The Call to Mission
Epsom Deanery: Our Response
from NEWSLETTER #2, LENT 2025 (March)
At the beginning of January, Administrators, Office Managers, and Secretaries from the Deanery came together to discuss the Pastoral Plan and explore opportunities for collaboration and mutual support. The group acknowledged the time and challenges involved in ‘developing the correct path to change’ and made a number of practical suggestions, such as advertising events across the area, sharing information about hall rentals, etc.
Chairs of Finance from the nine existing parishes will be invited to meet soon. Discussions have also continued in our Deanery Clergy meetings, with a number of opportunities for greater collaboration identified, particularly during Lent.
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Creating a Parish Leadership Team
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Writing to the clergy of the Diocese, Bishop Richard has asked for the creation of a Parish Leadership Team for each new parish. He writes: In order to ensure the best possible communication and a collaborative approach to mission, each parish will develop a leadership team. This will be a small group of lay people and clergy who can unite around a shared vision for the parish. Each community will establish or develop their own representative team and some members from these teams will also be invited to form a parish-wide council which will meet frequently with the Leadership Team. How the Council and leadership teams are constituted is for local determination and guidance from the Formation team is available for this.
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We will therefore be forming a Parish Leadership Team, based on this mandate. It will have a mix of clergy and lay members, drawn from each of our nine existing parishes. Its task will be to develop a Vision for our new Parish and to draw up a local Plan (‘roadmap’) for moving towards it. As the work takes shape, we will be inviting everyone to get involved. We know that there are many questions that need to be addressed; we also know that we don’t even know all the questions yet, let alone all the answers!
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We will have the support of the Diocese as we progress and some Parishes in the Diocese are already further along this path than we are, so we will be able to learn from them as we take time to discern carefully, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the actions we should take. Over time, the role of the Parish Leadership Team will evolve into one focused on how to sustain and improve our ability to fulfil our Mission.
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Working out how we can all most effectively work together to do this will need the support – and, especially, the prayers – of the whole Deanery. It will take time. Please get involved.
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from NEWSLETTER #3, PENTECOST 2025 (June)
Since our last newsletter…
Deanery clergy have been continuing to reflect and discuss the Pastoral Plan in their regular meetings and, shortly after Easter, the clergy met with Bishop Richard to share their reflections to date, gain a better understanding of some particular issues, and seek his guidance about the way forward. It was a good meeting, open and constructive, and helped to deepen clarity about the Plan that will in turn better enable effective and enthusiastic action.
We will now need to move forward with the plans I outlined in the last newsletter, in particular, continuing to identify the individuals in each of our existing communities who will come together as the new Parish Leadership Team. This group will play a key role in helping to shape our local plans so that, as a community of communities, we can be truly mission-focused.
As a clergy team, we have also been discussing the possibility of holding some ‘Open Meetings’, in a number of locations across the deanery, to give everyone the opportunity to engage directly with our evolving plans and to commit their own energies to helping us make them happen. The best time to hold such meetings is something we are still discussing.
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One specific aspect of the way forward is a presentation, which I will have to make, to the Council of Priests of the Diocese, whose advice the Bishop is obliged to seek, particularly their opinion that any proposed changes are for the more effective service of the mission of the Church. Each deanery will have to present local plans to the Council of Priests before the Bishop can enact the formal canonical change. It is Bishop Richard’s ambition that all the existing deaneries should be formally established as new parishes by the end of this year, but agrees that “the pace of change needs to be tailored to local circumstances”.
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A paper has been prepared to help us reflect on the question: are we ready? What this means is that although it's not necessary for all arrangements to be in place before canonical change happens, there is a sense that there should be sufficient understanding and willingness to take the next step. (Each person will undoubtedly have their own opinion about where to strike the balance between these two.) Some of these conversations have been had in parishes; some have been had at the Deanery level (Deanery Clergy Meetings / the gathering of Core Teams at St Andrew's / the meeting together of Finance Chairs / this Deanery newsletter!); but there is still more to do. Please do look out for opportunities to share in these conversations.
from NEWSLETTER #4, AUTUMN 2025 (September)
Moving forward with the Pastoral Plan
Working across the Diocese
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At regular intervals throughout the year, Bishop Richard and the Pastoral Plan Reference Group (the diocesan clergy, trustees and staff assisting with the implementation of the Pastoral Plan) meet with Moderators-to-be to pray together, reflect on the journey so far, think about next steps, and consider how the Formation Team and Reference Group can continue to support Deaneries. We last met on 17th-18th June and heard from each of the Deaneries about the meetings being held, challenges addressed, and plans made. As you may have seen from the Diocesan weekly e-bulletin, three Deaneries have now presented to the Council of Priests; and as the Bishop noted in his Pastoral Letter last weekend, the first of these, Brighton & Hove, has now been formally constituted as single parish. The other two are expected to follow this autumn.
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We also spent some time at the last meeting reflecting on The Bible Society Report The Quiet Revival, which reports an uptick, not only in Church attendance, but in prayer and Bible study, particularly among young people. (The Report is free and can be requested from The Bible Society.) It made for an interesting and hopeful discussion, also challenging us to think about what implications this might have for us as missionary disciples? Are we ready to welcome people coming to our Churches? Do we have the opportunities many are seeking for faith development? How might we do this together?
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Working together across Epsom Deanery
Just before the summer holidays, our new Parish Leadership Team met for the first time at St Ann’s, Banstead, and earlier this month we met for the second time. Excellent hospitality on both occasions helped us begin to get to know each other, as the Team draws people from each of the nine current parishes. It’s a representative team, but not a team of representatives, and to help ensure we have a common sense of where we are and where we’re going as we become one new Parish, we spent some time at both meetings thinking about our vision for the new Parish, using the concepts from section 1.5 of The Word Who is Life of ‘communities of saints’ and ‘schools of discipleship’.
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In September, we also began to develop plans for how everyone in our communities will be able to deepen their engagement with the process and identifying tangible ways of working more effectively together for the good of the mission of the Church. In particular, we agreed to work towards a series of Parish Meetings across each of our communities, to share what is proposed – and what is not proposed – for our New Parish and how we will address together the issues that we will need to work through. Diaries permitting, these meetings are likely to be held between mid-January and mid-February.
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The Team will continue to meet monthly and we will share our progress and seek wider help as necessary. The date for presenting our plans to the Council of Priests and Bishop Richard is yet to be fixed.
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The Deanery Clergy will also continue to meet monthly to ensure that all our emerging plans support the spiritual and pastoral needs of all our communities and to continue to reflect on how we serve the communities of the parish and support each other when we're ministering as clergy in solidum. [Ed: this is the term used in Canon Law, essentially meaning “all together”.]
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In tandem, our local Chairs of Finance have a very important role to fulfil in formulating how our new Parish arrangements will work financially. By the time you read this message, they will have met with the Diocesan Chief Operating Officer, Sarah Kilmartin, who has produced a document entitled The Word Who is Life – Financing the Mission. This is designed to give re-assurance and clarity, looking at the relationship between a new Parish Finance Committee and local stewardship groups. As we noted in Issue #2 of this newsletter, we will still need to be able (both under Canon Law and as a charity) to ring-fence funds given for specific purposes and we need to get the right balance between supporting local community activities and enabling the new Parish to work collectively for our common good.
