Incumbent s Report APCM 2nd March 2014

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1 Incumbent s Report APCM 2nd March 2014 It hardly seems a year since the last APCM but then, it isn t! In fact it is just ten months and although that is tight for turning round accounts I do think it is much better to be able to reflect more immediately on the past year, and to go on to plan for the next, as the new PCC will do almost immediately at our first meeting next week followed the familiar pattern of liturgical seasons and spirituality, mixed with fellowship, social and fundraising events quite rightly loving God and neighbour neighbours in our church community and far wider too. This year, however, music has featured very prominently. We started the year with a recital by Ruth Shepherd with Richard Ratcliffe and Gillian Salmon which had to be postponed due to snow (better than the rain this year!) but Two s Company was closer to Valentine s day in the end and very well received. John Cotterill s brainwave to have a full two week Music Festival, rather than monthly concerts, proved to be fabulous. We held ten concerts over the course of two weeks, with a wide variety of musical styles and good and appreciative - audiences. As usual proceedings were enhanced by good food (heavenly scones) and fine wine (subsidised by the vicar s trip to France!) but it was the music that held us actually entranced at times. Thank you to John for masterminding it all and also to everyone who led the organisational teams to Jean TD who ran the Box Office, Sally Somerville who oversaw catering, Joan Harnby who provided lovely flowers, to Richard Burdett who produced highly professional programmes and publicity and to everyone else who helped in any way. Planning for next year will start soon. Music of course continues to enhance our worship and to be a real strength in this church. there were times during our Carol service last year when I was away not with the fairies but certainly with the angels, and the Choral mattins with which our Music festival closed was just sublime. We are truly blessed with a Musical Director, choir and organists, who stimulate and inspire a wide variety of worship and really do help us to meet with God and offer him the praise he deserves. Huge thanks to John, Rhidian and Clare, our organ scholars Daniel and Alex and all who work with them. Thank you to all of you Our Sunday worship has continued to be varied, with a pattern of simpler liturgy for first Sunday All Age and Baptism days and deeper, more choral communions on other Sundays. Our thematic fifth Sundays have continued. For example, Harvest this year was a simple Word service, based around apples, planned and led by folk from the congregation, followed by a delicious bring and share lunch as teams of all ages prepared harvest boxes to take to local elderly people, and families in need. Midweek services are more reflective times, valued by those who attend. I am delighted that regulars on Wednesdays now read the epistle and lead intercessions, as well as taking the chalice, where permissible. Thank you to everyone we share in some beautiful, thoughtful prayers. I know that the prayer and anointing for healing, a simple five minute service on the last Wednesday monthly, is much valued too. These days I rarely say the Office alone as Louse Hurrell and Serena Tajima join in, and lead, Morning Prayer and Johanna Raffan likewise joins and leads Evening Prayer thank you to each of them. We kept special times in the church year in a variety of ways. In Holy Week, for example, we had different styles of worship on each evening, including Stations of the Cross and Compline. On Maundy Thursday the church was open for prayer and we held a Passover 1

2 Seder meal at lunchtime which went well, except for the fish pie incident! It was good to welcome our diocesan Bishop, John, to preside and preach at our patronal festival at which he challenged us through gospel reading of the mission of the seventy. Our Area Bishop, Andrew, also joined us in June as we welcomed friends from Cookham to a deanery confirmation service. The number of lay people taking part in worship enriches our life and I am grateful to Ralph for organising the server teams and to Sue Hinchliffe for co-ordinating the sacristry. Thank you to everyone who contributes to leading worship in reading, leading intercessions, serving as chalice assistant, and acting as sidespeople. Of course we all participate fully in worship by our presence and by engaging actively in worship, but it is good to have so many people able and willing to help lead too. We continue to be enriched by our collaboration with All Saints and the Church of the Good Shepherd in the Sundays at Six programme and other activities. Last year we introduced an Epiphany carol service a real treat, and a small group found a summer prayer walk on Ray Mill Island very moving. We have seen the continued growth of the International Taize service. Thanks to Kevin who has done all of the practical organisation and this year hands over to Sally Unwin and Elaine See. Our shared marriage preparation has also been valuable, thanks to those who have helped out. Worship and spirituality are so important it is the root of why we are here. Our Pools of Stillness evenings continue to offer quiet space monthly and I am delighted that Barbara Essam is sharing in leading these thank you Barbara. Thanks also to Sonya as she leads a small and committed group in monthly intercession for those who seek our prayers. A group of us enjoyed an Advent quiet day at Wantage and we marked Lent with the Everybody Welcome course which led to some important changes in how we greet people at the door and elsewhere. Our name badges have been well received. By the way, the buzz word this year is no longer welcome, it is now invitation. We invited the newly (and less recently) bereaved to join us for bi monthly times of tea, chat and reflection and I am very grateful to Sonya and her small team for enabling Seeking Solace to develop. Overall we have many varied opportunities to meet with God on Sundays and midweek and I would encourage everyone to join in as much as possible to enrich each other and grow in our faith. There were many opportunities too to enrich each other in spending time together. Thanks to Sonya for organising our summer fair this year in and around church to draw people in and also a great day out at the seaside for our Parish outing to Brighton. Some of us got wet even without paddling as the coach air conditioning sprang a leak and I have a lovely photo of May with her brolly up in the bus! We have eaten well on a number of occasions throughout the year. Thanks to Phyllis Sopp for her role as catering manager and also to Fran for organising the coffee rota. We use fairly traded good whenever we can and thanks to Janet Trinkwon, Fran Hornby and Ruth Jones for organising a Fair Trade stall and ensuring we remember the importance of fair trade. Speaking of stalls, our stall at the annual charity fair again won best dressed in the town and boosted church funds. Thank you Jilly Bevitt and all who worked with her on that. 2

