St John’s Muxton: The community of Christ in Muxton, rooted in the scriptures, for all people
ST JOHN’S MUXTON PAROCHIAL CHURCHCOUNCIL ANNUAL REPORT
FOR 2013
INTRODUCTION
This report is intended to explain to church members and the public how St John’s operates, our objectives and activities, our achievement and performance and our financial position. We hope that you find the information helpful.
1. REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATION DETAILS
St John’s Church, Muxton
Correspondence address: Lesley Trotman, The Church Office. St John’s Church, SaltwellsDrive, Muxton TF2 8RJ.
Website
Church Office: 01952 670033
Email:
St John’s Parochial Church Council (PCC) had the responsibility of co-operating with the incumbent, the Revd Matthew Lefroy in promoting the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical within the ecclesiastical parish of Muxton. The PCC is responsible for the running and maintaining of the church building, namely, St John’s Church and Community Centre, Saltwells Drive, Muxton.
Members of the PCC are either ex-officio (Clergy, Churchwardens and Deanery Synod Representatives), elected by the Annual Parochial Church Meeting or co-opted in accordance with the Church Representation Rules.At the 2013 Annual Parochial Church Meeting those listed below were appointed to serve as members of the PCC.
Incumbent:Mike Jones (Chairman)until June 2013and Matthew Lefroy (from November 2013)
Curate: David Kichenside
OrdainedLocalMinister:Jane Evans
Churchwardens:Richard Suffell & Vicky Yates
Representativeson the Deanery Synod: Alan Banks& Richard Walker
Elected Members:Simon Hartridge (Treasurer), Judith Myers, Rob Grant, James Tagg, Heiko Capper, Moira Fenn, John Preston, Gill Steinert, Jan Stackhouse, Barbara Bengry and Pauline Comley (with one vacancy)
Co-opted MemberLesley Trotman
Banker: Lloyds TSB
Auditor: Lynne Clifford at Clifford & Co
2. STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT
PCC Constitution: The Parochial Church Council is a corporate body established by the Church of England. The PCC operates under the Parochial Church Council Powers Measure. The PCC is accepted by order from registering with the Charity Commission. In 2012 we became a covenanted parish agreed with Bishop Mark of Shrewsbury (certificate hanging by kitchen door).
PCC Members: Elected PCC members are elected by the congregation. We have twelve elected PCC posts. Four become vacant each year. On election the post lasts for three years. Those elected to deanery synod are also eligible to sit on PCC as are wardens and clergy.
Induction and training of PCC members: At the first PCC members of the year the PCC shares Holy Communion and all members are given a summary of how the PCCs work and there is an opportunity for questions. PCC members are invited to attend any relevant diocesan training.
Subcommittees and working parties: The PCC has a sub-committee to help the day to day running of St John’s which is the Standing Committee. This is the only committee required by law. It has the power to transact the business of PCC between its meetings, subject to any directions given by the Council. It is comprised of the vicar, vice chair, wardens and treasurer.
We also have working parties which are decided in consultation with the vicar: Working parties include the Church building and grounds, Health and Safety, Evangelism, World Church & Justice, Community and Parish Development Team.
Risk Management – is done by Building Management, wardens and the incumbent.
3. OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
OUR VISION
Our Vision for St John’s is to be...
The community of Christ in Muxton, rooted in the scriptures, for all people
We seek:-
God and his will for us
wholeness and spiritual growth for one another
to serve the community
We long to see:-
Christians growing as disciples, passionate for God
A community of faith growing in maturity and numbers
lives changed and made whole by Christ
the church known and loved as people of this place, who love the people of this place
The way we hope to do things (our values) is: Energized by faith, Loving relationships, God-inspired and Inspiring worship services, Outward looking, Empowering leadership, Gift-oriented ministry, Holistic small groups, Effective structures, Gift-oriented ministry, Holistic small groups, Effective structures
4. ACHIEVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE
During the year six scheduled meetings of the PCC were held.
The main items that the PCC have looked at during the year have been:- Vicar leaving in June 2013, preparation and planning for a new vicar, welcoming new lay reader Jon Rawson, treasurer Simon Hartridge, reviewing policies, new caretaker, changing bank account to CAF Bank, agree weekend away to take place in 2014.
PARISH DEVELOPMENT TEAM (PDT)
The PDT has met on ten occasions during 2013. In addition to the clergy and congregational nominations made in 2012 for three years, (John Preston, Lisa West, Judith Myers and Simon Trotman), two members were also appointed by the PCC to serve for a year, James Tagg and Vicky Yates. During the interregnum thePDT sought to take an overview of the parish to ensure that church life continued to function effectively as far as possible. The PDT has also worked on some development of plansfor the Church Weekend Away, although that has now been passed to a dedicated sub-group, and also on considering the future of youth ministry and the support required to continue to sustain this.
