The Call to Mission

SUMMARY

2024

September: Following the arrival of several newly-appointed clergy during 2024, the Deanery clergy met with Canon Kieron O’Brien (Episcopal Vicar for the Pastoral Plan) and Deacon Nick St John (Archdiocese of Birmingham, who has experience in change management) to begin to think through the aims of Bishop Richard’s Plan and the principles that underlie it. Conversations continued at Deanery Clergy meetings.

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November: just over 40 people from local ‘Core Groups’ and schools met at St Andrew’s School in Leatherhead and reflected on the question ‘what does mission mean or look like in your life?’.

 

2025

January - March:

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Administrators, Office Managers, and Secretaries from the Deanery came together to discuss the Pastoral Plan and explore opportunities for collaboration and mutual support.

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Discussions also continued in monthly Deanery Clergy meetings, with a number of opportunities for greater collaboration identified, particularly during Lent.

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In March, Fr Chris announced that we will be forming a Parish Leadership Team, in line with guidance from Bishop Richard, with 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, everyone will be invited to get involved.

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April - June:

Deanery clergy, having continued to reflect and discuss the Pastoral Plan in their regular meetings, met with Bishop Richard shortly after Easter to share their thoughts, to gain a better understanding of some particular issues, and to seek his guidance about the way forward. Plans to identify members of the new Parish Leadership Team continued to progress. The clergy team also discussed the possibility of holding Parishioner Events in each of our communities, although the best timing for these was yet to be decided.

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Diocese-wide view: In mid-June, Bishop Richard and the Pastoral Plan Reference Group (that is, the diocesan clergy, trustees and staff assisting with the implementation of the Pastoral Plan) met with Moderators-to-be from across the diocese, hearing from each of the deaneries about the meetings held, challenges addressed and plans made.

 

In July, our New Parish Leadership Team met for the first time, with the support of Lizzie Wakeling from the Pastoral Plan Reference Group. We spent some time reflecting on messages in the Pastoral Plan about Communities of Saints (cf. paragraph 1.5) and Schools of Discipleship (1.6), as well as the messages for us all from a recent 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.

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July - September:

Diocese-wide view: following presentation of plans from three deaneries to the Council of Priests and the Bishop for approval, the first of these, Brighton & Hove, was formally constituted as single parish at the start of September.

 

Our New Parish Leadership Team met for the second time in mid-September, getting to know each other at St Ann’s in Banstead. To help establish a common sense of where we are and where we’re going as we become one new Parish, we spent more time thinking about our vision for the new Parish. We also talked about what the team agreed was a priority for us, how to share our emerging plans with parishioners across all our communities and how they will be able to get involved in working through the details. We agreed to work towards a series of Parish Meetings across each of our communities, targeted for early in 2026, 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.

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Also in September, clergy and finance representatives from all our communities met with Sarah Kilmartin, A&B Chief Operating Officer, to begin the discussions around ‘how the money will work’ when we become a single Parish. It is expected that membership of the New Parish Finance Committee – a requirement under Canon Law – will be decide before the end of the year and draft finance arrangements will be drawn up ahead of the formal change.

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October - December:

In October, the New Parish Leadership Team spent most of its monthly meeting discussing how to approach the proposed Parishioner Events, including the structure and content of the events themselves and the supporting communications work – both to promote the events and encourage participation, and also to try to capture the widest possible range of what individual parishioners think are the opportunities and challenges within the Pastoral Plan, and the questions that they would like to see addressed as part of the events.

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The Deanery Clergy continues 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 will serve those communities and support each other when we're ministering in the new single Parish as clergy in solidum [this is the term used in Canon Law, essentially meaning “all together”].

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Proposals for the Parishioner Events are due to be agreed at the Leadership Team meeting in November.