April Blog - Letter to St. Mark's

17^th April 2015

Dear Member of St. Mark’s,

I am writing to you concerning the re-structuring of the leadership at St. Mark’s. Some of you will know that the leadership team have been attending a national leadership training course (Lead Academy). One of the objectives is to see how churches might restructure their church leadership to enable growth, spiritually and numerically.  This dovetails into St. Mark's taking on pastoral oversight of St. Peter's, and the need for my role to develop into one that delegates some responsibility to others.

The PCC has now agreed that we can start the process of re-structuring our Leadership. This will take time, as we begin to communicate the various changes that will enable this to happen. I do need to emphasise this is only the beginning of a process. This is what is proposed.

The Church Wardens and PCC

Church Wardens are officers of the Bishop and elected by the Meeting of the Parishioners. The PCC is the elected body responsible for governance of the church including finance, church maintenance, safe-guarding, risk management and policy making, and members are appointed at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting by those on the Electoral Roll.

Leadership Team

One step we have now taken is to delegate responsibility to the leadership team who will have oversight of particular ministries at St. Mark’s offering support, encouragement, communication and prayer. These persons are:

Administration - church centre and user groups - Maggie Wilson

Administration - clergy support and Sunday worship - Jo Lucas

Children and Family work - Nikki Smith

Evangelism and Mission - Jonathan Phillips

Pastoral Care - Heather Carty

Worship, preaching, teaching & occasional offices - Hennie Johnston

Youth Work - Pippa Douglas

Joshua Group

This Group will be those who lead the very many different ministries at St. Mark’s, including Fellowship Group Leaders. It will exist to support, encourage, communicate and pray as a group.

Many of you will know the story of Joshua and Caleb (Numbers Ch. 13 & 14), when Moses sent spies into Canaan to seek out the land. Caleb and Joshua returned from having seen the Promised Land full of optimism and excitement in contrast to the others who returned full of negativity, focussing on the giants, rather than the land which was flowing with milk and honey! Joshua and Caleb recognised the gift from God, the others did not, and the consequence was they remained in the wilderness another 40 years!

This story translates to us at St. Mark’s by those group leaders coming together with the leadership team every other month, (alternate months to the PCC meetings) to share vision, blessings, ideas, and concerns, and to clarify questions or confusion that their teams/groups might have raised. It will also be a forum for the leadership team to have an opportunity to share new ideas, visions and projects with the larger group. The Joshua Group will be a place where people can feel safe to share what is on their heart, returning to their groups united, and in support of the church’s bigger vision. 

I am aware that there may be a few teams/groups of people in church that will not naturally come under the oversight of those on the leadership team, and this will probably be because they will come under the overall responsibility of the PCC. As I have said, this re-structuring of leadership roles is a work in process and we would value your prayers and patience.

I am excited how the Holy Spirit is moving us on, though I am also aware that change is hard, and I do appreciate that it will be difficult for some. However, I do believe that this is the way forward for us at St. Mark's and, as we read in Isaiah 54:2-3, ‘enlarge the site of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitation be stretched out; do not hold back, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left and your descendants will possess the nations and will settle the desolate towns’.

I shall be saying a little bit more about the re-structuring of our leadership at St. Mark’s on Sunday 26^th April at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting, joint service at 10 am,  but I wanted you all to have time to reflect on this before that meeting and time of worship.

Yours in Christ,

Hennie

Vicar