Vacancy Process
With Dan announcing his move at Easter the process to find a new Rector is underway.
What has happened so far
The Bishop met with the Parish wardens in December 2012. The Bishop outlined the process of seeking to fill the vacancy. He confirmed that the post of Rector would not be suspended as had happened before when we were also looking at combining our three churches into one parish. Therefore the vacancy period should not be as long as last time.
The PCC have met on 10th January and were addressed by Rev Catharine Morris (Parish Development Adviser, Archdeaconry of Berkshire) who advised those present of her role to help guide the Parish through the process of appointing a new Rector and to assist with writing the Parish Profile and person specification. Nigel Smith, Anne Taylor and Jenny Hicks will work on Parish Profile and Person Specification bringing together the views from many sources to present at a future meeting.
Next the Bishop talks to Area Dean and Patrons. The Patrons for this parish are Christchurch Oxford and Eton College. Both will be involved in the process of appointing a new Rector.
PCC meeting on 24th January for what is known as the Section 11 meeting, to appoint 2 people as parish representatives, progress the Parish Profile, Consider advertising the role of Rector, request a section 12 meeting with the Bishop, request a written statement from Bishop and to consider whether the PCC should vote on resolutions A and B of the Priests (ordination of women) Measure.
Our schedule ahead of us
Monday 8 April 2013 or Wednesday 10 April 2013 Section 12 meeting. PCC representatives, Patrons and the Bishop plus the Area Dean or Deanery Lay Chair should be invited. This meeting is to make final arrangements and to approve the advert.
Friday 26 April 2013 and Friday 3 May 2013 Advert in the Church Times
Friday 10 May 2013 Closing date for applications
Tuesday 14 May 2013 or Wednesday 15 May 2013 Short listing
Monday 20 May 2013 or Friday 31 May 2013 Interviews
If someone is appointed at the end of May, then they will probably give 3 months notice so hopefully be in place in September 2013.
All of us have an important part in this process. That is to pray that God will guide us and hopefully bring the right person to be appointed as the new Rector for the Parish of Caversham Thameside and Mapledurham.
Peter Stratton
Churchwarden and Vice Chair of PCC
The Quiet Hour-Exploring Mindfulness
Ever felt there must be more to life? Well good news, there is! And it’s right here in front of us. We just need to stop and take notice.Learning to be more mindful and aware can do wonders for our well-being in all areas of life – like our walk to work, the way we eat or our relationships our prayer life. It helps us get in tune with our feelings and stops us dwelling on the past or worrying about the future – so we get more out of the day-to-day. By becoming focused on the here and now we can get closer to God, we can learn to pray.
Last Saturday we met as a group in the Parish Rooms and began to learn how to focus and notice our lives up close, leading to relaxation and a feeling of peace. The key to taking notice of our lives is ‘mindfulness’. Mindfulness is often defined as “the state of being attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present “.Two critical elements of mindfulness are that:
It is intentional (i.e. we are consciously doing it); and
We are accepting, rather than judging, of what we notice.
In other words, mindfulness is “openly experiencing what is there.” It is about having as full as possible awareness of what is around us – what we can see, hear, touch and taste. And what is happening inside – our thoughts and feelings. Crucially it is about observing all this but not getting caught up in thinking and worrying about what we are observing. It then gives us more control of what we decide to give our attention to.
A growing number of scientific studies are showing the benefits of mindfulness in many aspects of our lives including our physical and mental well-being, our relationships and our performance at school and at work. And it appears to have benefits for everyone, from children through to the elderly. One researcher even suggests that once learnt, mindfulness has a ‘transmitting’ quality. Its benefits increase over time and with practice and can spread to many areas of our daily lives.
Yet mindfulness is something that, in today’s busy, multi-tasking world, few of us do naturally – but it’s something everyone can learn and benefit from. It’s simple, yet can feel hard until you learn how. That’s why it takes practice.
I hope to run this Quiet Hour on the last Saturday of every month next meeting February 24th. Please arrive at the Parish Rooms (attached to the Rectory) at 2.45pm so we can sit down at 3pm. The door will be shut promptly at 3pm so we can begin without disturbance.
Ring or email me if you would like to know more.
Marion Pyke
Elevenses
During my time at St Peters one of the things that has been most important to me has been helping to run Elevenses. Elevenses started off as a confirmation group and have gone on to become a very strong youth group. We may not be large in number but I have felt hugely privileged to be part of this committed group. They are interested, thoughtful, interesting and fun. They can also eat large amounts of chocolate and baked goods! Whether we have been engaged in discussions about the meaning of life, watching films together or playing extremely competitive board games I have felt a sense of fellowship which is hard to beat! As I prepare to say goodbye I would like to ask you to consider joining Elevenses as a leader so that they can continue to meet. Graeme does all the hard work and as co-leader it is about turning up and joining in. I can guarantee that you will get more out of it than you put in!
