PCC Anual Report
PCC Anual Report
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Who we are
We are a busy church that sees many people come through our doors. We are the civic church that celebrates and mourns with the town on special occasions and with individual families that are grieving. Many people look to this as their church – whether they worship here or not. We have a huge responsibility to a vast number of people and a great opportunity to share God’s love with all of them.
Our direction
As a Parish Church we exist to be a community that learns to love our neighbour. We are creating good facilities that say to Christian and non-Christian groups alike that they are worthy and first class and welcome. Over the last year I have used a number of opportunities to teach on how and why I am leading this church. I strive to encourage diversity in worship, a welcome to all with an emphasis on sharing God’s love. I am continually working to raise up more lay leaders and multiple teams in ministry – resting upon CPAS’ mission statement that ‘Growing Churches Grow Leaders’. I am continuing to look for new spaces/new ministries or new ways of doing traditional ministries so that people who do not currently feel included can start to be and feel included. People do not grow by having church done to them (it was never meant to be a passive activity) but by finding their distinctive place in God’s mission and joining in. I also am working hard to ensure that everyone is involved in decisions about their church. Our annual Parish Day has borne considerable fruit and given a number of people a real opportunity to share their hopes and fears for the future mission and worship at our church. I intend that these opportunities both to continue and to grow.
2008/2009
Last year saw many new additions to an already busy church. The office has grown in staff (paid and volunteer) and has taken on so much more including the bookings now being taken for the Church, the Hall and the Cecil Norman. Olive, as Rural Dean, has taken on considerable more duties which is a blessing to us as she is beginning to draw together the collective resources and experiences of the whole deanery. The more we work together across the traditional boundaries the better. The sum of the parts being greater than the individual parts – see Bell Ringing for such as example!
We started an afternoon service BREAKOUT for families which is slowly growing. We have a home baptism visiting team. The All Age service has become more informal and is slowly drawing in new families. We have our bells rung regularly and practise night on Tuesday’s is enjoyed by many in our area – I have been stopped by numerous adults and told so! Many thanks to our team and Tuckingmill’s – a winning combination! We are slowly growing in our young additions to our choir – will this nostalgic experiment work? We shall see but it won’t be for lack of trying – our thanks to both choirs serving in different but equally wonderful ways – and especially to Ray, our wonderfully flexible organist, and Ken (who has recently retired as musical director of St. Martin’s Singers). Thank you, Ken – especially for Angel Voices which was a wonderful evening that glorified God and showed off many God-given talents.
We have seen our Worship Leaders develop and produce moving services in which people have been able to share their love for Jesus and their understanding of who God is. I am exceptionally grateful to the growing team of Clergy, Reader (and trainee Reader) and Lay Leaders who lead and prepare talks because I am able to worship and receive so much more from the diverse way that each person puts a service together. It reflects for me the diversity that is Trinity. We continue to offer training for our growing team of leaders on a monthly basis – all are welcome.
The Prayer Ministry Team offer prayer ministry every week after the morning service, they meet regularly for prayer and offer a healing ministry through the Wholeness and Healing service each month. The monthly prayer breakfasts continue to make prayer a basis for our lives and the life of our church. The newest addition to our prayer life is the monthly vigil on the first Wednesday of every month from 7.30pm to midnight. Lately I shared a conviction with the congregation that came from Nehemiah 1:4 – “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of Heaven.” Our actions should always come out of prayer.
A new PA system is in place and we are currently looking with our electricians at better lighting alongside better electrics in the church. We now have a number of community partners, the number is growing. DISC (Drop In and Share in Camborne) running 3 days a week from April 2009 with 2 employed community support workers and a number of volunteers brought in and vetted by the Job Centre/Volunteer Bureau, – our thanks to Glynn and Michelle who are working to support some very vulnerable people. This client group only 2 years ago had no support and were the source of headlines in our local newspapers. Some of this client group now regularly go through our churchyard picking up litter, others are now official volunteers. God does work in amazing ways! Last Christmas (2008), lunch was cooked for 50 homeless people, Maundy Thursday 2009 a roast dinner was cooked for 35 and grown men went away crying because they had been treated like human beings. Every day we are open we put on lunch for, on average, 35 people. We use the food as a vehicle to provide a listening, advocacy and referral service. We invite mental health workers, translators, Alcoholics Anonymous workers, Job Centre workers to come into the space and support individuals who have asked for assistance. Recently we became the first church in Cornwall to become a New Deal centre – attached to the local Job Centre. In June we are due to become part of the One-Stop shop for One Cornwall by providing a service for people struggling to fill in their benefit forms. Our volunteer base now comes from a combination of the church, ex-homeless and the job centre. Volunteers learn how to be a ‘Community Support Worker’ gaining experience, skills and a reference should they want one. In February our first volunteer, a Camborne mum, secured a job as a cook locally. We are growing in our volunteer base and in the number of community groups we support and provide space for.
Also MIND and their social group and Choice who support adult with learning difficulties who run a cafe out of our hall – both of whom have seen their numbers grow and grow. The Outreach lunches on Saturdays are something we should really celebrate. God has moved people from receiving ministry to themselves providing it. It was the client group who asked if they could raise money for the new cooker. We also have a team of Street Pastors that are out every Friday evening from 10pm to 3am and from Good Friday 2009 out every Friday afternoon from 2.30pm to 6pm.