ENERGIZED BY FAITH AND GOD-INSPIRED AND INSPIRING WORSHIP
Our weekly Sunday Services continued with the basic pattern of Morning Worship on the first and third Sundays; 9:30am Holy Communion and 11am Church Praze on the second Sunday; Holy Communion on fourth Sunday; and generally Holy Communion on the fifth Sunday.
Sermon series includedRevelation, Prayer, Acts, Grand Narrative and Jesus in the Old Testament.
Specific services included Easter and Christmas Specials; Operation Christmas Child; Activity Days; Epiphany, Stewardship, Celebration & CommissioningMarriage.
PRAYER BREAKFASTwehave had a number of prayer breakfasts throughout the year mostly on a Sunday morning. We meet in the church building from about 8.30-9 am until about 10-10.30am, usually beginning with breakfast, and moving into a time of prayer, and sometimes a fewsongs of worship. The topics for prayer are generally based on the life of our church. Whilst it can sometimes feellike a struggle toget up early on a weekend,Prayer Breakfast meetings are a very valuable (and enjoyable!) opportunityfor us to come together as a church to pray fora wide range of issues.Jean Baker is the co-ordinator of Prayer Breakfasts.
We continued our weekly Thursday Morning Prayer at 7:30am which have a small but faithful attendance.
OUTWARD LOOKING
OCCASIONAL OFFICES
Baptisms: We continue to hold baptism evenings for couples planning Baptisms. On the evening we help individuals and couples explore their understanding of God, Christ and faith. We are continuing to develop this ministry. We are grateful to Kathy Tagg who organises the Baptism and Thanksgiving team.
Weddings: We continued this year to hold a wedding preparation morning which focused on helping couples choose between the wide varieties of different services now available. The mornings are well attended and valued.
Funerals: Our pre-funeral pack with information on hymns, readings and tributes etc has proved popular and we are grateful to the bereavement team who continue to support those who have recently had a relative pass away. This as with all occasional office ministries occurs across the benefice. 98 adults and 20 under 16s attended the annual Memorial Service in March held jointly at St Michael’s in Lilleshall.
EVANGELISM
The EVANGELISM WORKING PARTY is made up a group of people who meet about every 6 weeks to try and discern what God wants to do through St John’s in order to outreach and share the Gospel. In addition to arranging events we take time to pray and reflect on where we should be going next.During 2013 the team further developed some initiatives that had commenced in 2012. We had felt for some time that God had been prompting us to reach out to people through his healing ministry and during the year we held 3 Healing Services. Whilst the primary focus is to use these as outreach events we are also aware that they are very much appreciated by our congregation members. The services have been well attended and people seem to becoming more comfortable waiting on God, entering His presence and being open to allowing Him to bring healing. However the number of non church members continues to be in a minority. We have explored why this may be (see below) and our hope is that as our congregation become more familiar with the services they will become confident in asking friends, neighbours and relatives along to future ones.A very different approach to outreach was also continued, through the use of film and discussion. We held 5 sessions of Reel Faith where snippets of popular films were shown and informal discussions, aided by crisps and popcorn!’ gently challenged us to consider the moral and social aspects and links with Christianity. The events were targeted at different groups and times of the day and whilst those that attended really enjoyed them again there were very few non church members who were invited.In May we held another Alpha coursewhere we experimented with a Monday morning course where we hoped that we could attract some of our community who find it difficult to attend evening events. The course attracted a number of our church family who really benefited and as a result a new mid week (morning group) has developed but the wider community did not seem to like the timing!! We will try and discern where God is leading us this year!During the summer a group of leaders from different parts of our church life got together and we explored the outreach potential of St John’s and particularly why we may find it difficult to invite people to events, especially when we are going to talk about our faith. A number of ideas have grown out of this that we are currently implementing, one of which is a termly House Groups together evening with the title Build us up and send us out.
In October the group explored the principle of personal evangelism using material from Keswick; it is hoped we can further develop this during the coming year.
As usual we ended the year with our two Christmas events. The Carols and Candles service with mulled wine and mince pies was again very well attended with a mixture of church and non church members coming along. We also took to the streets on a Sunday afternoon following a shared lunch to go Carol Singing in Breton Park to sing, give out sweets and booklets with the Christmas message; we were very well received!The success of all these initiatives are only possible through the involvement of the entire congregation. Personal invites are so much more likely to bring people along and this year has been a clear indication of this. Please continue to support this area of our ministry and anyone who feels they would like to join the team please contact Jan Stackhouse 01952 604775
COMMUNITY: Alan Banks leads this Team with a number of helpers including David Kichenside, Lesley Trotman, John, & Wendy Perry and Vicky Yates we meet in the community (Whitehouse Bar).A new development this year has been St John’s setting up to run the CAP Money course headed by Vicky Yates and her team of instructors David Pierce and Gillian Banks.