Sarah Tyndall
Streaming St Peter’s
For quite sometime, now, I have been working with a group of people to stream the Services from St Peter’s on the internet. Let me briefly explain why.
Over the few years that I have been here, it has come to the attention of various people that it is all too easy for the older members of our congregations to ‘disappear’ once they move from a house to a nursing home. Marion has done a brilliant job in bringing together a pastoral group – the Olive Branch – who visit and support many people who are connected with our Church. The streaming group hopes to add to this, by enabling nursing homes to show our Services to the residents. Whilst the quality is not quite up to that of Songs of Praise, streaming is a cheap and efficient way of making the Services available to those who are unable to come along in person.
Just in case you’re worried about suddenly becoming an internet star: only the ministers, choir and altar party would be visible. Also, the camera would be switched off during the distribution of Communion, so that everyone can receive from the altar without being watched!
If you have any questions or concerns, please do speak to me before the next St Peter’s Church Leadership Team on Ash Wednesday.
If this does become established in the various nursing homes across Caversham, then we hope to be able to offer the option for people to come from the Service in Church and bring Communion to those places. All of this, we hope, will serve to assure those who have been long-standing members of the Church, that the inability to get out does not mean they stop being a member of the Body of Christ.
‘Though we are many, we are one Body, because we all share in the one Bread.’
Graeme Fancourt
Making Use Of That Which Is Lent
I could be accused of just playing with words, but I like playing with words … indeed, without the ability to play with words where would our communication be? I like the notion that ‘Advent’ is very similar to ‘Invent’; I like the fact that both contain the word ‘vent’ which (as I’m sure you know) is French for wind; and I enjoy playing with the link between that and the Holy Spirit which came upon the disciples at Pentecost as a wind.
And the same playfulness can be brought to bear on our reflections about Lent: both a period of preparation for Easter, and something that is borrowed or on loan. Part of our preparation for Easter is looking forward to the ultimate truth of our faith: the moment of Christ’s transformation of death by his resurrection. Any serious contemplation of this will lead inexorably to some thoughts of our own mortality and our hope for whatever is to be encountered beyond the grave: our own transformation and resurrection.
Which leaves me wondering, what am I doing with this life that I have been Lent? Am I caring for it, nurturing it, looking after it as one would look after a valuable piece of silver or a precious artefact that we had been lent by a friend. And we are encouraged to believe that He who lends us this life is closer to us than any friend, and loves us more deeply than any lover can. And we also proclaim that what He has lent us is, somehow, part of His very being. He became flesh in the manger and we encounter Him again at every Eucharist. By taking Him into ourselves we share His divinity just as He shared our humanity.
We have been entrusted with this most extraordinary life, by God who loves us more than we can ever know. What shall we do with what we have been lent?
Dan Tyndall
Jeremy’s Jottings
You may be aware that a significant part of my role as the parish’s community priest is to develop a ‘fresh expression of church’ in the St. John’s part of the parish. A fresh expression of church can be defined as a form of church set up for those who don’t already go to church. With that aim in mind, I gathered together in the autumn of 2010 a small group of people from St. Peter’s, St. John’s and our local Methodist churches to work with me. We began to meet monthly to pray and to conduct a mission audit of our parish with a view to discerning where God was calling us to work with Him. What emerged was a desire to work with young people aged 7-11 who live on the Amersham Road estate who at that time had no activities provided for them. One of the activities some of them were asking for was a cooking club and so the ‘ARCC’ (Amersham Road Cooking Club) was begun in May 2011.
Originally, the cooking club ran on a termly basis on a Wednesday after school at the estate’s Youth and Community Centre. We introduced the children to a variety of fairly simple, cost effective and healthy foods which they could use in their own homes. We also had a different craft each week and some fairly energetic games, which helped to burn off the youngsters energy. This worked well for about a year and involved our working alongside the council, one of the local housing associations and local mums. However, after a while, different priorities emerged for our partners and the church was left ‘holding the baby’ so to speak. So during the autumn last year we ran a couple of taster sessions for children and their families, which were well attended, as we sought to model a new way of working. This also includes a regular ‘thought for the day, grace before meals and a greater emphasis on building relationships by eating together.
We have just re-launched ARCC this past month and we now meet on a Sunday afternoon between 4-6 p.m., still at the centre. We are meeting on the third Sunday of each month and hope that this will enable more family members to join us. It is early days yet but we do hope and pray that the ARCC will continue to be an effective way of serving the needs of some of those who live on the estate, as well as gradually introducing them to the Christian faith which we hold, and ultimately developing a contextually appropriate worshipping community. If you would like further information about the Fresh Expressions Team and the Amersham Road Cooking Club, please speak to me or Sue Jenkins/Sylvia Chumbley at St. Peter’s or David Salisbury/Linda Shannon at St. John’s.
Jeremy Tear