Looking at the 2010-11 statistics for the Church of England I note that the Diocese of Lichfield clergy figures look like this:
Full-time stipendiary 300
Part-time stipendiary 17
Non-stipendiary 72
Ordained Local Ministers 56
Total clergy numbers 445 (I notice the official figure is 498 clergy for 2009)
As I'm only looking at a ballpark figure to provide some sort of feel for the numbers we will be taking these as being somewhere near correct for the beginning of the period 2012 - 2020.
It is during this period that we are being told that some 61% of the clergy will be leaving us through retirement and other 'natural' loss. This means that on these figures we will be losing two hundred and seventy-two clergy during the period which when added to the thirty clergy destined to be lost by planned clergy losses (also known as redundancy) brings us to a total reduction (before additions by ordination and other means) of three hundred and two clergy (or a total population remaining of one hundred and forty-three clergy). This means we are left with one hundred and sixty-four clergy before we start ordaining (or otherwise adding).
So before we ordain (Stipendiary, NSM and OLM) we have something between one hundred and forty-three and one hundred and sixty four clergy to service the needs of some five hundred and sixty-seven churches.
There are a number of possible ways forward with such reduced numbers and if an average of twenty-eight new ministers (stipendiary, non-stipendiary and OLM) is correct (I was told it was but I can not validate this figure!) then over the six-year period we will be adding eighty-four new priests to the total (Assuming a three-year curacy). The rough working figures then see us with something between two hundred and twenty-seven and two hundred and forty-eight clergy and (before closures) five hundred and eighty-seven churches.
Taking the median of two hundred and thirty-eight clergy this means we will have around two point four churches each.
The issue before us is that we don't have enough clergy to take on the churches and even if we did, unless they were free, we wouldn't have the money to pay for them anyway!
So whilst some are complaining that the church has gone money mad I guess we should look at the figures (only for a minute because we are heading back to the Gospel very shortly) and feel some sympathy for the bean counters whom many are pointing the finger (and quite rightly in some instances - but that's something else for some time ahead too!).
I will leave you with my addled mathematics - all done with the aid of a fag packet and some crude and rudimentary maths. Mind you, work into the equation the sum of £50 per stipendiary and you'll be sweating along with the rest of the financial types.
pax