THE diocese of Birmingham has been awarded £17.8 million by the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board (SMMIB), as it seeks to support church growth and address a £1.5-million structural deficit.
The award, one of the largest to date, was secured by a bid to “share the Christian message, supporting all parishes to grow, with a focus on outer estates, rural areas and areas of deprivation”. An initial 47 parishes across the diocese have been identified as priorities for investment. There are plans for a new congregation in a newly built neighbourhood in Birmingham, and for St Luke’s, Gas Street — a plant from Holy Trinity, Brompton with one of the largest congregations in the country — to continue its revitalisation work.
The diocese, home to 1.6 million people, has one of the lowest levels of investment assets in the Church: £10 per capita (compared with £94 in Ely). More than 60 per cent of its parishes are in the 20 per cent most economically deprived in the country.
Its latest annual report, filed last year, refers to a “difficult year”, in which the diocesan board of finance had been “required to carefully consider whether the BDBF would be a going concern for the next 18 months before approving the accounts”. It had free reserves of just over £2 million: less than the target of £2.7 million (three months of operating expenditure). The diocesan-finances review found that 23 dioceses were in the same situation (News, 13 June).
In 2023, income in the diocese fell by more than £900,000 to £11.8 million, with the largest source — Common Fund — at £4.6 million (compared with commitments of £6 million in 2020). Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the operating deficit has stood at around £1.5 million. From 2020 to 2022, and in 2024, sustainability funding from the Church Commissioners covered this deficit, but in 2023 the diocese had to use its Strategic Investment Fund to cover it. This fund, maintained through property dispersals, was designated for “intentional strategic mission investment and in the long term” before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In January, the diocesa-finances review warned of dioceses’ “increased dependency on the NCIs, with many dioceses still running a deficit” (News, 21 June 2024) — a finding that appears to have shaped the new spending plans.
ST LUKE’S, GAS STREETSt Luke’s, Gas Street
The latest SMMI announcement in Birmingham follows a series of grants from the Commissioners to the diocese, including £12.5 million in Strategic Development Funding. This included £7.3 million for the People and Places strategy, launched in 2019 and ending this year (News, 1 March 2019).
The pattern of a stipendiary minister for every parish was deemed “no longer sustainable, fair, or a good fit”, and a reduction in their number (from 125 to 100) “the only solution to long-term financial issues”. Under a reformed Common Fund, it was expected that most places would fully fund the cost of their paid “oversight ministry”, under which clergy would be responsible for larger areas and congregations would be led by local ministers.
In November, the diocesan synod was told that 40 of an expected 43 areas had been been formally agreed, and oversight ministers had been appointed by the Bishop to 30 of them.
In March, the diocesan secretary, Dr Jan Smart, told the diocesan synod that the aim was to reach sustainability in the next ten years, and “as this rolls out, every parish will be involved in conversations about sustainability.” The SMMIB funding bid was to include a request to “cover — in a tapered way — our operating deficit over the next few years to allow us to release our own Mission Fund for missional activities”.
The award includes £2.4 million to support the diocese in becoming “financially sustainable”. This will include the creation of a dedicated Generosity Team. A total of £3.6 million has been awarded to support parishes to grow, in addition to £6.1 million to help the diocese “find, form, and deploy additional missional leaders”, including curates.
Andy Winmill, director of mission support, and Steve Cook, director of strategic transformation, told the March diocesan synod that “a church-planting and revitalisation approach will be more readily understood and supported by the funder.”
The new grant includes £5.7 million for new plants and revitalisations. The parishes selected for involvement include St Luke’s, Gas Street, launched in 2016 with £350,000 of national support. In recent years, significant sums have been invested in planting by Charismatic Evangelical churches in the diocese.
Last year, the SMMIB awarded the diocese £1.6 million for a “church revitalisation”, at St Mary and St Ambrose, Edgbaston, to “combine” it with Anchor Church, a plant from Gas Street (News, 15 November 2024). SDF grants have also supported Gas Street Shirley and Gas Street Longbridge, alongside investment in a five-year Anglo-Catholic Mission Project.
Diocesan-synod minutes note that during a discussion about the SMMIB bid in March, the Vicar of St Chad’s, Rubery, the Revd Claire Turner, said that she was “increasingly concerned that consultation is not written in to our process, leaving us with something that can be experienced as very ‘top down’”. The Bishop of Birmingham, Dr Michael Volland, told members that “priorities need to aligned with the priorities of the National Church”. Mr Winmill and Mr Cook spoke of the need to “build sufficient financial capacity of our own to enable us over time to be able to prayerfully discern how God might be leading us and have the resources to express this without relying solely on external funding that necessarily comes with conditions”.
In 2014, the diocese reported that it had the country’s lowest church attendance in relation to population, and the lowest level of stipendiary clergy per capita. Despite financial challenges, numbers in the diocese have held up better than the national average. Between 2013 and 2023, average weekly attendance fell by 25 per cent, compared with an average of 30 per cent, while child attendance fell by 28 per cent, compared with an average of 40 per cent.
