Vicar's Report 2022
St Paul’s Church
Given at Annual Parish Church Meeting May 23rd 2022
The Vicar’s Report is a feature of every Annual Parish Church Meeting and tends to look back at some of the highlights of the previous year as well as looking forward to the year(s) ahead.
Just to warn you this report will be a little longer than normal, but for good reasons (I hope).
Looking back - personal challenges
This past year has been a quietly dramatic one for me, but by God’s grace, here I stand.
It was quite a shock to be signed off work, but clearly the doctors knew what they were doing when time off turned into six months. After a number of weeks of very little activity the Lord rebuilt my strength, and along with it, my heart gently and slowly.
There was a stage I thought I'd never be able to return. And yet, in his kindness, I've been allowed to remain among you - and this mighty privilege of serving here amongst dear friends.
I am grateful to God for the Pastors whose books I read during my recovery, and I hope and pray that the gold in them will continue to feed my heart as well as encourage my ministry going forward. I'm so grateful to the church family for their prayers and supportive notes people have written, as well as the Bible verses given to me. We also received a variety of gifts for which we are so grateful as signs of your love.
The family and I are particularly grateful to the PCC for the gift of a holiday in Dorset where we enjoyed a special time at Christmas, as well as one or two other treats over the winter. It was such a blessing to be able to do that. Thank you.
These past months I've got to know the Psalms a lot better than I did, and as I wrote to you during my absence, one particular one that stayed with me was Psalm 25.
v.1 To you O Lord I lift up my soul…. O my God in you I trust: let me not be put to shame;
v.10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness…”
v.14 The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant” more of that later.
I also want to take this opportunity to once again say thank you so much to the PCC and the Staff Team and Wardens for all their hard hard work over the last year. It has been an extraordinary blessing to me, and also the church family. There have various trials you have faced, in particular navigating the emergence from Covid-restrictions. There have been some necessarily long meetings along the way! But you stuck to the task diligently and in a godly manner.
Psalm 133 says “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
It has been a real joy to see this so widely demonstrated at St Paul’s. Unity is so precious and something all Christian communities need to keep working at, making ‘every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace’.
If I can single one person out, I am so grateful to Mike, who not only has worked so hard to keep things going, but has also served me continuously with his fellowship and friendship. Thank you Mike.
I hope you have had a chance to read the reports for our APCM. It is not at all dull reading, but rather it is evidence of the Lord’s work among us that can only encourage our hearts. So, I commend it to you if you've not quite managed it yet!
As you read the report you will see there are many people working hard behind the scenes and making sure wonderful ministries are taking place, such as those to our young people, to our vulnerable membership, and also hat amongst those with learning difficulties.
To touch briefly on one or two areas of church life over the last year I wanted to thank Jeannette for all her hard work with the young people and leading us with events in the park and in the church and making sure we had a Children’s work up and running again on Sundays.
Also, the Grow Group leaders who have ensured groups met and prayed and served. This has been a tremendous ministry to us. Praise the Lord.
The work done by Annabelle with the Real Change course has also been a mighty encouragement and pioneered our desire to increasingly serve and care for one another sacrificially. This is exactly the area of church life we want to be focusing on at the moment, building on the gospel-centred fellowship already in existence.
I also would like to make special mention of Margaret Clark who has worked tirelessly to lead our Safeguarding ministry, a very complicated area of church life. Not only that but she serves in numerous of the ministries not to mention her leadership of SHINE.
Mike (Moir) has already rightfully thanked Sue Johnston for her long diligent service on the PCC but I just wanted to add my personal thanks. It has been a privilege to serve with her on the PCC, and experience her gentle wisdom and pastoral care. Sue is also not renewing her LLM (Local Lay Minister’s) licence. Therefore, her more public role such as taking funerals, which has being such a support and blessing to us over the years, comes to an end. Thankfully, though, Sue is not going anywhere! and we will continue to fellowship together, and of course we will pray for her and Brian in to the coming years.
Whilst we will be doing this properly in a few weeks time, I also want to register my thanks to Jake and Nicola (Eggertsen) Zana, Libby and Jess for being such a delightful presence among us for the last three years. Not only that, there's been a lot of wisdom and love around the place through their ministry. A couple of highlights quickly spring to my mind, such as Jake’s hard work with zoom and live-streaming technology during the pandemic, and also his project “Learning From Lockdown” that was such a blessing to the church. Not to mention his leadership and hard work during my absence.
Also, Nicola’s hospitality and ministry among the women of the church – not to mention her beautiful singing. We want to wish them all God’s blessings for the next chapter of their ministries as they seek to serve their Saviour and Lord.
We can't look back without mentioning those who have fallen asleep in the Lord this year.
Very sadly we lost Cynthia Watson, Olive Shewell-Cooper, Jim Buik-Anderson,
and were shocked by the death of Roger Castle. While we weep together and look to support Sue, Avril, Timothy and the families of Jim and Cynthia we rejoice that they now fellowship with our beautiful Saviour and Lord.
