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The Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches (DAC) is a statutory body set up under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which provides advice and guidance on the care of churches and churchyards.

Making changes to church buildings, contents or grounds requires submission of a faculty application (a request for permission) to the Chancellor of the Diocese. Faculties are issued by the Chancellor or the Archdeacons, taking the DAC’s advice into account.

>> See the current faculty applications

The DAC is made up of the Chair, the Revd Canon Matt Barnes, the Archdeacons, representatives of the clergy and laity and national heritage organisations together with architects and others with specialist knowledge. The DAC also has a panel of expert advisers who serve in a voluntary capacity and can be called on to provide additional specialist advice. Between them the members and advisers of the DAC have expertise in a wide variety of specialist fields, including architecture, art, archaeology, bells, heating, organs, clocks, sound and audio systems, liturgy and the environment.

The work of the DAC is vital if the Church is to retain freedom to handle its own planning consents and so protect the role of the churches as places used for worship.

For advice or guidance, please contact:

Kat Alldread: 01332 388683 

Email:  dac@derby.anglican.org

A series of Learning in Faith Bitesize training sessions are available online to guide you through church maintenance and the faculty process. The training sessions are free of charge and available to access at any time.

The Derby Diocesan Registry website has further information on faculty jurisdiction, churchyards, memorials and more.

Churchcare provides a series of guidance notes relating to the care, use and development of church buildings. For further information and guidance, click on the Guidance Notes button below.

REMEMBER : Reguar attention to these things saves you money ...

• inspection: undertake regular inspections, to assess condition, identify problems and to decide whether work is necessary

• regular maintenance tasks: jobs like clearing gutters, testing services, checking for damp and clearing the churchyard

• minor repairs: ongoing minor repairs to the building, perhaps as the result of extreme weather, can include fixing slipped roof tiles, replacing broken glass or making temporary ‘flashband’ repairs

Download your Maintenance Checklist here.

Other helpful information can be found on the National Churches Trust webpages.

To find accredited maintence contractors register for FREE with Maintenance Booker. 

Submitting applications

All applications for works to churches can be made through the Online Faculty System

Online Faculty System

Guidance notes

Additonal Matters Orders

The Faculty Jurisdiction Rules allow the Chancellor to make an order for items that are not listed in Lists A and B to be treated as such rather than needing a full faculty.

Links to the AMOs applicable to this diocese are given below.

>> Additional Matters Order - Vaccination Centres [PDF]

Ministry for Mission

I have recently been re-reading the Venerable Bede – monk and church historian in the eighth century. His Latin text was part of my syllabus as a student! I have been reminded of some important principles about ministry to deliver God’s mission in our time.

Principles for Today

In July the General Synod discussed the Reform and Renewal Programme being pursued by the Church of England in order to mobilise our resources to be most effective for God’s mission in the twenty-first century. There is the challenge of maintaining our inheritance of a parochial system that embraces every community in the country. Further, there is a challenge to find new and appropriate ways of being ‘church’ in our times. Both challenges depend upon the leadership and witness our church can offer.

Key proposals include:

• Doubling the number of candidates for ordination.

• Discipleship being our key priority – equipping the people of God.

• Creating a learning community to shape and support the leadership of the Church.

Bede and His Wisdom

In the eighth century, as the parish system was developing, there seemed to be a huge gap between the resources of the church for mission, and the needs of disparate communities not easy to reach (then because of poor roads; today because of cultural confusions about Christianity).

Bede wrote to the Archbishop of York making some suggestions:

• More priests to preach in the villages, celebrate the holy mysteries and baptise – we would call this traditional church today.

• The need to employ ‘adequate leaders of salutary life’, who could ‘teach the truth of the faith, and the difference between good and evil’. We would call this discipleship – focused on the two great issues that perplex our time: truth, and an understanding of good and evil.

Ministry for Mission

How should these resources be best deployed? Bede believed in the importance of minsters – we might use the term Resource Churches. Centres where priests and lay ministers were gathered for prayer, support and strategic deployment. We would call such arrangements ‘learning communities’. Locally in the Diocese we are using the term ‘School of Formation’.

Bede was content for each minster to ‘develop its own system of regulation’. Resources need to be marshalled appropriately. We see this as the potential role of the new Deaneries.

He concludes his advice with the observation that Bishops should ‘ordain priests, and institute leaders’. I am up for that – how many of you are ready to offer yourselves for such service?!

The Shop Stop

Department stores were developed in the 1870s. Until that time people went to the shop or the market to buy what they thought they needed to sustain and enjoy life. Of course people would browse, and see, and buy, new things. But ‘shopping’ was generally targeted to wants and needs.

Church and Common Life

The same was true of church. People went to public worship to be taught and sustained in the Christian faith. This common experience and set of reference points provided the basis for community – common standards and values. Of course people would see and pursue relationships and practices beyond these ‘norms’, just as they would be in church and let their imaginations explore the atmosphere, the words, the stained glass and the crucifix. But the liturgies were fixed, and ‘spirituality’ was generally nourished through a fairly set approach to the needs and wants of the soul.

The Department Store

The Department Store was a sign of huge shift: from a targeted, functional approach to sustenance and survival, to something very different. Now, in one place were assembled nearly all the goods a shopper might need or want. The atmosphere shifted from being functional to one of coaxing demand – encouraging the individual to see and want more than they might have envisaged when they entered the store. With ‘eternal’ florescent light and pastorally helpful staff the focus was upon each person feeling comfortable, able to seek ‘personal’ service and satisfaction. There soon developed a money-back guarantee to reinforce this prioritisation of personal control and commitment.

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Now the big stores set the scene for the seasons, offer loyalty and credit cards, provide carefully chosen mood music. Each invites identification with a particular version of ‘heaven’ – where dreams are fulfilled and life is made worthwhile. A very particular kind of spirituality!

Church and Choice

Meanwhile – in church – we have an increasing contrast between a similar shift towards offering customer satisfaction – built around the needs and dreams of the ‘customer’, and that deeper spirituality which challenges each of us to become a slave, a servant – giving ourselves up to the agenda of others. Love god and love your neighbour as yourself – Jesus taught. This is the seed of a very different spirituality – about service rather than satisfaction, and about sacrifice rather than success. We are challenged to define our lives not by what we purchase, but through what we give away.

Shopping and Spirituality

Shopping is important for our survival. We are blessed with so much choice. It provokes a certain kind of spirituality – whose logic is individuality and competition. Witness the chaos at sale-times!

Spirituality enlivened by Jesus Christ, is even more important for our survival. It provokes another kind of life – informed by the Holy Spirit, bound together in God’s grace, and paying particular concern to those who lack the obvious trappings of a good life.

As our purses and wallets become stuffed with ever more loyalty cards, should each church provide a loyalty-to-Jesus card? If could be the first thing we see when we go shopping. It might provoke prayer for a different kind of lifestyle!