Over the last 12 months Alan Banks has completed his Pathways to Ministry course and would like to thank all those that supported him over that period andattended the ceremonyat Lichfield Cathedral in September where he was commissioned as a Lay Minister.
Debt Management: CAP Money courses were launched in St John’s in 2013. They are for anyone who would like to improve their money management skills and/or have debt issues. We have had extremely positive feedback from delegates e.g. 100% say they would recommend the course to a friend. There were four courses during the year with a total of 47 successful delegates.
Course 1 in January - 20 delegates
Course 2 in March - 14 delegates
Course 3 in June - 4 delegates
Course 4 in September - 9 delegates
The course runs over 3 sessions (about 1.5 to 2 hours per session) but at Mike Jones’ suggestion, we have adapted the suggested course in that we offer a follow-up session about a month after week 3. We were very pleased when the original Money Coaches - David Pierce, Gill Banks and I were joined at the end of the year by Julie and Andrew Carrington and Sue Southgate. We also started a CAP Club for all delegates that consisted of a one-off social event with a speaker from CAP in October.
The challenge for 2014 is to attract more delegates from as wide an area as possible and to continue in particular, to impact those who do not attend a church. We look to the wider congregation to tell their family, friends and work colleagues to help us meet that challenge.
We also want to further develop relationships with other churches around Telford who run CAP Money courses. Additionally we have a vision to see a CAP Debt Centre open in Telford.
Christmas Fair: This is the second year of running our Christmas Fair and again it was a major success. We organised the day as a free event for both the stall owners and visitors, we also offered hospitality in the form of tea, coffee, and cakes at no cost to encourage visitors to stay and enjoy relaxed conversations in a busy time of the year. There were 16 stalls run by local organisations, clubs and craft groups who all appreciated the day with a lot of positive feedback on the “atmosphere” of the event as a whole as well as questions “but why do you do it for free”. We had children’s craft activities run by our children’s team, organised by Jane Preston and performances from Muxton Primary School Choir and “MTPC” a local young people’s musical theatre company. Though the core community team organised the event it could not have happened without all of the volunteers who helped on the day or the people who baked and donated the cakes. A big thank you goes out to everyone who supported the event in any capacity. The event not only supports local community groups it enables us promote the Church services over the Christmas period and offers an opportunity for conversations with people about the real message of Christmas.
Christian Visions for Men CVM Quick fire training day.
Not strictly a community event in itself but it will be an enabler to progressing more stage 1 community based activities in the future. Nine people went to this inspiring training day at Rising Brook Church in Stafford and we will look to organise some events in the coming year. (For instance we are talking about starting a regular quiz team entry at the Whitehouse)
WELCOME AND WEBSITE. A welcome pack is available for new members/visitors. We continue to try to ensure as much up to date information is on our website and the use of the church calendar too to keep updated of forthcoming events. Thank you to Rachel Preston, Robin Comley and others who spend hours on the website.
AFTERNOON FELLOWSHIPmeets once a month on a Thursday afternoon at 2.30pm, about 20 people usually attend. We have a short service of praise and prayer and usually have a talk or communion. After this we enjoy talking to one another over tea and homemade cakes. Weare always pleased to see new people and they are assured of a warm welcome.
LUNCH CLUB have once again had a very successful year in 2013. A constant attendance of around 35 which keeps us ticking over nicely. As usual there where two "outings" in June and November both rainy (we could not not go to Llandudno) many thanks go once again to Ann for arranging these trips so well. We are also very grateful for the help and assistance given by Nona, Mary and Thelma that has been much appreciated. Once again thanks to all involved with Lunch Club without whose continued support and help we could not keep going. Here's to 2014.
WORLD CHURCH & JUSTICEThe ‘WCJ’ group is the only group that straddles both churches. The reason being that the vast majority of the activities we organise take place in both churches.
We met on 4 occasions. We had a joint membership totalling 7 members; three from St Michael's (SML) and four (sometimes 5!) from St John’s (SJM).
One of our primary functions is to profile the four missions that we as two churches support through our regular giving namely CARE, CPAS, Tearfund and CMS. We profiled two of these.
The first event involved Graham Archer from CPAS who came to speak to us in May. He shared with us what CPAS did and were hoping to do in the future.
The second involved one of our WCJ group members Rachel Preston who had been accepted by Tearfund to work on a project (GOMAD) in Tanzania for 10 weeks as part of her gap year. So we decided to profile Tearfund for our Harvest services with Rachel sharing what she was going to do on the GOMAD project.