Rosie Moss and Kim Topham have been appointed as co-Deans of Self-Supporting Ordained Ministers (SSMs) for the Diocese. They are taking over from previous Dean of SSMs, Alex Vaccaro.
Both Rosie and Kim are themselves SSMs, Rosie serving as Associate Priest in Worcester and Kim serving as Associate Priest of Hagley and Clent. They were both ordained in 2020 having trained together. As co-Deans they will support all those clergy in the Diocese who don’t receive a stipend for the work they do, helping them to network together and providing pastoral care as required.
“There are guidelines set out for incumbents, but very little guidance for SSMs, who generally work part-time in parishes,” said Kim. “Many of our SSMs feel quite isolated, they aren’t aware who else is a self-supporting minister and don’t know who they can go to to ask questions. Hopefully we can be the people that other SSMs feel able to talk to and we can find out the answers if we don’t know them ourselves.”
Rosie and Kim are planning to contact all SSMs in the coming months, setting up a group either on Facebook or WhatsApp so that SSMs can talk with each other and organising a meeting. They are also going to find out what is going on in other dioceses as well as nationally and take up any good ideas.
Rosie said: “Both Kim and I have had a really great experience as SSMs and feel very supported in our roles, but we know that’s not the same for everyone. It’s difficult to be a part-time Priest and we want to help people understand what it can look like compared to a full-time incumbent. Our plan is to meet together and work out how best to approach the role, but whatever we decide to do, it will definitely be with a lot of laughter and a lot of love!”
Rosie and Kim will be in touch with all SSMs shortly.