3 In 2013 we gave almost 10,000 to charities thank you all for your generosity, and thanks also to Roger Clarke for co-ordinating our charitable giving. The Social Gospel group, most ably led by Terrie, keep us abreast of a wide variety of concerns and Stitch Up, led by Gill Curry, has supported the Kori Project with great care. Thank you to both of them. The Stitch Up group now have an link with knitters in Canada (I had to get Canada in somewhere!!) and the knitted nativity that we sent there was so gratefully received thank you all knitters (whatever your sheep looked like!). Our third Christmas Tree Festival was a delight and drew in an even wider range of tree sponsors. We extended it to include a schools day on the Friday and around 500 children passed through church that day it was great to see pupils from St. Luke s and St, Mary s greeting each other across the aisle. Thank you to everybody who helped with the tree festival. As usual, we had a lot of fun together as a church family. But we have also shared sorrows. At the time of last year s APCM we were mourning the death of Len Reynolds and today we say farewell to Win as she moves to be near family in Ross on Wye. We continue to hold in our prayers the families of long standing members of our church, including Gillian Fitzpatrick and of course the Reverend Richard Nunn. Others have joined our flock. We celebrated just three weddings (there was a 13 in the date!) but welcomed in baptism 25 young people to join our faith journey. Chris Sawyers has faithfully administered baptism anniversary cards for many years but this year ill health has forced her to stop. Thanks to Chris for all her hard work and I am grateful to Sue McClean who has taken on the role of baptism administration. This is perhaps the place to thank our flower arrangers who have kept the church so beautifully decorated and especially Joan in her co-ordination and her care. Thank you too to Rita who does a sterling job as weddings verger. Enid Barber has been our funeral verger for many years, offering a caring hand to all in need. She has decided that it is time to hang up her cassock. Thank you Enid for all that you have given of yourself. Caring has always been a strength of this church. Thank you to everyone who is a contactor, ensuring that the life of the church is passed to those who may not get here so often. In 2013 I felt that it was time for structural change and so the ministry of the Pastoral Care Team focussed mainly on the Sunday Half Hour services, Thursday Teas and lunches and at our Patronal festival Bishop John commissioned Sue Hinchliffe as Pastoral co-ordinator to work with the ministry team, contactors and whole church to ensure best quality care for all. Thank you to all those who served on the former PCT especially Phyllis, Enid, Jan and Dick, Chris, Gerry. Thank you too to Sue for taking on this role and developing it. We must also recognise the valuable work done by our Sunday Club and Sparklers leaders. Thank you to all of you for providing spiritual activities and social opportunities too. A special thanks to Eileen Goford for drawing together Sunday Club leaders and to Ann Burdett for being social secretary in fact not just for SC but for the whole church! The Sparklers group has grown and changed as youngsters have moved on to the older group. They enjoyed a Sunday afternoon pilgrimage to Dorchester abbey in July. Thanks to Johanna, Roger, Gill, Fran and their team. St. Luke s Baby and Toddler group is also flourishing on a Thursday morning there are swarms of them now! Thanks to Eileen and Peter and Ann Darracott for helping to set up, and to Mary and Judith for organising refreshments so smoothly. Special thanks to Julie who leads the group. She will be leaving later this year as her son starts school please do pray for a successor to keep the group going. 3

