You may have heard the exciting news that we now have a new board member, Mark Parsons from Christ Church, Clifton in Bristol. We are delighted that Mark is joining the UCAN team and we wanted to make sure that we were able to introduce him to you all properly so, we interviewed him. Read on to find out all about him.
Mark, What do you do for your day job and how long have you been working in the world of church administration?
Since September 2013 I have been Operations Manager at Christ Church Clifton. Prior to that I worked for 10 years as Ops Manager at St. John’s Ealing in West London, had 2 years at London Bible College, was Administrator at St. Stephen’s Canonbury in North London and worked as an Engineering Manager for BT International. My day job largely consists of supporting the Senior Leadership Team at Christ Church in planning and implementing the vision and strategy for the church, and supporting the Ops team in delivering. I also have specific responsibility for finance, personnel, IT, legal things and anything else no one wants to do!
You’ve been a member of the UCAN network for over 10 years, what’s encouraged you in this time?
It’s been a real privilege to be involved in UCAN since its inception by John Truscott in 2009 and I was on the first Cutting Edge team until 2017. I’m so encouraged by the growth of UCAN and the way it has transitioned from John’s leadership and part of his work into a thriving organisation in its own right. The ILM Managing Church Well course, which I did as part of Cohort 1, has been a particular delight to me.
Why do you feel called to be part of the UCAN team? What are you seeing God do in the world of Church ops and administration at present?
It’s hard to say specifically, other than it was definitely a God thing. A thought popped into my mind after this year’s digital Cutting Edge that maybe it was time to do something more specific within UCAN again, but I dismissed it with a rather trivial “well they can always ask me”. And a couple of months later that’s exactly what happened! My sense is that God is placing admin and ops people into strategic positions of influence within his church in a way which we haven’t seen before. The ability to turn strategy and ideas into action and change is so needed in the church and for too long the people with the God given gifts to help with this have been stuck in the church office. God is bringing these gifts to the leadership table, to the benefit of all.
If someone asked you for your 3 top tips for church administrators, what would you say?
1. This is a calling not a job! There are easier ways to make a living, so don’t do it unless you are called!
2. Behind every admin task is a person – so focus on the person not the task
3. Be available and interruptible – a full diary means no time to respond to those God-interruptions!
What’s your funniest moment from your experience of church administration?
Oh I have many, but one from my early days as an administrator really sticks in my mind. I worked for a vicar with a love of those corny florescent posters which were popular in churches at the time. He had one made for the noticeboard outside the church which said “Carpenter from Nazareth seeks Joiners … apply within”. One day the church office bell rang and there was young man at the door who simply said “I’ve come about the job….”. Confused as we weren’t recruiting at the time, I asked “what job?” to which he replied “the carpenter job advertised on the front of the church!”. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!
You will have read above that one of Mark’s earliest roles in UCAN was serving on the Cutting-Edge conference and Events team. If you are interested in considering serving in this way, click here for more details.