Supporting mission and ministry

The Commissioners' support for parish mission and ministry reflects their longstanding duty to make 'additional provision' for the cure of souls in areas of need. That involves both sustaining and looking to extend the church's ministry in new ways to meet present-day needs.

A current objective is to look for ways of increasing the Commissioners' support for parish mission and ministry. The Commissioners and Archbishops' Council are also working together, with dioceses, to explore additional ways of delivering support for mission and to share news about the effectiveness of this funding stream.

The Commissioners' funding for parish mission and ministry includes:

Selective grants to lower-income dioceses.  These totalled £27 million in 2007. 21 dioceses each received grants of over £0.5 million, while 14 received none. Dioceses certify annually that they have used this money to help parishes least able to meet their ministry costs.

Mission development funding (formerly the parish mission fund). Launched in 2002, this fund aims to help dioceses develop new Church ministry through investment in parish mission initiatives. The money is shared between dioceses according to wealth. Dioceses may also apply it towards their clergy stipend costs, but have increasingly chosen not to do so.

To date, over £20 million has been put towards the support of a diverse range of projects across the Church. A full report on experiences across the dioceses during 2002-07 with pointers for future effectiveness was produced in October 2008.

In addition, each year the Archbishops’ Council and Commissioners circulate a paper to Synod members showing how the funding is being used.  Click here to see the most recent of these documents, the supporting schedule of projects and costs and further details of the scheme. A short illustrated leaflet showing mission fund projects in the first triennium was published in 2006.

Mission in areas of new housing and business development. An experimental funding stream launched in 2008, and with some £7 million in total budgeted for 2008-10, this money aims to help meet the needs of those dioceses facing substantial planned housing and/or business growth in coming years. Following a bidding round, the money is to be shared between 14 dioceses in the current triennium. The programme and report of an inter-diocesan conference held in October 2007 at Church House Westminster, under the title of 'Building a New Church', contain the background to this initiative.

News and research. The Commissioners are working with dioceses to share news of mission funding approaches and outcomes. The newsletters and other resources in the left-hand menu may be of interest for further study.