St Peters' Dunchurch with St Edmunds' Thurlaston Parish Profile
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ST PETERS’ DUNCHURCH WITH ST EDMUNDS’ THURLASTON PARISH PROFILE Page 1 of 27 BISHOP’S INTRODUCTION Dunchurch and Thurlaston are really attractive, accessible villages, situated very close to the M45, and to other Midlands Motorway networks. They present an ideal opportunity for a priest who is ready to focus his or her energies in mission and ministry in a self-contained, medium- sized village context, with its own Church of England (VA) school, knowing that the main church building has just had some major renovation work completed and is in very good repair! St Peter’s has seen some encouraging growth and, with the combined energies of younger people who have recently come to faith working alongside more established members of the congregation, this church community has grown in confidence and, as their person specification indicates, they are ‘aching’ for more growth. St Edmund’s is small but is also keen to grow, and it has that potential. I would be delighted to welcome a colleague to this post who has the leadership, energy and creativity to help mould these churches further into the thriving Christian communities they long to be. I commend the post to you. With my prayers Page 2 of 27 DEANERY SUMMARY Rugby Deanery is currently made up of 11 benefices and 30 churches with some 20 members of the Chapter. It is centred on the town of Rugby with a ring of rural, multi-parish benefices surrounding the town. Dunchurch is a suburban village with a keen sense of its own identity which borders both town and country. The deanery is a key strategic unit for mission and the Chapter and Synod work well together in furthering the mission of the Deanery. Members of the Chapter are expected to play a full part in the life of the Deanery including Chapter meetings (which are primarily for prayer and mutual support), Synod, and taking some responsibility within the Deanery. Rugby Deanery has an active ecumenical group with about forty churches working together under the Revive Rugby organisation. Details of this can be found at http://www.reviverugby.net The Deanery is responsible for determining the future direction of ministry and mission within the Deanery and with some ten thousand new homes projected in the next fifteen to twenty years this presents some exciting opportunities and challenges. However, we see Dunchurch as a parish with the potential not only for growth within the community, but also able to become a resource for the life of the whole deanery and to that end the deanery has decided to support the case for the seemingly generous allocation. The Deanery is keen that the considerable gifts that lie within the existing congregation be nurtured and released so that the good news of Jesus Christ can be shared in new and imaginative ways within the community. This aspect is described in the post profile. We as a Deanery are committed to engage with the Diocesan Mission Purpose of Worshipping God, Making New Disciples and Transforming Communities, using the 8 qualities of healthy churches. The Reverend Canon Peter Watkins Acting Area Dean, Rugby Deanery Page 3 of 27 BACKGROUND TO POST Dunchurch is a reasonably large village (currently about 3,000 residents but with some new housing developments being considered) near Rugby in Warwickshire. Tradition has it that Guy Fawkes was due to meet his fellow conspirators here after blowing up the Houses of Parliament! The parish includes the small village of Thurlaston (about 370 residents) about a mile away. Both villages are very close to major transport networks. The vacancy has arisen following the retirement of the previous incumbent and provides a great opportunity to minister within a more or less self-contained large village community, with a congregation growing in both younger and older age ranges and aching for more growth, and with excellently maintained buildings enabling the church to focus on the opportunities for mission. This post has flexibility built into its configuration. The congregation have already made a number of constructive changes (and would be willing for more) to facilitate growth, including prayer meetings, some well attended family oriented events, re-instating ALPHA, and two men’s curry nights. The post itself can also be flexible. Most recently it has been 0.8 stipendiary. Some might consider this a somewhat generous allocation considering the comparative small size of the parish compared to other posts with very large parishes elsewhere (including the neighbouring parish of 20,000). The Deanery however regards this as a potential resourcing parish within the wider Deanery, and so will be looking for Dunchurch and Thurlaston to be able to support the wider church in the Deanery/Diocese in the future. Given the mission potential of the larger village of Dunchurch, and its potential to become a resourcing church, it was decided, after a brief consultation with a nearby group of parishes (the Draycote Group), not to link this parish with any more nearby rural parishes. This means the post-holder can concentrate primarily on growing Dunchurch, with some additional support for Thurlaston. Given this configuration, the post may also be suitable for an able priest seeking less than 0.8 ministry (e.g. half-time or House for Duty). The village has a lively Baptist church which has had a very successful family ministry for many years, with much better facilities for children’s ministry than St Peter’s. To some extent St Peter’s therefore tended to attract an older generation, but there have been some encouraging signs of recent growth amongst the younger generation, with some excellent leadership potential among them. The parish has also during its history had various expressions of more charismatic worship and ministry. These have unfortunately also tended to attract suspicion from some quarters who have hoped it would not influence the ‘main’ church, forcing such expressions to operate outside of the ‘main’ structures, and therefore be accused of being separatist when actually that position was forced on them. Given the influence of ALPHA and the increasing openness of the younger generation and many of the older generation to more informal and charismatic worship and ministry, we hope that a new incumbent may help us sensitively incorporate this freshness without doing a ‘Guy Fawkes’ and trying to blow us up! Page 4 of 27 The Archdeacon Missioner (the Venerable Morris Rodham) lives in the parish in Thurlaston, and has helped with services, ALPHA courses, a contemporary expression of church (SEARCH), and outreach events. His contribution to the parish is in a voluntary, not official, capacity. The vicar of the neighbouring group of 5 parishes (Draycote Group – currently in interregnum) will also live in Thurlaston (as no suitable vicarage was found within that group), but they will have no responsibilities within this parish. The parish looks forward to a fresh injection of enthusiasm and spiritual leadership which will help us flourish and thrive, and become a resource to others! ROLE SPECIFICATION The role of this post is to lead the churches in fulfilling the Diocesan Mission Purpose of: Worshipping God Making New Disciples Transforming Communities. This will be achieved by developing 8 essential qualities in the life of the church: Empowering Leadership Gift-oriented Ministry Passionate Spirituality Inspiring Worship Holistic Small Groups Need-oriented Outreach Loving Relationships Functional Structures PERSON SPECIFICATION We would welcome applicants committed to the Diocesan Mission purpose and the 8 Essential Qualities, and who: Are gently charismatic, inspiring and innovative and can bring about excellence in all we do, thriving in both modern and more traditional worship contexts. Are aching for church growth, and excited by the missional opportunities to minister within a self-contained, medium-sized village with its own Church of England school, and with growth already happening in younger and older age ranges. Have the courage and ability (with tact!) to have the difficult but necessary conversations, with the small number of individuals who might unhelpfully resist such change in our context, on behalf of the many who want appropriate change and growth. Page 5 of 27 ST PETERS’ DUNCHURCH WITH ST EDMUNDS’ THURLASTON AND THE DIOCESAN MISSION PURPOSE AND THE 8 ESSENTIAL QUALITIES The Mission Purpose of the Diocese of Coventry is: Worshipping God Making New Disciples Transforming Communities. St Peters’ Dunchurch with St Edmunds’ Thurlaston is fully committed to fulfilling these three aspects, though under the previous incumbent we re-phrased these to: Worshipping God Sharing the love of Jesus Serving our Community The parish conducted the Natural Church Development survey in relation to the 8 Essential Qualities in September 2014. However, it is fair to say that we have not addressed our weaknesses methodically. Given the lapse of time since the survey, the results may not be as accurate now, though we have tried to be honest in relation to the current descriptions of our strengths and weaknesses for both churches. As the two churches only have a little cross-over and are very different to each other in many ways, we will describe each separately. Page 6 of 27 ST PETER’S, DUNCHURCH Empowering Leadership St Peter’s has relied on key lay leaders (e.g. churchwardens) for many years, who are very committed but now feeling tired. Younger people are coming to faith but are not as interested in fulfilling the more ‘maintenance-oriented’ tasks of the church, preferring more missional roles, especially those which reach their own age range, and which also tend to be the newer or more innovative events and services. This situation is not uncommon for many rural churches. Being able to train and support laity, and sensitively hold together the aspirations of both the older and younger members of the church will therefore be a key leadership task of the next incumbent.