Parish Church of St Peter, South Weald PARISH PROFILE SEPTEMBER 2015 Our Church St Peter’s Church is in the village of South Weald on the outskirts of Brentwood, to the east of the M25 and the London Borough of Havering. It is a lively and flourishing church with a congregation encompassing all ages. Our services are middle of the road but there is a wide range of churchmanship within the congregation and our doors are open to all. More than half of the Electoral Roll live outside the parish. Our Voluntary Aided Primary School in the village has been rated as outstanding in all respects. We are fortunate to have a vibrant and diverse congregation, including a large number of young families. While many start to attend church in order to meet attendance criteria for admission to local church schools, our welcoming and accepting attitude means that a number become committed members of the congregation. Our challenge is to respect the needs of our long-standing members whilst engaging with newcomers. St Peter’s Rule of Life As followers of Christ, we aim: to attend worship regularly, including Holy Communion; to maintain a pattern of daily prayer and develop our spiritual lives; to read and study the Bible; to help grow the church community through our time, talents and money; to assist others and to serve the needs of the local community; to have a concern for the whole world and to work for the coming of God’s kingdom; 1 to share our faith through action and word. Who We Are Looking For We would welcome a parish priest who is someone of central churchmanship, who will respect our worship style and who is: a “people person” – a good communicator, able to engage with all ages; a strong and flexible leader who is willing to maintain what is good but able to think strategically and manage change; a person with strong faith and deep spirituality who has a desire to share these and enable others to do likewise; able to draw families into the life of the church, whatever their initial reasons for attending (e.g. meeting the church attendance criteria for school entry), and able to engage with and enthuse their children when they reach secondary school age; willing to devote time and energy to foster the strong links between the church and school. 2 What We Can Offer In preparation for the production of this Parish Profile we consulted with congregation, school, visitors to our annual Festival and recipients of the Parish Magazine. 148 responses were received and analysed. The results showed the following strengths and weaknesses which will enable us to identify future opportunities. Our strengths are: We are a welcoming church, open to everyone. We embrace a variety of styles of worship and music. We offer good provision for children up to the age of 11 and have excellent links with our church school. The annual Patronal Festival brings the community together. We offer many opportunities for individuals to deepen their spiritual lives. “Maintain the good work” was a recurring comment in our survey and most of our congregation believe that we have a strong foundation on which to build. Weaknesses that have been identified are: Engagement with secondary-school children. Finance – our giving needs to increase to enable us to work effectively. Outreach – we need to engage with our diverse congregation, especially those on the edge of church, and find ways to meet the needs of non-churchgoing parishioners. 3 The Wider Context In 2011 the Diocese of Chelmsford produced a vision paper called “Transforming Presence”, which has been adopted by the Diocesan Synod. http://www.transformingpresence.org.uk/pdf/TransformingPresence.pdf This has led to a strategy paper called ‘Reimagining Ministry’ which encourages parishes to cluster to enable them to flourish in the decades to come, with fewer full time paid clergy and more self-supporting lay and ordained ministry. http://www.transformingpresence.org.uk/resources/mmu.pdf A conference was held in the spring of 2015 called Time to Talk, including the opportunity for Deanery groups to discuss ideas for the future. Following this, in September 2015, the Brentwood Deanery will be undertaking a training evening, following the same format, for members of each of the 22 PCCs in the Deanery. By 2025 it is likely that there will only be 7 stipendiary vicars in the Brentwood Deanery and collaborative working will be essential. Deanery meetings have been held in the past regarding this issue and some churches in the Deanery are now working collaboratively. These are very successful bearing in mind the varied style of churchmanship in each parish. There is still a long way to go but the atmosphere is very positive. In the autumn, 2015 there is to be a 2-year Course in Christian Studies (our Diocesan foundation course) held in Brentwood. It is hoped people from South Weald may attend to find out more about the Christian faith and inform them of ways they can support our church in a lay capacity. At South Weald we have 4 representatives on the Brentwood Deanery Synod and 2 representatives on the Diocesan Synod. A message from the Area Dean, Canon Paul Hamilton The Anglican Deanery of Brentwood is rich in diversity and reflects every tradition and churchmanship. Relationships between churches are excellent and form a genuine supportive network. Ecumenical relationships are good and the Churches Together network plans and executes key events throughout the year such as the Good Friday Walk of Witness and in recent years, prayer seminars from a variety of traditions. The Deanery would welcome an incumbent who is keen to take their place within the family of Anglican churches contributing to Deanery Synod, Chapter and developing Mission and Ministry Units in line with our diocesan aims presented in Transforming Presence. The challenge of reducing clergy numbers requires us to look for a person who is a team player and flexible to enable us to keep a worshipping community in each part of the Deanery. We offer you a genuine welcome into the Deanery family, supportive professional relationships free from competitiveness, practical assistance to cover services in time of need, a breadth of traditions that enables corporate theological reflection4 upon the issues of the day and a genuine desire to see you and your church flourish. Our Church Life Worship Our main Sunday service at 9.45am is a family communion service using Common Worship. Attendance averages 140 adults and 40 children. We sing a mixture of traditional and modern hymns accompanied by the organ and our robed choir. We were delighted to receive a donation last year to enable us to buy new hymn books – Ancient & Modern Hymns and Songs for Refreshing Worship. Three children’s groups meet for part of the service: Sunday group (3-7 yrs), Junior Quiz Group (7-9 yrs) and Senior Quiz Group (9-11 yrs). Average attendance is in the region of 30 a week. Lay people administer the sacrament, act as servers, read the lessons, lead the intercessions, act as vergers and sidespeople, and make and serve refreshments after the service. Baptisms take place during the main service approximately once a month. Last year, 37 children were baptised. 5 Seven times a year we have an all-age worship service with communion, accompanied by an instrumental group. Uniformed organisations from the Scouting and Guiding movements attend six of these. The seventh is Education Sunday which is attended and partially led by the school. Twice a year we shorten the family communion service considerably and encourage people to stay after the service to informally investigate a chosen topic such as prayer, church organisations, or the St Peter’s Rule of Life. Our bells are rung before the 9.45 service and occasionally at other services. Other Sunday services Communion Service (8am). This said service alternates between BCP and Common Worship and has an average congregation of 25. It is becoming more attractive to families who lead busy lives but still want to come to church. Evensong (6.30 summer, 4.30 winter) uses BCP and has an average attendance of 12. Once a month the service is followed by Evenchat, a discussion group led by the Vicar, which brings a Christian perspective to topical issues. Weekday services Every two months we hold a weekday evening Eucharist with prayers for healing; there are also monthly celebrations of Holy Communion in the Almshouse chapel on a Wednesday morning and in church at 6pm on a Saturday. Major saints’ days are celebrated at 9am. We celebrate other dates in the church’s year with additional services including Music for Passiontide and Night Prayer during Holy Week. In the run up to Christmas, we have a Christingle service and a service of Nine Lessons and Carols. Our Christmas Eve crib service proved so popular that we now have two, with total attendance of around 700. The junior choir enjoy pizza and games between the two services. In 2014 we had 7 weddings and 11 funerals in the church, and our vicar led 3 funerals at the local crematorium. 6 Spiritual and Pastoral Life A variety of groups and initiatives aid our spiritual growth, and we are keen to increase take- up of these activities. Home groups – 35 people currently meet fortnightly in three groups to discuss a book of the Bible or other Christian book, to enjoy fellowship and to pray. Several SHAPE courses have been organized and have proved successful. Materials for the course were created by the Diocese of Carlisle and adopted by Chelmsford in 2010.