Save The Parish - Cornwall

Penwith Deanery's radical On The Way deanery plan has stumbled at the first fence as the national  advertisement for a rural dean to oversee its implementation only attracted one applicant. This is a bit of an embarrassment for Truro's Episcopal College. The post will be re-advertised - and possibly rewritten, according to local sources. The original ad sought an incumbent with almost super human powers - click here to read the job description. The new Rural Dean would be priest of three churches (Gulval, Madron and Heamoor) while overseeing the implementation of a controversial restructuring plan creating two super parishes - east Penwith and west Penwith  - and simultaneously hiring a flotilla of new posts in an extensive 'support team'. So no wonder just one applicant.  On The Way confusion as diocesan leadership fails Across west Cornwall and beyond, congregations are confused and uncertain as the diocese fails to make the way forward clear and engage in adequat...

  A bleak night in Portreath, Cornwall, saw Carnmarth North deanery plan voted  through after two delays. Initially Rural Dean Caspar Bush and his team failed to submit it in time for Episcopal College approval before the June synod meeting. Then following the death of the Queen, the 9 September 2022 synod  was postponed. On Tuesday 18 October, Rev Bush finally saw the On The Way plan approved which will see him as Rural Dean Tsar head up a new 'On The Way' unit swallowing up Transforming Mission Camborne. His former curate Rev Graham Adamson becomes a 'peripatetic' vicar across Carnmarth North's 18 churches. As one clergyman from Camborne bravely said at the Synod, a fair amount of the Church Commissioners' Lowest Income Community funding - which will finance this new roaming position - will be spent on his petrol costs. Rev Adamson will also in an odd twist be overseeing the work of his former boss Rev Rosheen Browning, priest in charge at Camborne, who has st...

Despite the repeated assurances to the contrary by the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, moves are indeed afoot for major parish re-organisation in the Diocese of Truro through On The Way plans. Earlier this year, the Bishop repeatedly told both Save The Parish Cornwall - and East Wivelshire synod members - that 'there are no plans for parish re-organisation'.   This despite papers written by Archdeacon Paul Bryer extolling the virtues of 'super parishes' and Joint Councils  - that have proved so disastrous elsewhere in the country. People attending the most recent East Wivelshire Deanery Synod have learned that there are in fact plans. And plans that the diocese intends to implement swiftly. Click here to read the East Wivelshire powerpoint which has left many synod members bewildered. " Slide 9 is particularly important," says one. "There is no suggestion in any of this that individual parishes can opt out of the mega benefices - which w...

Unsurprising reactions on Facebook to the  Bishop of St Germans the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson's recent address at the Truro Diocesan Synod. The Bishop laments the decline of church going. Click here to read the piece with its oddly defeatist tone. The three comments below a just a sample of the response.  Bishop Hugh laments the decline in church going.  We’re all aware of the consequences of changes in patterns of belief in this country. We see it in our church pews, in the numbers of children in our churches and in our PCC bank balances. But I think those are the symptoms, not the cause. The real change isn’t that people still believe the same things they used to believe but have stopped going to church because shopping is more fun. The real change is that people believe different things now. it’s not fundamentally that people’s rational beliefs have changed And it’s not fundamentally that people’s rational beliefs have changed - that people have worked their way through the ...

A tweet this morning by Robert Thompson ( @Rgt71Robert) , Vicar of St Mary & St James, London NW6 suggesting that 'consultation' about the Church Commissioners' Strategic Development Funding spend is as deeply flawed elsewhere as it is in Cornwall. He writes: Thanks to those many clergy who contacted me about my tweet on these successful SDF bids They have been called ‘vanity projects’ & forms of ‘money laundering for particular networks’ & it is clear that the ‘consultations’ instead of leading any change of plans, partnership or co-creation, were simply an information events about their imposition on others. There is also a clear disquiet about the lack of any meaningful listening from Senior staff in the Episcopal Areas affected & the Diocese. The entire process has simply exacerbated low levels of trust & clergy morale. The questions ordinary parish clergy are asking are 1) why can they & their parishes be invested in rather than we continually p...

 The Carnmarth North deanery synod to approve its On The Way  cost-cutting plan has failed to meet Episcopal College approval - for reasons that remain unclear. Last month a shambolic synod approved the plan - despite an admitted lack of consultation with congregations previously.   Click here to read the original plan. Rural Dean Caspar Bush circulated an email yesterday saying the original plan had been rejected by the Episcopal College over the MMF (Mission and Ministry Fund) budget deficit it envisaged. This despite the fact that the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson. micro-managed the development of the plan from the start. A deanery synod to approve the revised version is scheduled for 8 September 2022. Rev Bush's email reads: To: Carnmarth North Deanery Synod reps and other interested parties This email is to update you on On the Way, and to set a new date for our next Synod. We apologise that once again it has been necessary to postpone this Synod...

