It is not that estates people matter more than other people. It’s just that they matter as much as other people.
It has been a great blessing for the last three and a half years to be the Dean of Estates Ministry.
There are 178 parishes in the diocese with 500 or more units of social housing which are designated by the national church as ‘estate parishes.’ These parishes occur across the diocese from the inner city to rural Surrey. Some of the largest estates are in outer London. In many inner-city parishes, the very wealthy live alongside the very poor. The Woolwich Episcopal Area has the largest number of estates parishes. Many estate parishes can be characterised as having high needs and low resources.
A major part of my role has been to visit estate clergy, to listen, to learn, to give encouragement and to facilitate the sharing of ideas and examples of best practise. The termly Estates Network gatherings in each episcopal area have been designed to encourage that work further. Preaching engagements, consultancy, and invitations to lead PCC strategy and vision days have often followed from initial parish visits.
A further aspect of the role has been to be an advocate for estate churches and estates people and to participate in national networks and conferences.
A new event for 2025 was a highly appreciated estates ministers retreat at Wychcroft, repeated this June.
Another new venture has been a series of seminars on issues affecting estates parishes including gentrification, working class culture, and new housing developments. These have benefitted from significant input from lay members of the diocese who have shared from their professional knowledge in the areas of gentrification and housing policy in particular.
It has been a special joy to work with Captain Nick Russell CA and to benefit from his huge knowledge, wisdom, and experience in the area of estates ministry, some of which he is condensing into a series of written works and reflections which are being circulated within the diocese.
Magnify and the estates lay pioneer programme
Magnify, our thirty-week estates lay pioneer course, has been run in eight hubs across the diocese, with a new hub about to start. It is followed by a Magnify Greenhouse learning community for a further year. These are currently taking place in five locations across the diocese, with a sixth about to start soon. After year two of the programme there is the possibility of individuals being commissioned as estates lay pioneers to serve in their parishes, after appropriate selection procedures.
Estates people taking the message of God’s love to estates people in parishes up and down the diocese is our dream and the idea behind the new estates lay pioneer course, Magnify. Estates Lay Pioneers are people who come from estates, know the estates, and are able to engage in culturally relevant outreach on the many estates in our diocese.
Magnify course is designed to be the course that reaches the parts other courses do not reach. No previous qualifications or educational achievements are necessary. It consists of thirty two-hour sessions spread over a year with 6-8 participants plus two facilitators meeting in hubs around the Diocese. The style of learning is highly participatory, and group based. There are no formal assessments or written exercises.
The King and the kingdom
Our 180 estate parishes are well placed to grow to be actively engaged in growing God’s kingdom among the people of south London and Surrey, as we embrace the Southwark vision to be Christ-centered and outwardly focussed.
Acts of faith, love, service and compassion emanating from our estates churches might rightly be seen as signs of the Kingdom of God. They express something of God’s love and spread the fragrance of Christ (2 Corinthians 2.14-16). But what makes a work of the Kingdom most fully Christian is when an expression of the kingdom comes with an opportunity to meet the King.
He is indeed at the centre of the Kingdom and the fullest experience of the Kingdom comes in knowing him in his abundant love and grace.
Gary Jenkins
Dean of Estates Ministry
