Facts and figures
Strategic objectives
A Brief History of the Diocese of Birmingham

Facts and Figures: the Diocese

• Parishes and Clergy: The diocese has 162 parishes, and 195 churches and multi-use worship centres. There are 180 full-time paid clergy working in parishes and 33 clergy who work voluntarily for the Diocese.
  
  
• Sector Ministers: The diocese has ministers working as chaplains in education, industry, with the police, with deaf people, and there are licensed clergy employed by NHS Trusts and the Prison Service.
  
  
• Congregations: Each week an average of 19,100 people – including nearly 3,500 children and young people - worship in a Church of England Church in the Diocese of Birmingham. There were 2,770 baptisms in 2004 and 285 Thanksgiving services and the number of adult baptisms seems to be growing dramatically. Each year there are around 1,000 marriages in churches and around 6,000 funerals in church and at crematoria.
  
  
• Senior Clergy: As well as the Bishop of Birmingham the diocese normally has a Suffragan Bishop of Aston (vacant); the Dean of Birmingham Cathedral and two Archdeacons (Birmingham and Aston).
  
  
• Cathedral: The Cathedral Church of St Philip is a small, eighteenth-century, Grade I listed building of considerable art-historical importance as it contains the Pre-Raphaelite stained-glass masterpieces designed by Burne-Jones and produced by William Morris. It stands at the very heart of Birmingham where the retail, office and administrative quarters of the city meet. Its recently renovated churchyard is an important city-centre open space. Visit Birmingham Cathedral Website http://www.birminghamcathedral.com
  
  
• Offices: The Bishop’s House and the Diocesan Office are in Harborne, West Birmingham. The Diocesan Secretary, his staff, the offices of the Diocesan Board of Education, the Forums for Ministries, Community Regeneration, and Church and World, and the offices of the Suffragan Bishop and Archdeacons are all based in the Diocesan Office. The Forum for Mission and Evangelism is based at the cathedral and can be contacted on 0121 262 1852. The Diocesan Office is at 175 Harborne Park Road, Harborne, Birmingham, B17 0BH. Tel. 0121 436 0400. The Bishop and his staff can be contacted at Bishops Croft, Old Church Road, Harborne, Birmingham, B17 0BG, Tel 0121 427 1163.
  
  
• Education: The Diocesan Board of Education works with 51 Church schools, including two secondary schools, spread across the five local education authorities. The city’s three universities have full- or part-time chaplains resourced by the Diocese.
  
  
• Community Regeneration: The diocese, working in partnership with other organizations, is committed to play its part to improve the lives of people in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods of the diocese and to create neighbourhoods that are clean, safe and generous. Churches are encouraged to play a role in local regeneration activity while the diocese works to influence regional and local authority policy making. During the week many of our church buildings are open providing a base for community activities run by the church itself or other organizations. Currently our churches manage 57 community projects providing activities for 38,000 visitors each week. More than 900 volunteers, 179 part-time staff and 172 full time staff work for these church-based community projects.
  
  
• Finances: Birmingham congregations are amongst the poorest in the country with average incomes of only a little over £12,000 but they are also among the most generous. The weekly average tax-efficient planned giving by congregations was £9.80 in 2003, a figure exceeded in only four other dioceses.
  

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Strategic Objectives
Birmingham Diocese went through a detailed and thorough review of its structures, mission and calling. The process, Called to a New Kingdom, identified six calls which should guide the life and work of the diocese. They are:

“Live and speak more confidently as Christians in the World”

“Discover Christ at the heart of our local communities”

“Break New Ground” (by getting in touch with those around us, especially children, young people and young adults and by finding new ways of being the Church, which relates better to today's people.)

“Work Together”

“Become Better Equipped”

“Prune for New Life”

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A Brief History of the Diocese of Birmingham
There were two driving forces behind the creation of the Diocese in 1905. The first was the realisation by successive Bishops of Worcester that their Diocese (which included many of the parishes of the City of Birmingham) was becoming unmanageable. The other was the wish of the leaders of the new city that it should have a Bishop and a Cathedral to boost its status.

Charles Gore was active on behalf of the Christian Social Union and, although never a socialist in any strict sense of that term, was profoundly convinced that socialist ideals could find countenance in the Gospels and hoped the Church and the labour movement would share his conviction.

On 2nd March 1905 Dr Gore was duly enthroned in the Cathedral Church (St Philip's) of Birmingham. His hopes for Birmingham were reflected in his first speech as Bishop of Birmingham at his enthronement:

"What we are celebrating is the foundation of a city bishopric. Very much of what is best, noblest, most beautiful, most intellectual in the world's history - in Greece, in Italy, in Germany, in England, in America, is bound up with the intense life of cities, with men's love for their city, with the public spirit of a city. Indeed, when Christianity has to find its ideal for the life of humanity it finds it in the perfect city.

There is felt by all classes of society in Birmingham a great pride in its past. It has become a city with a noble centre and with a fine record of commercial, philanthropic and artistic enterprise.

A sign of corporate feeling is that a Birmingham man feels a great pride in its local heroes, whether those born here or those who have made their name amongst you and then have set their mark on the great world outside of politics, or art or religion.

No city has shown a better public spirit than Birmingham but there is a danger in a city, like a church, dwelling on its past. There is a danger of the due succession of men of public spirit failing, a danger that the best men, the men of richest gifts and opportunities, may fail to feel the call of public service as their fathers felt it.

There are ugly spots and grave moral risks in the civic life of Birmingham, as of all other cities and like every society with a noble past she needs fresh efforts from all classes of the community. As compared with other bodies the Church of England has not played its proper part in the past in contributing to the civic life of Birmingham. Our contribution to the civic life and our public witness for righteousness must become more vigorous".

The Diocese celebrated its Centenary Year in 2005, led by the then Bishop Sentamu who is now Archbishop of York. Activities included a ten week mission event, a pilgrimage by the two Bishops during Lent, celebrations for children, young people, older people and the publication a history of the Diocese: Celebrating A Century of Christ; The Diocese of Birmingham 1905-2005 by Canon Dr Terry Slater.

Since 1905 there have been nine Bishops of Birmingham. The Ninth Bishop of Birmingham is the Rt Revd David Urquhart who was inaugurated on November 17th 2006 in Birmingham Cathedral. Click here to visit the Bishop of Birmingham page on this website.

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