeks in John’s Gospel, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Here is an up-to-date list of current Synod members so please do get scribbling! Oh, and there’s one more thing: Bishops come in for a lot of stick and have to make a lot painful decisions and often get justifiably angry letters. If yours is supportive of this motion, please do show them some love. We must remember to say thank you to those bishops putting their heads over the parapet on this! (Not least the Bishops of Hereford and Bath and Wells). In Christ,

The Reverend Marcus Walker Chair, Save the Parish

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