Like the walrus, the carpenter and the unsuspecting oysters... The Revd Peter C Bellenes yesterday wrote an open letter to deanery representatives in East Wivelshire , who face a crucial vote over their On The Way plan at the end of the month.  He stressed  how vitally important it was that they should listen to  parishioners' concerns - and fight to save their parishes and heritage.  Click here for a guide to arguing against parish re-organisations , published by Save The Parish .     Today he follows up with a further letter, pushing back at a suggestion from the Bishop of St Germans  that parish re-organisations were way down the diocesan agenda.  Dear Deanery representatives East Wivelshire,  You have received an email including a message from the Bishop of St Germans trying to allay your concerns over single PCCs etc.   The b ishop is, I believe, being rather disingenuous . I am attaching documents circulated by the Archdeacon of C...

A few eyebrows raised today by a suggestion from the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, Bishop of St Germans, that parish re-organisation is not on the agenda in the Diocese of Truro. In a letter to deanery representatives ahead of a meeting in East Wivelshire on 30 June, the Bishop appears to deliberately downplay the question. Note: Bishop Hugh does not deny that parish re-organisation is in the pipeline, but ducks the question by saying that it cannot be waved through on approval of a deanery plan.  His telling phrase 'where that is needed' speaks volumes. If there are people who believe that the Deanery plan grants authority to close churches or merge PCCs without the further processes required, it would be helpful for them to know that is not the case. As I understand it, having a Deanery plan that has been passed by Synod is taken into account in  future pastoral reorganisation  ... but it is not considered to replace the normal consultation process. We checked that out some time ...

  Look away now. The powers that be at the Diocese of Truro appear anxious to keep details of their   'On The Way' cost cutting p lans under cover before they can railroad them through with little or no scrutiny at Deanery Synods. We're publishing details of these plans as they come to us.  The latest: Penwith Deanery plan , already voted through despite significant opposition.  There will be a meeting to discuss details - still unclear to all involved several months after this was pushed through. The next Penwith Deanery Synod will be held on 14 June 2022 at Paul Church, when no doubt further questions will be asked.   To read the Penwith Deanery Plan, click here. The Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, wrote a heavy-handed letter to accompany this plan, when it was published in March. The tone of the paragraphs outlined - threatening, to say the least - is worrying. Some have called his approach 'bullying'.  What we know for sure:...

It was gratifying to see how much the Bishop of Truro took to heart the views of Save The Parish Cornwall in his address to the DiocesanSynod on 28 May 2022.  The campaign’s message against his draconian OnThe Way cost cutting programme was clearly heard. On The Way involves clergy redundancies which threaten the closure of historic churches, while millions are at the same time being poured into controversial ‘mission church’ programmes – known as Transforming Mission (sometimes in the same deanery). However, the speech by the Rt. Rev. Philip Mounstephen, Bishop of Truro - as well as other comments at the Synod by the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt. Rev. Hugh Nelson - still left much unsaid about the future of the priesthood in the diocese. Both proved the continuing need for the full, honest and transparent scrutiny of diocesan finances that the Save the Parish campaign has been calling for in Cornwall. STP is calling for full disclosure of the budgets and actual expenditure ...

A response by the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson,  to a request at last Saturday's Diocesan Synod for transparency over Transforming Mission finances is reproduced below. Bishop Hugh did not directly respond to the request to provide the original sustainability model spreadsheets. We would be interested to hear of people's responses to this statement.  Bishop Hugh repeated figures produced by the Diocese earlier in the month relating to vastly increased youth work in Camborne Cluster following Transforming Mission.   These figures contradict a Diocesan document produced in October 2018, which details extensive youth work across Camborne Cluster   before the Transforming Mission programme was started there in 2019. TRURO DIOCESAN SYNOD    28/5/22   9/1     Question under Standing Orders, Vivian Hall Altarnun w Bolventor, Trigg Major Deanery Synod, and General Synod 'Can you please provide the original su...

  A letter to the Church Times today from Save the Parish Cornwall's Neil Wallis, who points out that the Diocese of Truro's housekeeping exercise On The Way is very much a 'top down' rather than 'bottom up' process, despite suggestions to the contrary by the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson. The Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, insisted that the diocese's On The Way (OTW) programme of cuts was 'an intentionally grass-roots led initiative'. The Bishops don't even see the final plans until they have been approved locally, he said. He has repeated this claim in in the media and publicly elsewhere  - which is a pity, as it is sophistry at best. In December 2021, a report about OTW in Carnmarth North deanery synod detailed "discussions the Steering Group had had with Bishop Hugh earlier in the day" regarding what the Bishop called "the elephant in the room" - in other words, the difficulty of rolling out ...

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Save The Parish Cornwall, the Diocese of Truro branch of Save The Parish has called on the Bishops of Truro and St Germans to meet to discuss the brutal cuts planned in their housekeeping programme 'On The Way'.'On The Way' has caused upset and dissent across Cornwall. The text of the letter is reproduced below: 26 April 2022   Dear Bishop Philip and Bishop Hugh, We the undersigned have set up a Cornish branch of Save The Parish (STP). As you are aware, STP has been set up to push back against the increasing centralization of the Church of England while administrative costs burgeon and there is a general movement away from the C of E’s traditional roots in this country i.e. the parish.  This is of particular importance to us in Cornwall as, of course, this is a largely rural county. We are particularly concerned, too, in Cornwall for other reasons. 1.         That very large sums of money – 60 per cent coming from the Church ...