Tower and Town, March 2019

  (view the full edition)

St Mary's Church: The Search For A New Rector

Some sixteen years ago we were looking for a new rector to oversee our Marlborough Anglican Team (St Mary’s in the town, St George’s Preshute in Manton and St John the Baptist in Minal). Andrew Studdert-Kennedy was appointed and the family became a Marlborough fixture right up to the end of last year. Many of us witnessed Andrew’s ‘institution and induction’ in November as Team Rector and Vicar of St Andrew’s, Uxbridge. But Marlborough was where deep friendships were forged, where Jamie, Phoebe, Alice and Megan grew up while Andrew and Annie cared for old and young alike in our congregations.

Since then we have been in an ‘interregnum’, a period for taking stock, having a think about the kind of person we need to take us on and generally getting used to life without our rector. It’s amazing how our congregations and churches have stepped up and are pulling together: it’s proving to be a time of growth, fending for ourselves with the help of retired clergy and the chaplaincy at Marlborough College.

We have found that the Church of England’s process for finding clergy is lengthy. There is much consultation within the hierarchy, meetings to be held and a job description (‘Profile’) to be prepared. Then there’s advertisement, followed by a month during which potential applicants can mull over what’s on offer. Applications received by the deadline are subjected to a short-listing and, finally, the selected candidates interviewed. We know because we went through that process in the autumn – although we sadly didn’t feel able to appoint anyone.

In the hope that we are older and wiser, we are revising our Profile to reflect a much more attractive, upbeat proposition with more input from our various Marlborough communities. Our plan is to re-advertise at the end of February and interview at the beginning of May, with the new Bishop of Ramsbury, Andrew Rumsey, and Archdeacon of Wiltshire, Sue Groom, leading our panel. Once the appointment is made one could expect a minimum three month notice period to the appointee’s existing parish before the move to Marlborough – probably taking us up to September.

We are praying that we can spot the person God is calling out as Rector for Marlborough … meantime we hang on in there!

Mike Maclachlan