4 And Messy Church is messy! And has gone from strength to strength. We have 47 families on our contact list and are often feeding 40 + people at each session. Thank you to everybody who helps on the team. It is a real ministry of outreach. This outreach developed in 2013 as we started Hope Wednesday, a coffee morning for mums in need and Hope Tuesday a homework club to give mums space to work with their children. Thanks to Sue Brett and others who have supported these initiatives particularly Sally Somerville, Louise Hurrell and Johanna Raffan. I am grateful to all those who have continued to open their homes or to lead various groups such as BRF and Emmaus now On the Way. Particularly thanks to Pamela and Kenneth Rivers, to Eileen and Peter, and to Ann and Richard. The church is of course the people but this people are blessed with a beautiful building in which to worship and we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to the many people who help to care for it. To those who keep the churchyard and stonework in good order and to those who clean and polish very regularly many thanks especially to Michelle Higgins and Janet Trinkwon and to Don and the whole Fabric team. We have continued to develop links with other folk in our parish and thanks to Sue Brett we set up shared community meals with friend at the Mosque. Our links with our Primary school are also strong and I am delighted that in December HMI deemed the school a Good school and removed the special measures from it. Thanks to Simon Hurrell who has worked hard with me as foundation governor and also to our assembly team of Gill, Sue, Sally and Margaret. Communication is always key and I know you will join me in thanking Andrew Burdett for his part in that through Inspire our excellent parish magazine. Much of what I have reported has been highlighted as developments in our Mission Action Plan, or MAP. PCC members have worked hard on this and we evaluate our progress regularly. We have had two very useful mornings away together and a well attended whole church session too. One key area for development is the re-ordering of the church. The re-ordering group continued to meet regularly, meeting also with a number of people and agencies to advise us on many aspects of possible re-ordering. There is some detail of this in the bulletin. In July our architect presented a feasibility study to the PCC and in October we voted on proposals to re-order the church. We now need to move on and to explore grants and funding in detail. Huge thanks to all those who serve on the re-ordering group, each bringing a particular expertise. Our planning morning on 15 th March will begin to move us further with re-ordering always focussing on God s mission and how buildings might serve and enable that. We all need things that nurture and support us. I am grateful for your support to me as your vicar, most especially in the last two months. I continue to meet with my spiritual director regularly and my Cell group twice a year. As a member of the diocesan Inter-Faith committee and Deanery Standing and pastoral Committee I am able to bring insight directly back to the parish. I also continue to serve on the steering group of the Grove Booklets Education series. I enjoy my role as co-ordinator of the Women s WAMCF group and value the fellowship of those who come along from here. This all helps me to keep a wider perspective. 4

5 Thank you to everyone who helps to make our church life so rich. Just a cursory reading of the annual bulletin demonstrates what happens here. I cannot thank everyone by name, but I do want to particularly thank members of the PCC and the Ministry Team. The PCC has worked very hard and with great grace and humour. I have been humbled by the prayer times offered by PCC members in the last seven weeks, a real example of church in action. Thank you to Ralph for his work as PCC secretary keeping me on the right side of ecclesiastical law, and to Richard as treasurer. Thank you to Dick who has stood back in to preside on Tuesday evenings during my absence. Special thanks to Terrie and Sonya who give of themselves so freely and with great love for God s people here. And thank you too to our two churchwardens Shula and Johanna, who attend ministry team meetings and give more to the life of this church family than any of you will ever know alongside their own home lives thank you. And to Ben and Don who have supported them as assistant wardens. Finally thanks too to Sue Brett, who works tirelessly in the parish office, giving far more than her six paid hours per week and keeping us up to speed if you don t yet receive the weekly update please tell Sue I wonder how we might have felt if we d been amongst those seventy brave followers sent out by Jesus? I wonder if we ve ever done anything for God that really tested our trust? I wonder if there s anything lurking in our minds that God might be nudging us towards trying - something that requires more trust than we think we ve got? I wonder what this story has to say to St Luke s church at this particular time? I wonder what God is calling us to next please do come to our planning morning on 15th March as we explore that further together. And please continue to pray for our life and mission as God s people here, in this place, at this time. Almighty God, by whose grace alone we are accepted and called to your service: strengthen us by your Holy Spirit and make us worthy of our calling; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen 5