Wychert Vale Benefice Profile 2 | P a g e Welcome Wychert Vale Benefice is a new network of churches serving a group of vibrant and growing villages between Thame and Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. Our leadership is team-based with many lay and ordained people working together. We are seeking a missional pastor and collaborative leader to join us as Associate Rector, to share in the strategic development of our benefice and enable mission and ministry in our churches and wider communities. Our shared vision and values The Wychert Vale Covenant has emerged from our discussions and prayer together. It sets out how we want to relate to each other and gives our vision and values: We have agreed four Covenant Principles for working together: To share resources of all kinds. To get to know one another and to work with, listen to, support and value one another. To determine to play our part gracefully in the improvement and strengthening of communications throughout the new benefice upwards, outwards and benefice-wide. To commit ourselves to ongoing prayer. We have discovered three emerging Covenant Purposes: Worshipping God Serving Community Sharing Life These help us to focus our role as the Body of Christ in our villages and have become the ‘motto’ or ‘strap line’ of the new benefice. A provisional mission action plan for the new benefice can be found on page 19 of this profile. Our Benefice prayer Heavenly Father, Your Son Jesus Christ prayed on the night before he died that all may be one, just as he is one with you. Grant us unity as the Benefice of Wychert Vale. May we seek to work well together and may our love for one another increase and flow out to our communities. We ask in the name of your dear Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, Amen Building together for Mission When seeking a name for our new benefice we found that our local building material, ‘Wychert’, is unique to the villages in our part of the Vale of Aylesbury. Taking the name Wychert Vale reminded us that, in our lives and mission together, we are building a dwelling place for God's Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:10-16). Follow the link here for a reflection on our name. 3 | P a g e Our leadership vision for the Benefice The parishes in our benefice have a highly enabled approach to leadership and ministry. Almost all aspects of church life are supported by teams of church members, both lay and ordained. We have a Benefice Office as an administration hub and are in the process of developing the post of Benefice Operations Manager. Where there is a benefit in having a benefice-wide approach, we have a joint programme: for example with organising occasional offices and with our schools collective worship programme. In making the most of this ‘economy of scale’ we are also keen to keep the life of each parish locally focussed. Each parish has its own PCC, to enable the local church to be shaped for mission and ministry in the particular communities they serve. The Ministry Team serves across the Benefice but most members are more rooted in some parishes than others. This provides a team but also enables local pastoral connection. We are developing a Benefice Council to facilitate communication and coordination between the parishes. A benefice with two full-time clergy roles The vision for Wychert Vale is for two full-time clergy to each have a local focus on three of the six churches to give pastoral and leadership connection. They will then each take benefice-wide responsibility for different aspects of ministry and mission. The exact roles can be adjusted according to the gifts of the person appointed. The essential quality is enthusiasm for working in teams, strategic thinking and ability to support the overall vision. As we work as a team, committed to mission we hope to see the Kingdom growing in our new benefice. About the Rector The Revd Margot Hodson has been in the Haddenham Benefice since 2009, working to develop a network benefice based on the episcope model; releasing ministry and talent to grow the churches. Margot's vision for Wychert Vale is to be a united benefice gaining from the strengths of combining together while also enabling each parish to flourish as a unique expression of church. She has a special concern for Christians and churches to seek to serve their local communities, and loves both modern and traditional worship. Margot is a training incumbent and also takes ordinands on placement from Ripon College Cuddesdon (RCC) and Wycliffe Hall. As the new benefice develops, it is anticipated that she will have primary pastoral focus on Haddenham, Kingsey and Aston Sandford. Her provisional management roles will be: overall oversight; discipleship; preaching and ministry; the development of structures for occasional offices and pastoral care. Margot's outside interest is in faith and environmental issues. She is Associate Lecturer in Environmental Theology and Rural Ministry at RCC, and on the management boards of the John Ray Initiative and A Rocha UK. She lives with her husband, Martin, in the vicarage in Haddenham. 