Maelor Mission Area Magazine Inside this issue: • Another (mostly) Good News Edition • Re-opening and recovering July 2020 • Scams Warning 75p per issue Rev’d Canon Sue Huyton Rector of Bangor on Dee Group of Parishes & Mission Area Leader The Rectory, 8 Ludlow Road Bangor-On-Dee Wrexham. LL13 0JG. Tel 01978 780608 [email protected] Rev’d Peter Mackriell Rector of Overton and Erbistock 07795 972325 The Rectory, 4 Sundorne, Overton, Wrexham. LL13 0EB Tel. 01978 710294 [email protected] Rev’d Clive Hughes Vicar of the Hanmer Group of Parishes The Vicarage, Hanmer, Whitchurch, Shropshire. SY13 3DE. Tel 01948 830468 [email protected] MMA Lay Chair: Mr. David Williams, [email protected] Magazine Editor: David Huyton, [email protected] The Maelor Churches are part of the Maelor Mission Area. This magazine has been published by volunteers for well over a century. During that time it has served various groupings of churches. We hope you find it informative, useful, and interesting. You are welcome to respond to any item. Please hand any such contribution to your Vicar. St Dunawd, Bangor on Dee. St Deiniol, Eyton St Deiniol, Worthenbury St Deiniol and St Marcella, Marchwiel St Mary the Virgin, Overton St Hilary, Erbistock St Chad, Hanmer St John the Baptist, Bettisfield Holy Trinity, Bronington St Mary Magdalene, Penley Mission Area News Dear Friends. I am sure that many of you will already have heard about a package of measures being put together to help Mission Areas weather the present financial crisis. As a response to the help we receive, we will be expected to enter a process of review. This will take place over the next eighteen months. Some have already started. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Part one: Information gathering This will be supported by diocesan staff and will consider: • the MA Vision Statement and Mission Action Planning documentation; • how the shared ministry team is currently working; • how churches are engaging with the Mission Area; • the physical condition and location of each church in the MA. • the financial position of each church and the Mission Area; • the Sunday attendance and mid-week activities of each church over a ten-year period. = = = = = = Part two: Contextual analysis The Mission Area Conference, or a sub-group of the Mission Area Conference, will look at: • which parts of the community are currently attracted - or not - by the services and activities offered by the churches; • what forms of ministry and service are likely to be the most effective in the communities that we serve; • which parts of the community are more likely to respond positively to existing or new ministries developed by the Mission Area or individual churches. = = = = = = Part three: Managing resources This will be supported by the Archdeacon and will ask: • how effective is the Mission Area in managing the financial and physical resources that are available? • how effective is the Mission Area in engaging, encouraging, nurturing and supporting the human resources that are available? • ? how effective is the Mission Area in using its resources to engage the people within its communities? = = = = = = Planning Then we need to set up a developmental plan to identify realistic changes that will enhance the mission and ministry of the MA over a three-year period. The plan will consider the following areas: • Our priorities for mission and ministry • The buildings we need to support our objectives • The financial resources we will require to achieve our goals • The people we will need to develop and implement our aspirations. Under each heading the plan will identify the outcome that is envisaged in each area; The timescale involved; The estimated cost; and the person or group that will lead the initiative. The Mission Area Conference will meet with the Archdeacon twice each year to review progress in implementing the developmental plan. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = The media talks about the “new normal”. It is obvious that it will be a long time before we return to how things used to be, if at all. More of our meetings will have to be virtual ones, at least for the foreseeable future. Under our present structures, responsibility rests with the MAC to make strategic plans. Church Committees will need to contribute to the discussion, but theirs is not the legal responsibility. You can see from all this that it is really important that your representatives on the MAC are well-briefed. At one stage I looked at attendance figures for the MAC and often they were low. To begin with we had to do all the boring but essential work to set up our structures. My more recent attempts to give some ideas about vision in mission by inviting speakers in did not seem to enthuse members either. Now essential decisions affecting all of us will need to be made, and they will need to be made together. Since we do not have an administrator to coordinate responses, I will see if we can put together or borrow from elsewhere some kind of template so that Church Committees can respond in a similar way, whilst acknowledging that each will have its own priorities. It is a pity our vision day vanished into the Covid19 lockdown because we had hoped that it would be a time for sparking ideas and gathering people with similar roles together. We will have to approach this differently now. Our report will be produced during January with the help of Diocesan Office staff and there will be discussion with Archdeacon John in February. So in the meantime, start thinking and share your thoughts with your MAC reps. Best wishes Sue Huyton Good News: Treatment Breakthrough At the time of collating this magazine, it has just been announced that scientists and doctors have discovered that an existing drug, Dexamethasone, is partially effective at reducing the death rate of the most seriously ill with Covid-19. The drug is trusted, available already and relatively cheap. Dexamethasone is a step forward, and may form the basis for a future developments. Another breakthrough is the drug Remdesivir which reduces the duration and symptoms of Covid-19. However, Remdesivir is new, is currently expensive and in very short supply. Source BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53096736) Re-opening and recovering by Peter Mackriell I write this from an essentially optimistic perspective. It is a couple of weeks until July (as I write) the Church in Wales has announced it wil may follow the Church of England in the gradual re-opening of church buildings. Perhaps in the near future, weddings will be allowed to happen – small ones, anyway – and private baptisms. I hope so. But the easing of lockdown is proving more difficult than enforcing it. That is partly because the rules were clear to begin with, easy to understand and consistent across the UK. It is more complex now. But it is also harder to trust that the government has got it right. And, in the face of the coronavirus threat, in what has been described as a war, we were asked to retreat and we are now being asked to advance. Does that make you worried? Fear is a natural response in the face of threat and many people are currently suffering anxiety as they think about re-engaging with the outside world. People have also experienced loss – not only the loss of loved-ones, but separation from family and friends, the cancellation of planned celebrations and holidays, redundancy or enforced retirement. Death is not the only thing that provokes a sense of grief – any change involves loss of one kind or another, the need to adjust to a new reality. This is compounded for many of us now by an uncertain future. Can we realistically plan for anything? After a significant death, we enter a period of mourning. This isn’t as clearly demarcated as it might have been in the Victorian era, but in the months after a death we will pass through various stages, some of which we will understand as reactions to grief and others of which may leave us confused. William Worden suggests that we have various tasks to undertake when we are mourning, although we may not realise it. The first is to accept the reality of the loss; the second is to process the pain of grief; the third is to adjust to the new world order; and the fourth is to find that which continues to connect us to the person we have lost, even as we begin a new life without them. I think that we have similar tasks to undertake as we re-open our churches and reconnect with one another. For some people this time of lockdown has been very traumatic; for others, it has been a pleasant interlude. For most of us, it has been a very mixed experience which we will have to continue processing. But the practicalities of re-opening our buildings will heighten our sense of loss, as things will not be the same. So, we need to talk about the losses that we have had and, if some are talking, others need to listen. Listening to one another is the greatest gift that we can give. It is an act of love. It will not always be easy to offer supportive listening, particularly when we have so much shared experience. It will be tempting to say “I know how you feel” or to try to “top” the experience of the other with our own stories. If you want to help someone else, you need to guard against this. Listen to the other person. Reflect back some of what you hear (it shows them you are listening and helps them to process their own story).