As ever, no two weeks are the same, but here is a snapshot of what clergy life in lockdown looks like.
Every day we are stopping to pray together at 10.10 am, and I am loving that sense of being ‘together’ in that. I realise how precious this corporate daily prayer is, and know it is something I want us to take into our post-lockdown-life.
Other everyday fixtures are an hour and a half of admin and emails as well as an hour and a half of phone calls. We also have our Open Vicarage which we really appreciate seeing people at.
Alternate weeks, Simon and I prepare and record the service for Sunday. On recording weeks, preparing, filming and editing takes whichever of us are doing it around a full day and a half [much more than ‘normal’ service and sermon prep and delivery, that’s for sure!]. After that, putting the subtitles on and getting it ready for broadcast is another day’s work [huge thanks to Graham for enabling that to happen].
Our Morning Prayer is specific to the day, and another 3 hours, alternate weeks, goes into preparing and recording those.
Communication is always important, and never more so than now. The weekly email communication is a joint effort, with things being flagged up by clergy, Fiona, churchwardens and others, compiled into a bite-size [we hope!] communication. Of course, there is a great deal of ‘backroom’ work making sure the information we refer to is available on the website.
I am still involved in Illuminate, our work with Young People, and we have a weekly ‘meeting’ with them. We are ramping this up and Barrie has found that there are things we can do to support secondary schools in the delivery of the curriculum by offering prayer spaces for all year 7s to engage with. A small team of us are recording those, as well as a ‘thought for the week’ which will go out across the diocese.
Diocese wide, I am also involved in facilitating Ministerial Development Reviews, which are still taking place, though rather differently, and need to be prepared for and followed up.
There is training going on both locally in Gloucester Diocese and Nationally around our response at this time and into the future.
Whilst we haven’t been able to have our usual meetings, things have still had to be addressed and progressed, that is just happening in different, and not always so efficient ways.
Our anxious wedding couples need care and support, and we have been conducting around 2 funerals per week since lockdown began.
This time has also meant I can get to some of the important rather than just the urgent too. So I have finally finished constructing our Profile for our new Team Vicar, Fiona and I have been thinking through various aspects of our administration and processes, which she has done a spectacular job implementing despite the difficulties of this time. I have been in regular contact with our curate to be and will be involved in around 20 hours of training ready for her arrival over the next few weeks.
This is by no means exhaustive, but I hope gives an insight into life under lockdown as clergy. When it first happened, and in the run-up to Easter, the learning curve was immense, and the workload and hours were relentless. However, we now have some systems in place, and I have to say, it is wonderful experiencing this thing we have heard rumour of, ‘evenings’, so much more! On the whole, since Easter, I have been managing to keep work hours down to around 50 per week, which has had a brilliant knock-on effect on my sleep and general wellbeing. So yes, things are a little easier, but a long way from the clergy having nothing to do in lockdown. Please do pray for us, as we pray for you.