Vicar’s report 2018
This parish church of All Saints has an impact on many lives through the course of each month and each year. Through the many people who attend worship, more or less regularly, at our range of services from Pram Service to Evensong. Through the children who attend our school and their parents. Through the very many baptisms we celebrate, along with weddings and inevitably funerals too. Through pastoral visits to the elderly. Many seeds are planted and watered. Hopefully many are encouraged and supported along the way.
It is good to be thankful for all the opportunities we have and for the relative vibrancy of the life of our church.
It is worth also noting some specific developments over the last twelve or fifteen months.
We have developed a new website for our church – thanks to a small group, and particularly to Elaine Lockwood. This is an important on-line presence to complement our Facebook – and now Twitter presence.
We ran a second highly-successful Children’s Activity Day during the summer holiday, reaching families from all four local schools, along with a second Easter craft activity which was attended by a larger and wider range of participants than the year before (since then we’ve had a third with even more people coming). Open the book remains an important outreach into all schools.
We have a good number of those confirmed in 2017 coming together for a monthly meeting, with a mix of social and faith elements – and once a term a special outing. Special thanks to Jane Lee for leading on this. We need to continue to work on how we encourage participation of those who have been confirmed and those who have ‘graduated’ from attendance at Friday Praise, but this has been a good start.
In terms of prayer and discipleship, prayer was the theme of the Lent housegroups, we participated in the Thy Kingdom Come prayer initiative in May. Later in the autumn, the Transformed Life course run ecumenically at the Baptist church was influential for those who took part and allowed stronger relationships to develop between our churches. Good links are spiritually and strategically important in making a difference for Christ here in Clayton.
We have had our Christmas Tree Festival. The festival was a great success with good participation from parish groups and external companies in the trees and very strong support for the excellent concert by St Christopher’s and for the Songs of Praise. This was a first for All Saints’ and the hard work of the small committee who planned and executed it was exemplary.
And the year finished with the usual special Christmas services – and an extra-special crib service this year. So popular that we are looking at running it twice over this time around.
Our musical life has continued to develop as the second Sunday singers grow in confidence and as we now have the Clayton Community Singers on a Wednesday lunchtime, as well, of course, as our dedicated choir.
The PCC’s consultation group gained some useful feedback on people’s impressions of some of the things we do well, and some things we could do better or ought to add. And they also gathered information on congregational skills and willingness to participate in various areas of service.
We also identified stewardship as a major focus going forward. Initial discussions took place in 2017, but most of the planning has really begun this year.
Whilst financially we have had to draw on reserves this year, we have continued to pay our parish share in full and to support the wider mission of the church, and other good causes, by allocating 10% of our general income to grants. Both are to be commended.
There are many good things we are doing, but there is a financial cost – both to keeping our church in good order and in providing for the ministry. We have allowed ourselves for several years to subsidise our day to day expenditure from reserves. The need to do so grew in 2017. This is not healthy. Eventually reserves will run out – and won’t be there when we actually need them. And we will be lulling ourselves into a false sense that everything’s ok. We don’t want to be a church living off the past. Nor do we want to be a church constantly appealing for money. We want to build a secure financial basis for our own work, and for our contribution to the wider work of the diocese and of mission organisations, through encouraging every one who attends our lovely church to give realistically, generously and proportionately to their income.
I wrote in the magazine that I hoped that this year of 2018 would be a year in which our sense of belonging to the church would grow. The Scargill weekend is part of that. The stewardship campaign is another – as we are all encouraged to look at what each of us is being called to contribute to God’s work here. Not out of duty or fear but out of thankfulness for God’s goodness to us, and enthusiasm to be part of the answer to our prayers for his kingdom to come.
Before I finish this report, I would like to thank everyone for you do and for the support each of you give, in prayer, in practical ways and in your concern for me and for my family.
I just want this year to pick out a few special mentions.
I want to thank Sarah for two years as solo churchwarden – on top of the many she did with Peter. Churchwardening is supposed to be a shared task and to be on your own is quite lonely as well as onorous, so I’m especially grateful for Sarah continuing on her own – and also that she’s willing to carry on yet further to work with Linda, who I’m delighted to welcome on board.
I want to thank the Julie Blysniuk for her work over a good few years in keeping up to date our pages on ‘a church near you’. Because Julie worked so assiduously at keeping the calendar on that filled, it functioned almost as a church website. Now that we have our parish website, and the diary on that is being maintained by Elaine Lockwood, we can allow our presence on A church near you to be simpler – without adding all the dates to it. Thank you Julie for that rather hidden role you’ve played.
And a particular thank you this year to Barbara Anderson. Barbara has served for many years as secretary to the PCC, though never (I think I’m right in saying) until today actually being a member. Thank you for working with John before me, with Sarah and Peter during the vacancy, and with me, to facilitate the running of PCC and annual meetings, not least producing all those minutes. Barbara has now handed over the secretary’s seat to Dawn and I wanted to express the PCC’s thanks here so that it could be the thanks of the whole parish too.