We (Pat and David) met with Bishop James and senior staff last week to consider Kings Hill’s needs and to report to them on the recent growth in our church community and to discuss important aspects of the future life of St Gabriel’s as a ‘parish church’ for Kings Hill.
The very good news is that we can now confirm that it is the Diocese’s intention to recruit a third clergyperson who will receive a full-time stipend (not half-time as was the case when we recruited in February but were unable to appoint). We believe this is significant since it should significantly open up the field of potential candidates. It will be paid for out of Diocesan funds as part of the Bishop’s re-engineering of how clergy are deployed and paid in this Diocese.
We currently anticipate advertising in September 2014 and we will now be taking forward the work needed for the paperwork to recruit.
Alongside the recruitment, a ‘Bishop’s Mission Order’ is likely to be established for Kings Hill. This is a legal process and system within the Church of England. It will enable a ‘halfway house’ of sorts on the way to parish status and govern not only our life here and how we organise ourselves, but also our relationship to the rest of the Cluster, Deanery and Diocese. Think of it as the successor to ‘Growing Together’ for those who were familiar with that document from 2010.
You’ll hear a lot more about all this in the coming months and we’ll do our best to keep you informed.