For
my Easter Two Penn’orth I am publishing
an
edited version of my annual report,
originally
delivered to St Hildeburgh's
Annual
Parochial Church Meeting on Palm Sunday
his is
my second APCM and, without doubt, it has been another busy year, full of new
beginnings. My first duty is to thank everyone who has done so much to help
the many and varied things going on in the parish and especially to the wardens,
the Standing Committee, PCC and the GAP groups, Communications and Social, for
all you have done. The year has seen a very successful flower festival and
Christmas tree festival, and new developments in our services.
In everything we do, and especially when we begin new initiatives, we
must be sure that our motivation is right and that prayer comes first – before action.
Building God’s Kingdom should be at the heart of everything we do. I believe
that, when we do that, the work is truly blessed and grows. It can never be our
kingdom and what we want, but rather always we should have our eyes fixed on
the will of the Father.
One example of that is our Soup & Sandwich lunches for the local
nursing homes for which a grant has been successfully obtained to assist us in
providing this new pastoral initiative.
Pastoral work has indeed increased and I am delighted to see members of
our congregation becoming part of a new ministry team. We are able to offer
support, visiting, and bereavement care as we work together to support the
parish and the local community. I know this work is appreciated greatly by all
who receive their care.
As a result of the monthly lunch we have decided to have regular service
for the family and friends of those who attend. I see this as a hugely
important support to those who care for elderly relatives.
Each month, also, we now visit all our local nursing homes providing
spiritual care and fellowship, we have a service which includes hymns and Holy
Communion.
t
this point I would like to pay tribute to Barbara Rice who has faithfully taken
Communion to many people at home over many years and is retiring from that role
this year.
In addition to these services we are in process of setting up a
fortnightly group for sporting activities with people with dementia and their
carers. This is on the cutting edge of the church reaching out to people with Alzheimer’s.
Just as the pastoral care of the parish and community is important so is
our growing together in fellowship. We continue to have monthly lunches which
are very popular with all who attend, so my thanks go to all involved. The
various groups that do so much to help yet also build up the fellowship of the
parish, Pat Bennington’s monthly Fellowship, Peter Surridge’s church grounds
working party, the Ladies’ Guild who arrange the flowers and clean the brass, and
the good work of Stephen Claus and the choir. Fellowship builds us up to do the
work that has been given to us – mission and evangelism and much more.
It is also very important that we provide opportunities for people to
learn about their faith and to this end we ran a discipleship course last year
with St John’s and will repeat it later this year. Ruth is leading a bible
study at Red Rocks Nursing home and we continue to hold a Lent course each
year.
My hope is that we will build in further study, as we go along but it is
really great news that four people are on the diocesan foundations for ministry
course.
This year attendances are up at least 28.5% and we must continue to work
hard to support new people in the parish. Some of our growth is among younger
families and I hope the Family Praise service has been important as a way-in
to church for them.
e can
never become complacent. The Church changes and styles of worship change, too, so
we must be prepared to change appropriately. The installation of the
audio-visual screen has been one of those changes and I think we can be very
proud of how well it has been used for Family Praise and for Holy Trinity School
which is a big part of our mission.
The new head, like Peter Ham before her, is very supportive and
sympathetic to all we do and is as keen as I am to involve the children so
watch this space, as they say! It’s also been good to see the Mums and Tots
group coming into church and joining in.
Our baptism team has been working hard, too; in the past 12 months we
have seen over 30 baptisms.
Our Vision awayday was very successful and we are looking at all the
feedback from the forms we sent out and the away day. You will hear much more
about this later in the year.
As we have heard, our finances are going in the right direction however
we can’t afford to take our foot off the pedal. Our planed giving is also been
very successful and if you have not signed up I would urge you do so. Planned
giving enables us to plan our mission and ministry for the year. One of the
things we really want to provide this year is new chairs and soon I will be
asking you soon to consider if you can help. So far we have managed to provide
them in the Lady Chapel – and don’t they look great? – and they are more
comfortable.
Finally, thank you all for all you have achieved this year. Without you
it would not be possible
Your
friend,
Rev’d Paul
Easter
Sunday : 20 April 2014
"The wealth of the rich is their strong city; in their imagination it is like a high wall" - Proverbs 18:11
