Made with Xara It’s something of a curiosity to me that in almost every one of the villages within the East Richmond Team area, there stands an “Old Vicarage” or an “Old Rectory”.  I find myself looking at them and wondering “what on earth did he do all day?”  To be vicar of Eryholme or Cleasby (forgive me folks - just an example!) strikes me as being something of an idyllic assignment.  Those days are of course long gone and are long before “living memory”; but there are still very real and fondly held memories of the days when there was a clergyman (and in those days they were all men!) shared between three or four parishes.  That indeed was the case when Kay and I moved here back in 2000. A few years into the new century there sprang up three vacancies!  Shirley Griffiths, who had been vicar of the Cowtons, moved to Wales, and then John Wraight, Rector of Middleton Tyas, Croft and Eryholme retired, pretty much simultaneously with Gary Beswick, who had been Rector of Great Smeaton, Birkby, Appleton Wiske and Danby Wiske.  Put them together with their neighbours Barton, Manfield and Cleasby with Stapleton, and the top right hand corner of the diocese had only one resident incumbent! At this same time, early in 2003, there was a pressing, nationwide shortage of clergy.  This had come about basically because a bulge (interesting collective noun for a group of clergy perhaps???) of clergy ordained in the mid 1970s were all coming up for retirement, meaning that at least for a while, the number retiring each year was greater than the number being ordained.  The maths is straightforward enough!  The practical consequence in this diocese was that each deanery had to “lose” several incumbent’s posts.  Plainly the unfolding situation in the north-east of the diocese offered an option or two! The proposal was made then that a Team Minstry should be established incorporating all ten of the parishes into a grouping which would be “staffed” by two full time clergy, together with a half time “house for duty priest”.  So in clergy terms, 4 were replaced by 2.5, which was a step in the right direction for the deanery staffing levels.  Much consultation followed, and after what at times seemed like an endless stream of meetings, all the parishes concerned “signed up” to the new pattern and the East Richmond Team Ministry was born, being brought into formal existence by Her Majesty the Queen in an order dated the 10th of March, 2003. I became the first Team Rector, basically by virtue of being here!  Dave Lewis joined us from Norway at Easter that year just in time for the inaugural service held at Middleton Tyas, and Graham Smith became the first House for Duty priest, now succeeded by Geoff Spedding.  Essential to those early days, and still so now, were our two retired colleagues, Rachel Stowe and Simon Golding, with Gordon Johnson taking on a valued role at Birkby. One of the founding principles of the Team was, and remains, the development of “lay” or shared ministry.  In other words an outworking of the New Testament notion that all Christians within a church community are ministers, according to their own particular gifts, talents and abilities, and that the church only really grows and thrives when all those different ministries are brought into action.  If that intention was there in our origins, one of the most exciting parts of the story so far is the way that intention has borne fruit.  To the clergy in the Ministry team were added our four Licensed readers - Viv Waugh, Di Pownall, Karen Pusey and Martin Idale, and their ministry in teaching, leading worship and the general life of the churches is invaluable. Karen has recently retired, leaving three licenced readers working in the Ministry team area just now. More recently we have added to them a group of “Lay Worship Leaders” who play an essential part in maintaining the worship programme week by week. To them must be added the huge gathering of Churchwardens, Treasurers, Secretaries, Organists and all the rest whose ministries are at the heart of the life of these churches.  The ongoing story of the Team Ministry, which will of course become its history with the passing of the years, is the story of the faith and committment of people who, responding to the call of God within them, are truly the Church here.  The future will be interesting and quite clearly challenging, as we seek to interpret and to follow the guiding of the Spirit in our time and place. God bless us everyone! Alan Glasby