The Parish of Saint Andrew and Saint Mark Surbiton
PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL OF SURBITON, SAINT ANDREW & SAINT MARK
REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2015
Annual Report
Summary
It has been a wonderful year at St Andrew and St Mark, a time of growth. I believe that we can begin to feel the fruits of all the work put into the churches’ redevelopment over previous decades.
Easter Day, St Mark’s, 2015
Hello and Goodbye
Many new people have come to church. We welcomed the Reverend Laura Selman as a curate in the summer. Among the laity, in terms of particular responsibility, most noteworthy is that Martin Taylor began as churchwarden in May and has since then contributed greatly to the work of the church, especially through an indefatigable ability with DIY tasks that are otherwise too tough to handle, but in other areas too.
Joyce Palmer, sister of Vera, and a regular at the 8am congregation, died in the autumn, aged 94. She and her sister both attended St Mark’s before the war and can remember seeing the church on fire after the World War 2 bombing. Vera remains very healthy but we miss Joyce.
Several families moved away from the area, not because they didn’t like Surbiton (or us) but because they cannot afford to buy a house here. This is only likely to increase as an issue as house prices go up, though it should be added that overall the population of the parish is increasing so someone is living here!
Tim Lavis stood down as churchwarden after serving for six years, having given fantastic service to the parish at a time of great change, though he’s far from gone as a member of the congregation, Emmaus course leader, musician, person-who-understands-the-heating-system-at-St-Andrew’s… and many other things.
Worship
The number of people worshipping at St Andrew and St Mark is growing.
Below are two charts. The first is from 2008 to 2015 and is drawn from our own service registers. It adds up all the people who attend St Andrew and St Mark on a Sunday morning, be that at the 8am, the 9.15am or the 11am service. The number of worshippers in 2015 is higher than at any other time this century and has built further on the congregation growth in recent years.
Chart 1: Sunday morning attendance
Source: Service registers, St Andrew and St Mark
Chart Two (below) is taken from the Church of England parish returns submitted by each church, including ours each year. It relates to services in October and November, so does not present such an annual picture and is less representative in that way, but it does stretch back to 2006 and enables us to compare us with how attendance on average is in the diocese.
Chart 2: Sunday attendance at St Andrew and St Mark compared with Southwark Diocese average
Source: Church of England Parish returns, Southwark Diocese
This also shows growth, especially in the last three years, and is enormously encouraging. In an era where it cannot be assumed that people will naturally gravitate to church, there is clearly something on offer at the moment at St Andrew and St Mark that is helping people to worship God.
It is extremely likely that part of the growth comes from the enormous outreach through the buildings themselves, which opens up the possibility of going to church to people who would not otherwise think of it. The colossal work of those involved in the Vision project in the last 20 years is bearing fruit, with benefit both to the community and to the church. I hope that those who put in hours of seemingly thankless and often stressful work during that time, mostly long before I was present in the church, have a feeling of satisfaction at what is happening today.
Chart 3: Attendance at the different types of Sunday service
Source: Service registers, St Andrew and St Mark
Also encouraging is that church attendance growth is not limited to one kind of service. On average, the biggest service in each of the last three years has been the All Age eucharist at St Mark’s, though this is partly due to the times when this service is also a ‘Parade’ service.
The 9.15 family worship service at St Mark’s, especially for those with young children, only established itself as fortnightly in 2012. It is potentially the most ‘fragile’ service in that people attending are often people with little church background, but now has a steady attendance. It seems to meet the needs of parents and young children in how they engage with the Christian story and is often full of joy. At times, the “action song moment” has to be experienced to be believed.
The 11am choral eucharist at St Andrew’s has also experienced small but significant growth. Over 100 people are present there, more often than not. The expansion of the discussion group option for a sermon slot into October, having previously just been on Sundays in Lent, was only a mixed success this year, possibly because the topics for discussion did not lend themselves to the right slot. We can think more on this, but I believe this is still a potentially fruitful way for us to be a church together on Sunday mornings some of the time.
At a time of growth, it is still a time to think about how we ‘welcome’ people into the church. Systems that work well for a certain sized church will not work as well when there is growth. Laura the curate is chairing a working group looking at this, and this is part of our Mission Action Plan.
Growth among children
Chart 4: Children on Sundays: St Andrew and St Mark compared with the diocese
Source: Church of England parish returns, Southwark Diocese
When the parish profile was prepared for the new vicar’s appointment in 2012, the then archdeacon remarked to the PCC that it was important to be honest about the greying nature of the congregation. This met with some puzzlement from those preparing the profile.
What I now see is that the archdeacon was right in one way about the lack of children: however, he was only right from when he first visited the church in 2006, not when the profile was prepared in 2012 and certainly not 2015. Things have changed.
The thinking about new ways to approach children that was overseen by church leaders, both clergy and laity, back then, has been bearing fruit. In the last ten years, we have moved from being a church with 50% less children on a Sunday than the diocesan average to one with 50% more children than average.
That said, we already have the first ‘generation’ of children who once enjoyed the 9.15am service now gravitating away from it because they have ‘grown out’ of it. Part of this need can be met by Sunday Club at St Andrew’s, but it will also need to be met in further new and creative ways. This is the reason behind the identification in the Mission Action Plan of “Junior Age children” as a key priority. It is unfortunate that the needs of Sundays and ‘day to day’ church life sometimes inhibit that focus being pushed as hard as it should be.
