The benefice of St. Michael & All Angels, Stanton-by-Dale with All Saints, Dale Abbey and All Saints, Risley BENEFICE PROFILE & STATEMENT OF NEEDS 2018 srdachurches.org Contents Page Introduction and Summary 2 Traditions and Convictions 3 Where We Are Now 4 Key Attributes of Our New Incumbent 5 Our Benefice 6 Our Churches 12 Our People 19 Spiritual Life and Regular Activities 21 Outreach & Mission 24 Buildings & Other Resources 28 Finances 36 The Local Area 41 Contacts 46 Policies 47 1 Introduction and Summary Welcome to our benefice profile. We are excited to learn what God has in store for us as we welcome our next Minister. As a benefice, our aim is to be one church in three locations. Although we meet in different places, we share the same evangelical conviction. We take our Bible teaching seriously and appreciate inspired preaching as we believe that the Bible is the revealed word of God and therefore aim to make it central in our church life. We would love to see continuing growth and a deeper spiritual maturity across our congregations, building upon the foundations laid by our previous incumbent. We are praying that God will send someone who will lead and challenge us in our devotion and worship to God, our love for one another, and in our service to our village communities. Our aim is to know Christ and to make Him known. We want this to be the vision across our churches that sees others come to a life-changing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Traditions and Convictions As an evangelical benefice with Christians from a wide-range of backgrounds both within and beyond the Anglican communion, we are bound together by a desire to worship and live for Jesus Christ, who is the foundation of all that we do. Our core values are: • To know God in Christ through the Holy Spirit • To Know God as He has revealed Himself in the Bible • To make known the Good News of Christ • To enrich and deepen the spiritual life in our church • To promote the life of the Church of Christ • To make known the truths and values of Christ • To serve one another and the communities in which we live 3 Where We Are Now The benefice comprises three churches in two parishes (Stanton by Dale and Dale Abbey have been one parish since the eighteenth century and Risley joined in 1994 to create the current benefice). We understand there are no plans in the diocese to alter this arrangement. Over the last 6 years the three churches have come far more closely together, with joint meetings of the two PCCs, benefice services, members of the churches serving in different locations, sharing a salaried Church Administrator, groups (eg home groups and Sunday Schools) in all three churches following the same materials. We are in the very early stages of working towards sharing finances and having a benefice budget rather than two separate financial arrangements. We also have weekly leadership meetings which view the benefice as a whole. We have had a solid foundation of Biblical teaching and wish to see that continued. 4 Key Attributes of Our New Incumbent • A creative and motivational leader with a vision for the benefice but who is prayerful and always open to following God’s directing. • A passion for evangelism, to see people come to a living faith in Christ. • A commitment to support and build children’s and youth work in the benefice. • A leader who is willing and able to lead the Church but is also a team player willing to listen to and work with the wider leadership team. • A Bible based teacher who is a capable expository preacher. • A commitment and desire to engage in pastoral care. • The ability to engage with village life, building on the foundations which have been laid – an awareness that a village community is different to a suburban or city centre community. • Someone who is happy to embrace a variety of worship styles. • Enthusiasm and a sense of humour. 5 Our Benefice The parishes of Stanton by Dale and Dale Abbey were joined in the eighteenth century and have a single PCC. This parish and the adjoining parish of Risley were joined together in 1994 and became a benefice in 2000. There are therefore three churches and two PCCs. There are no other churches or places of worship within the benefice (two Methodist chapels having closed very many years ago). The current services are 9:15am at Risley, 11am at Stanton and 3pm at Dale Abbey. Broadly, the services at Stanton and Risley are communion every other week with the intervening week being morning worship and the first Sunday of the month is an all age service (so children stay in rather than going to Sunday School). At Dale Abbey communion services alternate with evening worship. Typically the same sermon is preached at each church. There is also a 7pm mid-week communion service at Risley on Wednesday evenings. Service times and the nature of the services have changed in the past and could do so again. There are no longer Sunday evening services but we have used Sunday evenings to have benefice wide meetings for teaching on various themes. Typically we have had a series of 6 to 10 consecutive Sunday evenings and then a break 6 for a few weeks until the next series starts. Examples of these Sunday evening teaching series would be: how to understand and argue against pseudo-Christian cults such as Mormons, JWs, etc; looking in detail at some of the 39 Articles. We also used one series to “pilot” the Life Explored course. Over the last few years PCC meetings have been joint, with short sessions at the end at which the PCCs split into separate rooms to deal with purely parish-specific matters. The current drive is to minimise the number of issues which are considered as parish- specific. We have had some annual PCC away-days, spending the morning discussing how to take the benefice forward in various ways and ending with lunch at a restaurant. The desire of both PCCs, and of the three congregations, is for increasing unity. 7 Home groups meet weekly, except that once a month they are replaced with a benefice-wide Prayer meeting. Some of the home groups contain members from more than one of the three churches. We currently have 36 attending home groups and we are keen to see this number, and therefore the number of groups, increase. Children’s and youth work is something we know we need to build up and we are keen to do this. Historically it was very large at Stanton, limited to a very small Sunday School at Risley and non-existent at Dale. However, largely due to the demographics of the congregation, it has significantly reduced at Stanton (sometimes a Sunday sees only 3 or 4 children) but has been growing at Risley (12 on the roll but typically about 6 on any given Sunday). Sunday School at Stanton needs building up and the growth at Risley should be continued. Above Sunday School age, the Dangerous Boys and Dangerous Girls groups are benefice wide but they do need building up again as numbers have dropped recently, again due to demographics. Likewise the youth “All Soughts” group is benefice-wide but needs building up following the departure of a number to university all at the same time. 8 Almost all of our groups and activities are benefice wide - very little is done on a church by church basis unless it is part of a service such as Sunday School. Even here there is interchange, for example Risley and Stanton Sunday Schools may be run by members of Risley, Stanton or Dale congregations. It is probably a common issue for all churches, in that we have a committed group of people who seem to be doing the bulk of the work and we are keen to expand the “engaged core” of the church. We hope our new minister will be able to motivate others to join in and also to lead us in reviewing and revising our activities, perhaps doing fewer things to a higher standard, or new things entirely. 9 Over the last few years, we have become far more engaged in the life of the villages than we have been historically, working with various village organisations, the CofE primary school in the benefice, nursing homes and the hospice in Risley. However, despite good engagement with the primary school, few of the pupils and their families attend the church, which we would like to work on. There is also scope to have more engagement with Risley village than at present – this is another area for ongoing work. The benefice has a very good range of buildings available, described in more detail later on in this document, and these are well used by the church. 10 We have a sound financial base at Stanton (which from a financial perspective includes Dale Abbey), which has been generating a significant surplus over the last few years. Money is significantly tighter at Risley where it can be a struggle to meet the Common Fund (formerly parish share) assessment. However we are working towards a joint benefice budget and towards using money across the benefice, regardless of where it originated. This is in its very early stages, but is already more than just an aspiration with money having been transferred to help Risley with its Common Fund payment last year and benefice expenses being split on what is perceived to be a realistic basis rather than 50/50.