4 | P a g e Key points about the new post of Associate Rector Pastoral and leadership focus for Cuddington, Stone and Dinton Strategic management focus across the Benefice for two key areas of ministry. Provisionally these are: children, youth and schools; and mission and evangelism Working with both evangelical congregations and those of more mixed tradition Working with teams and enabling their development What sort of person are we looking for? What support can we offer? Welcome, friendship and fellowship across the benefice A supportive ministry team and rector Committed teams of lay people leading ministries and the day to day running of the churches Support for the need for days off, holidays, family life and recreation A lovely home in the heart of Stone village with good transport connections. Stone is the best of both worlds, with beautiful countryside nearby and towns within easy reach Accommodation Stone Vicarage is a well-proportioned family house on a large corner plot in a cul de sac near to the centre of the village and the church. It was built in 2004 and is well fitted. It comprises of: a large Hall; Cloakroom; very large Sitting Room; Dining Room/Study; fully fitted Kitchen and Breakfast Room; Utility Room; four Double Bedrooms; two Bathrooms (one en suite); Detached Double Garage; spacious Garden. For more pictures of the house see here. Follow this link for a detailed role description and person specification. 5 | P a g e Introduction to Wychert Vale Communities Wychert Vale covers the villages of Haddenham, Cuddington, Kingsey, Aston Sandford, Dinton with Ford, Upton, Gibraltar and Westlington and Stone with Bishopstone, Sedrup and Hartwell, all within a seven- mile radius and all with very different characteristics. They vary in population size from 50 to 5,000, from small villages and hamlets to larger communities with a more suburban feel, but each has retained an engaging individuality. This sense of uniqueness has spread to the church life of the five parishes, and in terms of worship each fills a niche within the overall benefice framework, providing a great breadth of spiritual expression. Communications Our villages combine a rural setting with unusually good transport connectivity. There is a bus service running through the villages between Aylesbury and Oxford every 20 minutes (Arriva 280). The road and rail communication links are good with a 10-20 minute drive to the M40, and a half- hourly rail service to London from the stations at Haddenham & Thame, Aylesbury Vale Parkway or Aylesbury Town. A new railway line has been opened recently to Oxford Parkway. Village facilities Stone with its hamlets of Bishopstone, Sedrup and Hartwell has a Historic House Hotel, two village pubs, a village hall, a sports recreation ground and club, an active Methodist church, a post office and a small Co-op convenience store and lies within easy reach of Aylesbury. Cuddington has a post office shop, hairdressers, village hall, public house, recreation field and club and various sports facilities. There is also a Methodist church. 6 | P a g e Dinton with its hamlets of Ford, Upton, Gibraltar and Westlington has three popular village pubs and a thriving village hall, recreation ground and cricket club in Dinton. There is a popular farm shop and café just beyond the parish. Haddenham has a wide selection of facilities: shops, post office, restaurants, public houses, churches, village hall, medical centre, dentist, garden centre, business park and a recreation ground for a wide range of sporting activities. It is a vibrant village community with groups for every age group and many interests (more details on the village haddenham.net website). St Mary’s parish church is part of a Local Ecumenical Partnership (LEP) with the Roman Catholic, Methodist and Baptist churches. Kingsey and Aston Sandford are made up of farms and houses with the church at the focus of each village. Both have very warm community spirit. The villages span the vale between Thame and Aylesbury, with both offering further facilities. Schools and health There are three Church of England primary schools in the benefice: Stone; Cuddington and Dinton; and Haddenham St Mary’s (infants). In addition there is a county infants and junior school in Haddenham. Secondary schools are in Thame (comprehensive), Aylesbury (grammar), Princes Risborough (secondary), and Waddesdon (Church of England secondary). The nearest NHS general hospital is in Stoke Mandeville, and there is a large medical centre in Haddenham. Population and planning The villages have a broad socio-economic range and church members are well integrated into the wider village communities.