Children at the Good Friday service for children, waving palms
We have involvement amongst a small group of committed teenagers. It would be great to find a wider source of fellowship for them too. In 2015, we offered confirmation classes at Surbiton High School, but in the end no one came to be confirmed, though three children began. We are offering these again in 2016 with more success.
Admission to Communion service
Evening worship
Some of the most powerful worship of the year has been during evening services, which offer a great variety of different ways to worship God and often unlock gifts from around the congregation in terms of leading them. Once a month, the choir essentially lead choral evensong. Richard Weir also leads worship in the style of Taize, six times a year, assisted by Peter Pritchard among others. Sue and Anthony Airey their prayers with laying
on of hands, in our services of wholeness and healing. The photo above comes from candle-lit compline during Holy Week, where the St Andrew’s sanctuary was used to stunning effect. Candlelit Compline during Holy Week
Impact at Christmas
There merits a particular word about the extraordinary growth in attendance at Christmas services. This has been led by the Christingle services for children, which now takes place twice on Christmas Eve because it is so popular. However, there were more than 200 at both Midnight Mass and on Christmas morning and the traditional Christmas carol service was absolutely packed.
Simon Harvey rehearses the choir in St Mark’s church just before the carol service.
Chart 5: Attendance at Christmas services
Source: Church service register: combined attendance at Carol service, Christingle service, Midnight Mass and Christmas morning eucharist.
The phenomenon has not been matched in the diocese more widely. Perhaps the reason is that our church is able to articulate clearly how it is at the heart of the community, through the many events that already happen throughout the year and so people turn to it at a time like Christmas when they want to be rooted in this community and they recognise something in themselves which wants to feel a sense of real Christianity. Growth at Christmas services has been 150% over the last ten years in this parish, while it has been flat across the Diocese.
Some of this at least must also be due to the continuing excellence of our choral tradition, which people enjoy but cannot find elsewhere: the carol service this year was fantastic musically. Some of it is also due to holding to worship which is distinctly within the Anglican tradition but which is accessible to all.
Chart 6: Attendance in the 24 hours around Christmas: St Andrew and St Mark compared with Southwark diocese
Source: Church of England parish returns, Southwark Diocese
Marriages and Baptisms
2015 saw a recovery in the number of weddings taking place at St Andrew and St Mark. Both churches are such fantastic buildings that it is to be hoped that they continue to be well used for marriages. Particular thanks to Anne Barker and Jackie Page for all their work with flowers and more.
Iris and Lee’s wedding at St Andrew’s
Furthermore, our one day Marriage Preparation course, which is compulsory for all who get married with us, is very popular with couples. Couples are asked to talk to their partners about their relationship, offered solutions as to how to resolve possible conflicts and we also look ahead to the service itself. 100% of those who attended last year both found the course useful and would recommend it to others.
While weddings recovered to a good level, baptisms are down from their peak in 2012. I am not quite clear why this is, although we’re fielding plenty of enquiries about them and we’re a long way up on the diocesan average.
Photo: Danny and Sereena at St Mark’s
Chart 7: weddings at St Andrew and St Mark compared with Southwark Diocese.
Source: Church of England parish returns, Southwark Diocese
Chart 8: baptism at St Andrew and St Mark compared with Southwark Diocese.
Source: Church of England parish returns, Southwark Diocese
Confirmation
Eight members of the congregation, of all ages, were confirmed at St Mark’s, in May 2015.
It is a great pleasure, both working with people towards confirmation as teenagers (a more ‘conventional’ time) but also bringing people to confirmation as adults, at a time when their engagement is meaningful in their lives in a new way.
How to offer either a ‘refresher’ or a ‘beginning’ course to Christianity and to deliver that well to the right people, continues to be a challenge, but one that we will enjoy in years to come.
Confirmation, May 2015
St Andrew’s and St Mark’s Junior School
This has been an excellent year at St Andrew and St Mark Junior School. The school was judged ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted in 2007 and continues to be outstanding, under the leadership of Alison Vigurs as headteacher.
Glynis Kortwright stepped down as chair of governors in the summer of 2015, marking an end to almost three decades of school governance. It is hard to overestimate the colossal, positive impact she has had on the school and I would like here to pay tribute to the work she has done, in all sorts of areas, from both chairing meetings with a firm but fair hand, and also handling paperwork with commitment and ease. I have taken over as Chair from September this year.
The school has moved from two form entry with an occasional ‘bulge’ class to three form entry and has some splendid new buildings, which were opened in the summer by Bishop Richard. James Berry MP was also there.
One of the key contributions the church makes to the local communities is when people offer themselves as governors. At present “Foundation” governors are: Kathleen Dempster, Joan Young, Marc Crank, Edward Davey (now Sir Edward!) and the vicar. Fred Houwen served for a short time for which we are grateful. “Diocesan” governors are: Anne Barker and Cecile Stearn. Between them, foundation and diocesan governors are a majority on the governing body of the school. I am grateful to all of them for their diligence and wisdom.
Pilgrimage to the Holy Land with St Matthew’s
For many of us, 2015 was an unforgettable year because of the trip to the Holy Land that took place at the end of October. This was led by the Reverend Helen Hancock and Janice Price together.
In the picture on the left, four members of the congregation are contemplating their first sight of Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives. In the picture below, Hugh and Lara are relaxing on a boat on the Sea of Galilee.