ANNUAL REPORT 2019 Pilgrimage to the Shrine of St Alban 2019 Companions on the Way Serving God and his People St John’s, Notting Hill A N N U A L R EP O R T 2019 Drawing on biblical and early church material, and on earlier St John’s statements and documents, we wish to identify ourselves as being on a journey and part of God’s pilgrim people. Specifically, we identify pilgrimage with three elements: • Companionship with God • Companionship with each other • Companionship with those we meet along the way This moving and changing imagery of journeying and pilgrimage is important to us. God’s people and the building of the church are not static. This is the framework in which we place our Annual Report 2019. 2 Services at St John’s The Church is open daily from 8.30am until 5.15pm Monday-Friday 8.45am Morning Prayer 5.00pm Evening Prayer Sunday 8.00am Holy Communion 10.30am Sung Eucharist (Once a month, an All Age format is used) 12.30pm Tagalog Mass 5.30pm Evening Prayer 6.30pm Choral Evensong – once a month. Wednesday 12.30pm Holy Communion Healing Service A healing service, with anointing with oil and the laying on of hands, is held monthly, generally at Evening Prayer, and twice a year as part of the Parish Eucharist. Farsi Eucharist A Farsi Eucharist is held once a month, on Sundays at 4.00pm, as part of our growing ministry to Farsi speakers. 3 Vicar’s Foreword The Rev’d Canon Dr. William Taylor: 2019 has been a year of change, adaption, and growth – both here at St John’s and in much of the county and world. In this challenging environment, we rose to meet challenges and report on another year full of activity and forward movement. Archbishop Welby often says “money is theology in numbers.” So the first thing on which we report is the wonderful news that we turned round a deficit of £36,000 at the end of 2018 to a surplus of almost £8,000 at the end of 2019. This did not happen by magic. Regular worshippers responded generously and sacrificially to our appeals to give to the Common Fund. And our two members of staff did fantastic work in achieving more than 6k above budget in lettings and reducing our outgoings by doing all repairs and renewals (with the exception of gas or electric work) in house. The Church building is open 7 days a week from early in the morning to the evening with a variety of worship (our principle purpose) and group activities from a wide cross section of society. In addition, The Kitchen in The Space continues to serve the public with food from Monday to Thursday. We continued with the full payment of our Parish Standard Costs (Common Fund) of £83,800; The Stewardship Advisory Group under the Chairmanship of Richard Burnett – Hall continued to keep the need to contribute fully before people’s eyes. This booklet of reports comes from the wide cross-section of people who make up the active ministry of the church in this Parish. For my own contribution, I describe the different teams of people with whom I work, the particular areas of work where I have more “hands-on” responsibility, and the new areas of work and ministry, which we have begun in the course of 2019. Staff Team Karen Fong was licensed as Lay Minster of the Parish at the beginning of the year and joined the Staff Team. She created a new worship opportunity on Tuesday evenings with the God & Tuesday informal evening service (see the section in this report on G & T) which ran until the end of November. For personal reasons, she is on leave of absence for 2020. Canon Larry Galon continued his duties as Filipino Chaplain and Assistant Priest and moved in November into much more suitable accommodation in the nearby former Vicarage of St Clements; Tobi Iyanda continued as Parish & Facilities Manager, in which role he is already doing great work in administering an increasingly busy and complex church diary. Under Tom Primrose’s leadership as Director Music, we continued to work with four choral scholars, a children’s music co-ordinator, and an organ scholar, who continue to transform the music of the liturgy. Mykhaylo Ibelgauptas’ work has been invaluable through the year in keeping the church open daily and doing inspirational physical work to the building and grounds and keeping them in top order. This he does with cheerful faithfulness, rooted as he is in the Russian Orthodox tradition. In June we welcomed a Deacon from the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq on a three-month placement as part of his priestly formation. Deacon Milam Kakone made a big impact on our lives, and it was the first time a Catholic deacon from Iraq did part of his spiritual and pastoral formation 4 in a Parish of the Church of England. We are proud to have hosted this ground-breaking ecumenical initiative. In the course of the year, Fr Bello Mahilum moved on from the Parish after his appointment as a hospital chaplain. We thank him for his time here. Our staff meetings continued to play a vital role in our life together. In 2019, we had two staff pilgrimages – to Rome and to Canterbury. Both were inspirational, spiritual and fun. Each member of the team, in addition to the corporate and collegial responsibilities of liturgical and pastoral ministry, carries a ministerial portfolio, and generally reports on that area to the staff meeting. We make decisions collectively about music, liturgy, teaching and courses. This is, for me, most valuable. It is also different from many Parishes where those aspects of parochial work are often handled by the Vicar alone. Making up the staff team in 2019 were –The Assistant Priests, the Director of Music, Parish Manager and the Maintenance Manager. The collegial support we experience in this meeting is very important. We share responsibility for the areas I have outlined, make decisions, and stick by them. We also get the bigger picture for our work all the time and ensure that no one is working in isolation. The isolated state is not a good role model for the parochial ministry. We also share things in the confidence of the meeting that do not appear in our notes. Pastoral confidences are dealt with in this context. An important part of our support for each other is to eat and relax together, which we do often. Working with this very varied group of people is for me energising, and I thank them for all they contribute to the life of the Parish. We owe a very significant debt of gratitude to Tobi Iyanda Parish Manager and Misha Ibelgauptas Steward & Maintenance Manager, for the dedicated and hard work they do which has enabled the Parish to grow in the way it has done in 2019. The three of us work closely together and begin every week after Morning Prayer on Monday with a weekly operational meeting looking at the needs of the Church and those who use it for the week ahead .For the level of activities we now have, two full time members of staff is the bare minimum. The positive effect of their hard work is in plain sight in the counts for all to see. Ecumenical Work I have continued to carry out two ecumenical functions in 2019 – one for the Kensington Episcopal Area, and one for the Church of England. Ecumenical Adviser to the Kensington Episcopal Area My work as Ecumenical Adviser for the Kensington Episcopal Area involves facilitating contacts and work between Christians of different traditions on behalf of the Bishop of Kensington. Other churches find themselves increasingly working with the Church of England on common social and other issues. In September, I represented the Bishop of Kensington at the enthronement of Archbishop Nikitas, the new Greek 5 Orthodox Archbishop, and in November at the canonisation Vespers for St John Henry Newman in Westminster Cathedral. Anglican and Eastern Churches Association As Chairman of the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association (AECA), my work involves a national responsibility for the Church of England in furthering contacts with the Orthodox Churches. The AECA is the oldest ecumenical association of the Church of England, founded in 1864, and I am proud in this role to be following in the footsteps of my esteemed predecessor as the last Vicar of the “stand-alone” Parish of St John Notting Hill, Austen Oakley. Anyone with eyes to see inside the Church of St John will see physical evidence of its long and fruitful cooperation with Orthodoxy. In October 2019, I was one of the Church of England’s representatives in the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Theological Commission, meeting in Cairo. 6 Work in the Community Windsor Leadership Trust Having worked with the Windsor Leadership Trust (www.windsorleadershiptrust.org) since 2000 as a facilitator for their cross disciplinary courses on leadership, I took on a new role as Chair of the annual meeting. It is a real privilege to work with this wide cross section of people as we gather annually for a few days in the awesome setting of the grounds of Windsor Castle. Christians in the Middle East & Persecuted Christians Throughout 2019, I also continued my work as a Director of JMECA, looking after the interests of the four Anglican Dioceses of the Church of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and continued as a Patron of Iraqi Christians in Need (http://icin.org.uk/) The Parish as a whole developed its particular charism caring for Christians who are persecuted for their faith.