2017 Ministry Reports For the APCM to be held on 30th April 2018 Table of Contents Worship and Teaching ................................................................................................. 1-9 Report from the Vicar .................................................................................................................................... 1 Sunday Worship and Teaching ...................................................................................................................... 3 Music in Worship ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Attendance .................................................................................................................................................... 5 Staff Team ...................................................................................................................................................... 6 Developing Leaders ....................................................................................................................................... 8 Café Worship Report ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Prayer Ministry Report .................................................................................................................................. 9 Film Focus Report ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Bell ringing Report ....................................................................................................................................... 11 Flowers Report ............................................................................................................................................ 11 Youth and Children ................................................................................................... 12-18 Report from the Youth and Children’s Ministry Lead ................................................................................. 12 Report on Youth .......................................................................................................................................... 12 Report on Children and Families ................................................................................................................. 15 Report on Links with Stoke Bishop Primary School ..................................................................................... 16 Growing Disciples .................................................................................................... 17-21 Report from the Growing Disciples Coordinator ......................................................................................... 17 GAMMA Report ........................................................................................................................................... 20 Traidcraft Report ......................................................................................................................................... 20 Making Disciples ...................................................................................................... 21-24 Report from the Making Disciples Coordinator ........................................................................................... 21 Mission Partner Report................................................................................................................................ 22 Messenger Report ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Winter Warmer Report ................................................................................................................................ 25 Pastoral Care ........................................................................................................... 26-28 Report from the Pastoral Care Coordinator ................................................................................................ 26 Thursday Lunch Report ................................................................................................................................ 27 Tuesday Coffee Report ................................................................................................................................ 27 Resources ................................................................................................................ 28-33 Report from the Operations Manager......................................................................................................... 28 Fabric Report ............................................................................................................................................... 30 PCC Report ................................................................................................................................................... 31 Electoral Roll Report .................................................................................................................................... 34 Stewardship Report ..................................................................................................................................... 34 Financial Report ........................................................................................................................................... 36 Safeguarding Report .................................................................................................................................... 38 Mission Area Report 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Appendix A Deanery Report ............................................................................................... Appendix B Diocesan Report .............................................................................................. Appendix C Worship and Teaching Report from the Vicar Recently, I have been reflecting on St Mary Magdalene as a community of followers of Jesus Christ, centred in and nourished by the presence of God at our heart. As a church community we are open to all people becoming a part of us regardless of background, history, age or experience. We are not a club of like-minded people. The Lord has called and continues to call many different people to be part of his body. We express our purpose as church community as ‘following Jesus and making Him known’. We seek to do that through our corporate life together, and in our own daily lives scattered around Bristol and the world. To help us to do this the PCC and I did some work identifying four values we believe God wants to see expressed in our life together. Our four values state how we want to live as community and we hope people will be able to see them expressed in everything we do. The values are to be; God seeking, disciple making, sacrificially generous and community building. As we move forward together we want to increasingly express these values in and through our relationship with God, with one another and to those whom we serve. I hope you can see them throughout this report. In 2017 we committed to be, what the Church of England calls, a ‘resource church’ for the Avonside Mission. The PCC and I have, on your behalf, covenanted together with 4 other churches in this locality to bring about the social, cultural and spiritual transformation of our communities in partnership with Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. There is a section on this later in this report. The term ‘resource church’ is unhelpful in many ways but it does recognise that within the mission area we are the biggest church community with the largest financial resource. It also recognises that we have been given an extra paid minister in Simon Potter our new Associate Vicar. In signing the covenant, we have agreed to work together with the other churches, using all our resources in partnership with theirs, to affect kingdom transformation by the grace of God in all our communities. This includes Stoke Bishop. I wonder what you think a Christ-transformed Stoke Bishop community would be like? Simon Potter, our Associate Vicar, is a fully trained vicar who has come to share the leadership load at St Mary’s with me and also to lead the development of discipleship (including evangelism) across the mission area. One of the biggest challenges of our participation in the mission area is avoiding becoming over-stretched thereby neglecting our own growth. Our growth as a church is critical to the kingdom success of the mission area. I 1 | Annual Report for 2017 believe working together with the other churches should not be an additional burden but one which will be achieved as we become all that God wants us to be as a church. A further challenge is to avoid trying to create St Mary Magdalene in the other communities. We need to enable local growth and transformation by working with our partners at their invitation. Thinking more locally, 2017 has seen a welcome growth in those on the fringe of St Mary’s and in numbers of younger children and families. Much of the latter is through our direct additional investment in children and families work. We have seen God working in the lives of those we serve through funeral, baptism and schools ministry alongside continuing care for our older generations including our important