We gave a new focus to our welcome team and many people have commented on how welcoming our church is. Nothing new, please remember this – all we did was reorganise and refocus what was already there.
The Cecil Norman building is now open and finished – April 2009 – with a disabled access toilet, shower, new cupboards, kitchenette with washing machine and tumble dryer. We have now raised £8500 through grants for this upgrade. Already a number of groups are booked to use it. This was a leap of faith and my personal thanks to the PCC for their courage in this decision. We still have £8000 to find to fully fit out the building but its only 3 months into our 12 month timescale and we are over half way there. My thanks to Edith Huntriss who has and continues to put considerable time into bid writing – we have literally thousands that we could apply to…!
The churchyard has recently had all its paths renewed and now people are seen to be walking through them, enjoying the peace of the sacred place. We now struggle to find the type of litter that was once on the front page of local newspapers. Our thanks to Brent Rogers for all his hard work every week and to Don Holmes for leading the improvements (paths, bird boxes, new plants etc…).
We have new railings, beautifully crafted by John Woodward. Our gates have been taken away and repaired and repainted to match with a lamp – designed from pictures of the original – that will be lighting the church gates shortly! It is going to be a very impressive sight. The town council will be, at their cost, creating some flower beds behind the railings either side of the main notice board.
Coming up…
This year we signed the FAMILY FRIENDLY CHARTER – which said the following:- At Camborne we express the love of God for us and our love for each other by working towards becoming a place where:-
1. All people are welcomed to worship God with us regardless of age, gender, race, ability and background.
2. We will encourage all those who are part of this community to grow in their Christian understanding and discipleship.
3. We will provide facilities that will make our premises and practices accessible to all.
4. We will do all in our power to ensure that all members of our community are kept safe from harm.
I have asked every group in our church to look at this in relation to how they operate and this is our ‘Plumb line’ to measure how we are progressing as a Family Friendly Church. In July we have the man who invented the ‘Family Friendly’ idea coming to spend time with the PCC and Ministry Teams, plus we will be hosting a whole day of training on Family Friendly Church for the Diocese.
We will, this summer, be creating new spaces inside the church for community groups to be able to use. The church will maintain its Victorian traditional feel but become more flexible in the spaces that will be created. Whilst these ‘refits’ and ‘changes’ will benefit the church – their primary aim, because we are a Parish Church, must be to serve the community and create new spaces and more flexible spaces for others to use. However, I also want to return our church in its activities to a pre-Victorian tradition – where the church building itself was used by huge number of the community for worship and for appropriate community and social events. This is why I have already spoken to the PCC about putting in an electronic 8ft screen (that would disappear when not needed) with a cinema quality projector. We already have the license to show any film we like and as well as using this facility during Worship for pictures, for words of songs, for Messy Church and schools in church – I also want to begin to offer (appropriately chosen) film nights open to the people of Camborne. Remember we once had barn dances in church; this is simply the modern equivalent. We believe in Camborne and its people. In doing this we believe that we are ‘proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom’. A Kingdom that is open to all, not just some.
We are waiting on faculties for a new notice board in the churchyard, the redesigning of the Garden of Remembrance and for a grant of 75% of the costs of refurbishing the Clink and Vestry. In addition to this we continue to work closely with the Police, the Council, other agencies (e.g. NC) and all the other churches in town and in the surrounding area. The Outreach Team (led by Marlene) will be planning at least one Alpha course this year. The plan is then to book a confirmation service near to Christmas for those wishing to make that public confession of faith. Susan Godolphin is organising our two main fundraising events (outside of Trevithick Day) each year, one in the summer and the other in the autumn.
Issues
We have very generous people who give weekly to maintain our beautiful buildings – feeding the Mission of this church and ensuring that we are here for the current generations and future ones. However, our budget has been in control of us for a few years now and this must stop. This will not be an easy task and this will NOT happen this year or next. This is a task for the entire church and not simply the PCC or the staff. I will be exploring with the Diocese and other churches all the options available in terms of stewardship and giving. Then we as a church will explore which options are right for us and what decisions we need to make about our finances. This cannot be a wishful task – “if only we had…”. We have considerable resources, the question is this – “How do we use them better and within our means?” We will take back control of our budget.
I must therefore also thank both Val Dalley and John Nicholas who do amazing things with money and spread sheets. We are immensely blessed to have these two looking after our finances and it must be difficult for them especially to see us continually drawing on our reserves. It won’t happen over night but it will stop.
Lastly
We say goodbye to people for various reasons. Barry and Elizabeth Coad have joined Tuckingmill Church and they go with our blessing and thanks for all their ministry at our church. We also remember those who have passed away especially Sheila Bennett, George Richards, Charles and Edith Randell, Evelyn Williams, David Hawke and Audrey Sanders (we are very grateful for the legacy she has left us).
This Lent we have explored what some of the issues are in our community not as an academic exercise but to galvanise our prayers and our actions. We know that we live in a poor area, but we also know that its riches are its people.
Your servant,