Holy Trinity Church Headington Quarry, Oxford Parish Profile 2018 www.hthq.uk Contents 4 Welcome to Holy Trinity 5 Who are we? 6 What we value 7 Our strengths and challenges 8 Our priorities 9 What we are looking for in our new incumbent 10 Our support teams 11 The parish 12 The church building 13 The churchyard 14 The Vicarage 15 The Coach House 16 The building project 17 Regular services 18 Other services and events 19 Who’s who 20 Congregation 22 Groups 23 Looking outwards 24 Finance 25 C. S. Lewis 26 Community and communications 28 A word from the Diocese 29 A word from the Deanery 30 Person specification 31 Role description 3 Welcome to Holy Trinity Thank you for looking at our Are you the person God is calling Parish Profile. to help us move forward as we seek to discover God’s plan and We’re a welcoming, friendly purposes for us? ‘to be an open door church on the edge of Oxford. between heaven and We’re known as the C. S. Lewis Our prayers are with you as you earth, showing God’s church, for this is where Lewis read this – please also pray for worshipped and is buried, and us. love to all’ we also describe ourselves as ’the village church in the city’, because that’s what we are. We are looking for a vicar who will walk with us on our Christian journey, unite us, encourage and enable us to grow and serve God in our daily lives in the parish and beyond. 4 Who are we? We are a warm and active for the poor and disadvantaged. community of people who care Each year, we give 5% of our about each other and the income to charities, two local • To grow our people of the parish. A real and two overseas. congregation in faith church family. We seek to fulfil our and numbers Above all, we are a welcoming responsibilities for the church. We actively welcome environment, and are registered • To bring together our newcomers of all shapes and as an Eco Church (Bronze congregation and our sizes to any and all of our award). We have also received a community services and activities. Family-Friendly award from the diocese. Our services are liturgically • To find new ways to focused, and our clergy wear bring people from the vestments and robes. We community into respect our Anglo-Catholic heritage while latterly being church more liberal Catholic, yet always welcome Anglicans of all traditions, and those with no church background. As such, we offer a wide variety of services. Our mainstay services are Holy Communion (Common Worship) and Congregational Evensong and Choral Evensong (both Book of Common Prayer). Our ‘third Sunday’ Evening Celebration slot offers scope for informal and exploratory services, examples being a Folk Mass, a prayerful tour of the churchyard and an interview exploring science and belief. We aim to be outward looking, and to show practical concern 5 What we value We asked the congregation for their views on what they value in our church, and here is what they said. 6 Our strengths and challenges One of the strengths of our arisen in the past few years church is that we are a varied over the building project bunch of people, from different • Youth work – to engage with backgrounds, in terms of the 11+ age group. This is a personal journey and liturgy. significant challenge, and one We have a variety of styles of that we want to address worship, with different styles of • Pastoral care – we would like music, catered for in different our new incumbent to play an services and even in different active role in pastoral care locations – for example, our informal HT4U service, aimed at • Teaching and spirituality – to young families, takes place once continue with our tradition of a month in the Coach House at thought-provoking sermons the same time as the main and courses, and develop 10am Sunday eucharist is held new areas for our spiritual in church. growth This strength is also a potential We would like help to address weakness. Because people can all these areas. pick and choose, it can feel as if we are an assortment of several separate congregations. A quick survey identified the main challenges for ourselves and our new incumbent as: • Distinct congregations – to connect the different strands of our parish family • Disparate areas in the parish – to connect with the different geographical areas of the parish, especially the more deprived parts • Community engagement – to heal the divisions that have 7 Our priorities These are the answers that members of the congregation gave when we asked what they think our priorities should be. 8 What we are looking for in our new incumbent We know that it is very Any new incumbent will bring important to get the right their own range of skills, so we person as vicar for our church, don’t want to be too prescriptive our community and our parish. about what we are looking for. That said, we are keen to We also realise that the Angel maintain the essential character Gabriel and the rest of the of our community and worship, heavenly host are already and so we suggest that the new occupied, and not on the job incumbent should possess the market. following attributes. Essential Desirable • Thought-provoking preaching • Godly, with eagerness and • Liturgical skills, biblical • An interest in church music vision to lead us further on knowledge and discernment • Confident in tackling building our Christian journey to embrace and respect the projects, but sympathetic to • Good pastoral skills, and the variety of worship enjoyed by the architecture of our time and inclination for our congregation existing church building pastoral care • Willing to be actively involved • Willing to work with Churches • Effective communication in developing the work with Together in Headington and to skills: listening rather than children and young people play an active role in the insistent • Collaborative style of ministry deanery • A unifying personality • Recognition of the importance • Support for green issues and trade justice • Caring and compassionate of serving the whole parish community, not just the • Warm, approachable, and congregation able to empathise with people 9 Our support teams We have an excellent ministry just older people. Enthusiastic team and many active and We have a verger, a team of loyal volunteers. volunteers sacristans and a team of The Ministry team consists of servers. Among our congregation, we our Associate Priest, our Lay have teams of volunteers Minister, our Pastoral Care The PCC covering various activities: Coordinator, Children & Families’ Worker, and the The PCC consists of the • Fundraising events – such as Communications Coordinator. incumbent, the associate priest, the summer fete and the They meet with the incumbent the licensed lay minister, two Christmas event at least once a month to plan churchwardens and 12 • Social events – such as the services and bounce ideas committee members, plus four Harvest supper, and the around. Deanery Synod representatives. annual trip to the seaside Retired clergy The PCC meets five times a year, • Eco Church group – pursuing and the Annual Parochial environmental initiatives for Church Meeting is held in April. the church, plus Eco Festival Oxford is the sort of place that We have a PCC away day in the attracts retired clergy, and we autumn. • Sunday Club helpers are fortunate to have several among our congregation. Some Employed staff • Welcomers – who greet have been taking services, everyone who comes to a service preaching and officiating here The PCC employs two staff: the for several years, and they are Parish Administrator (paid for •Intercessors and lesson happy to continue to do so. 10.5 hours a week), and the readers Children & Families’ Worker • Administering the chalice Lay ministry (paid for 12.5 hours a week; currently one year into a three- • Serving refreshments after We have one licensed lay year contract). services minister, and encourage lay ministry in general. We also have a paid Director of • Driving the elderly to church Music. The Pastoral Care team consists • Flower arranging of eight people who visit the • Church cleaning elderly and take communion to • Churchyard committee those who are unable to attend church. We would also like to reach out to others in need, not 10 The parish The population of the parish is 11,000 and there are 234 people on the Electoral Roll. Headington is on the eastern side of Oxford. Our parish of Headington Quarry has three distinct areas: the historic Quarry area, immediately around the church; Wood Farm; and Risinghurst, which is across the ring road. Between them, these three areas have a variety of housing types and income levels, including some former council estates, now mainly owner- occupied. Headington Quarry itself is seen as a desirable area in which to live, with older cottages and houses. The Churches Together in For more detail about the Churchill Hospital also falls Headington with representatives demographics of the parish, go within the parish. There are four on the committee. We are in the to: pubs in the parish: three in the Cowley Deanery, and have four https://www.oxford.anglican.org Quarry, and one in Risinghurst. lay representatives. /archive/COWLEY%20270199% 20Headington%20Quarry.pdf The parish includes people Headington Quarry Foundation whose family history goes back Stage School, which is very near to the old Quarry days of the the church, is a Nursery School 19th century, as well as people supported by Oxfordshire County who have moved into the Oxford Council. The Children & area from all over the country.