Looking back at the past year and our relationship with the Diocese: Because of the pandemic there is not that much to report that has changed from last year.
In preparation for future debates on the issue of human sexuality and our doctrine as the Church of England, the Living in Love and Faith project which seeks to promote learning on this issue as well as gleaning countrywide opinion, has been delayed for another year. This is an important discussion, not least for the chance of biblical witness. I am particularly grateful to our Deanery Synod team, Tor Moir, Marigold Short and Peter Preston for work already done.
We will want to be firmly plugged into ministries such as that of the Church Society and the Church of England Evangelical Council both of which are working hard to ensure the Apostolic tradition on our denomination.
This coming year the PCC will be needing to engage in more discussion about our partnership with like-minded churches in the Diocese in order to contend for the gospel. This also may lead to further involvement with the ‘Oxford Good Steward’s Trust’, which enables orthodox churches to set aside funds for gospel ministry in the Diocese. We are grateful to Mike Clark spearheading this partnership.
As many of you know, whilst legally we are still part of the Diocese, pastoral oversight has been conducted by Bishop Rod Thomas. Sadly, Rod is retiring at the end of this year. Rod will be visiting St Paul’s on the first Sunday of September to conduct a Confirmation and encourage all of us in our discipleship.
LOOKING AHEAD
Space Building Project
We praise God for Peter Preston who has worked very hard to ensure that we move forward with the Space building project. Lots has been going on behind the scenes so do have a look at the building project report.
The accelerator is now beginning to be pressed down a little more firmly. As Peter has made clear in his report, we will need to make decisions about adapting the project to suit our current needs and ensure that we see the erection of a hall sooner rather than later. Principally we pray, and particularly for the Next Steps Team.
Finance & and Gift Day
As we have heard already this evening, we face challenging times with our finances. However, we have so much to Praise God for, not only the resources he has given us, but with the generous ministry of Nelly (Lukwo) who has been looking after our finances this year, very clearly keeping Christ central in her working and ensuring that we are praying with her.
No doubt we need to step carefully in the next couple of years to ensure that we remain good stewards with what the Lord has given us. As well as our normal outgoings we have honoured our pledged to increase our Parish Share over the last three years.
To support Nelly, it would be helpful to have a root and branch review of our finances this coming year. This will need to take into account the plans we have to meet the happy challenges of a growing church. The building project, staffing and the planning for a probable church plant which will need a paid leader.
It would also be good to have a Gift Day in the autumn to provide opportunity to boost our general fund.
5pm Service
This year we need to relocate our Sunday service, currently held at the Prescott Avenue Church Centre. Before the Purposeful Pause and then the Pandemic we enjoyed a number of years at the Sunshine Centre but (before the pandemic) we were becoming too large even for that.
Whilst our numbers dropped during Covid, we are steadily increasing again and we need to plan for growth. We are about to talk to a local school again about hiring their building on Sundays. This endeavour will need to be a team effort, with people needed to help set up and run this ministry.
All this needs to be planned carefully and executed at a steady pace. We are still weary from the last two years of pandemic life. We are already struggling a little for volunteers in various ministries and possibly relying on too small a group people. Nevertheless, each individual and family need to prayerfully consider when will be the right time to explore new ways of serving. We cannot be putting pressure on one another to step into ministries too soon. I have a lot of kind voices around me cautioning me about taking on too much as I return to ministry. I'd like to encourage you in the same vein.
So, there are to be no guilt trips among us! Rather we take on the lessons of the Lent course and Real Change, and look out for one another, praying together, loving each other deeply from the heart. We are family, and relationships come before rotas.
Having said that, if you are feeling you are ready to serve in some way and would like to talk about that, perhaps looking at your gifts, then please approach your Grow Group Leader, or a member of staff and we surely would be happy to chew things over.
Last summer a good number of us got involved in serving in different ways to meet the challenges of coming out of the pandemic. Praise God for this clear demonstration of church in action. In time we would like to carry out a further review of the gifts among us and how we might serve in the future.
As I close let me return to Psalm 25.
We are so grateful for the way that the Lord has sustained us and taught us and blessed us over the past year. As for me I'm sure there were extended times of pain and sorrow, but as we know the Lord uses these times to fashion us more into his likeness.
From v.8
8 Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
11 For your name's sake, O Lord,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.
12 Who is the man who fears the Lord?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
The Lord has been growing there spiritually and numerically in recent times –
Wonderfully he has been rebuilding face to face relationships among us.
Hasn't it been good to share in refreshments not both morning and evening services?
There have been long and lengthy times of fellowship following both Sunday meetings!
So going back to the theme of the lent course that bookended the pandemic,
we look to our Lord and saviour - the great restorer - to grow us as servant hearted brothers and sisters focused on loving one another deeply from the heart as we seek to honour our loving, holy and redeeming God.
12 Who is the man who fears the Lord?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
13 His soul shall abide in well-being,
and his offspring shall inherit the land.
Dan McGowan, 07/07/2022