non stipendiary
communion through short and mid- term locum chaplaincy in Europe and the USA, and surveyed non-stipendiary ministry in the Diocese of Wellington, New Zealand during my 2025 Study Leave.
I am privileged to I have experience of serving in non-stipendiary and stipendiary ministry and the challenges faced in both.
I’d aim to speak up for all our clergy in General Synod, stipendiary and non-stipendiary, parish based and workplace based and also those involved in various forms of Fresh Expression of Church and pioneering.
Clergy Wellbeing – I have seen the importance of this from different angles – confidentially supporting clergy through my diocesan role, experiencing the same but different stresses and strains of being non-stipendiary, and I am going into incumbency with my eyes wide open to best practice, and hoping to create good habits and wise boundaries – we shall see!
to the Church’s ministry by our non-stipendiary and PTO clergy, our chaplains, youth workers, pioneer, and lay ministers, and call for more investment and training to help them flourish in their ministries and receive the recognition they truly deserve.
Clergy terms & conditions need to reflect the demands made on both stipendiary and non-stipendiary priests.
I have been in this diocese since 1999, initially as a non-stipendiary minister and then as vicar of St. Luke’s Prestonville in Brighton since 2010.
When we returned to the UK in 2021 Andrea and I took up non-stipendiary roles as Mission Enablers in the Deanery of Yardley and Solihull.
As a non-stipendiary priest, I would like to put myself forward to serve Durham Diocese on General Synod.
I have the delight to be training two curates; one non-stipendiary, who came through the Caleb Stream at St Mellitus, and the other, a full-time stipendiary, through Ridley Hall.
These relationships mean that non- stipendiary, stipendiary, and the ministries of retired clergy are all cherished, vital parts of the ministry in which we share.
We may have frailty in the numbers in stipendiary or non-stipendiary ministry but without reform of the traditional working practices that are reinforced within the modular parish system, we will to our detriment, fail to harness and sustain support from laity in the numbers required to be effective.
Since being ordained in 2007, I have ministered in city centre, suburban and inner-urban contexts, in both stipendiary and non-stipendiary roles and until April 2026, as Vicar of St Barnabas Erdington, and Oversight Minister for the Erdington Area.
I am first and foremost a pastor - I’m the non-stipendiary Associate Vicar of St John the Divine, Kennington, and am also a volunteer chaplain at St Christopher’s Hospice.
While much has been done recently, I think more could, and should, be done to support clergy, whether stipendiary, non-stipendiary, or retired.