On a bad week, the job of a parish priest is “like triage”, said Alan Bartlett. “What do I do first? What’s most urgent?”



Bartlett has just come to the end of a nine-year stint as vicar of three parishes in one of the most deprived areas of the country in north-east England. On a daily basis, he dealt with people on the frontline of austerity and social exclusion.



“The sense of responsibility – for the whole community, not just those coming to church – is enormous. There’s always the sense of being slightly on the edge,” he said.



Stress experienced by many clergy is the subject of a new Church of England working party, which is due to hold its first full meeting this week. Its task is to draw up a “covenant for clergy wellbeing” focusing on the “drastically” changing role of parish priests and the challenges they face.



The group starts work as an increasing number of clergy are joining a trade union. Nearly 1,500 priests joined the faith workers’ branch of Unite in 2017, an increase of 16% in 12 months, with many saying they felt under pressure from the C of E hierarchy, their congregations and wider communities in a job whose hours stretch around the clock.



During a debate on clergy wellbeing at the C of E synod last year, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and a former oil executive, surprised many by saying being a vicar had been his most stressful job.

“The hardest work I’ve ever done, and the most stressful, was as a parish priest – mainly because it was isolated, insatiably demanding and I was on the whole working without close colleagues – and that wears people down,” he said.

According to Bartlett, the “lack of buffers” is one of the most challenging aspects of the job. Other professionals engaged in frontline work, such as GPs, police and social workers, often live outside the areas where there is most demand for their services. Vicars live in the heart of their parishes, and everyone knows the address.



“We frequently find people in need on our doorsteps,” he said. “People know where the vicarage is – it’s a public building as well as a home. I screened my calls, but if someone turns up on your doorstep, it’s hard to ignore. You are living in the public eye.”



Last year, Bartlett was forced to install two CCTV cameras at his home after his car windows were “bricked” twice in a week, and he disturbed vandals a third time. “It makes you feel vulnerable,” he said.



Clergy work a six-day week, “but a bit of your head is always on duty. When the phone rings, it might be a routine inquiry, but it could be something much worse.”



In three consecutive months last year, Bartlett conducted funerals for three young women who had died as a result of addictions. “For a while, that takes over your life. It’s hard to keep focused on your routine responsibilities, like school governors, because of urgent needs.”



Simon Butler, the chair of the C of E clergy wellbeing group and vicar of St Mary’s Battersea, said both the church as an institution and its congregations had a duty of care towards clergy.

“Our lives and ministries are vastly different, but all present particular challenges. A vicar in a very deprived area will face different issues from one in a rural population who spends half their day in a car because they have 15 parishes to look after. For me, in an urban parish, it’s the challenge of a constantly changing, transient population,” he said.



Vicars are not employees of the C of E, but are “officeholders”, which means they do not have many of the employment rights of conventional workers.



According to Pete Hobson, the chair of the Unite section of Church of England Clergy Advocates, some join the union because they need support over a particular problem, and some because “they believe that solidarity and collectiveness are good Christian values”.

But others join, he said, because the C of E’s “management approach may require support for people on the receiving end”.

“It’s more stressful, more demanding. We increasingly live in a post-Christian age, but there is still great emphasis [from the church hierarchy] on mission and growth, which can be quite hard to deliver.”

A paper presented to the C of E synod last July suggested the church’s current reform programme “presents new challenges to, and different expectations upon, many clergy. Some clergy sense, whether accurately or not, the emergence of a ‘target’ or ‘quantitative’ culture.”

Bartlett said: “Even though the C of E is much more ‘managed’ these days, vicars are still very independent. Some of the pressure to grow the church is just common sense – if you look out on a Sunday morning at your congregation and they’re all over 60, you know you’ve got to bring new people to the church.”

The families of clergy also feel the fallout from the job. “When you’re tired and stressed, that inevitably overflows on to the family,” said Bartlett, whose children are now grown up. “And when I was doing a 60-plus hours a week job, often the best of my emotional resources was going to people outside the family home.”

Bartlett has just begun a new job as clergy development adviser for the diocese of Durham, which includes clergy wellbeing. “After 16 years as a parish priest, I understand the pressures of the job.

“But I miss it hugely – being at the heart of the community and being with people at the most important moments of their lives. It’s a hugely satisfying job and way of life. I’ve got my evenings back, but I don’t quite know what to do with them.”