Team Ministry

The Pastoral Measure 1968 permitted the emergence of the Team Ministry in places where the old parochial structure was becoming unworkable. Typical examples would be of an area where there were too many church buildings for the number of worshippers yet it would be harmful to the church's ministry to close any of the buildings.

For example, the town of Whitstable in East Kent (England) is now a single parish under a Team Rector with a number of Team Vicars and other licensed ministers who collectively care for all the Anglican congregations of the town. The Team is large enough to be able to support specialists, such as a town Youth Minister, but also retains sufficient local identity to retain the loylaties of existing church members.

There are serious theological issues around the exercise of episcope in this situation as the arrangements tend to destablise the idea of the local in Anglican ecclesiology.