APCM reports 2

AGENDA

Annual Meeting of Parishioners

1.Apologies
2.Minutes of 2021 meeting
3.Nomination and election of churchwardens for 2022-23

Annual Parochial Church Meeting

1.Apologies
2.Minutes of the 2021 meeting [Click here for minutes]
3.Matters arising
4.Presentation of the annual reports: [Click here for the Annual Reports] [Click here for the Safeguarding report]
5.Presentation of the PCC Accounts 2021 [Click here for the Treasurer’s Report] [Click here for the 2021 Accounts] [Click here for Charity Donations]
6.Appointment of the Independent Examiner of Accounts
7.Presentation of the Electoral Roll [Click here for the Electoral Roll report]
8.Appointment of Returning Officer (if necessary)
9.Election to the PCC
10.Date of next year’s APCM

Sunday 15th May 2022, Easter 5

Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

All around us God makes all things new.

May we open our eyes to see the new things that God is doing, God at work in and among us. Amen.

In the interests of trying to keep our worship a bit shorter this morning because of our Annual Meeting at the end of the Service, we haven’t read the first reading from Acts, but do have a look at it at home. You will find there Peter talking about the way in which God was leading the early church forward to become a community drawn from all nations, with God’s Spirit poured out, not just on the Jewish people, but on Gentiles too.

It has been a delight to me that we have welcomed new people from different nations into the worshipping life of our church in recent months – some of you from Nigeria, some from South India, and others from Hong Kong, to name but a few, and I know there are other nations represented here as well. I’m sure some of what we do here in St Mary’s may seem a bit strange to those of you who are from other cultures, but none the less, I do hope that you feel welcome.

An annual meeting gives us the opportunity to look back over the last year, to give thanks for all that has been in the life of our church, and to look forward to the future.

During the last year our Church Council has been spending time prayerfully considering our priorities in mission and ministry as a church. We re-affirmed our vision, which I hope you are all aware of - our vision statement appears every week on our weekly sheet: St Mary’s is here to proclaim and celebrate the love of God for all. We’ve been asking ourselves what we should be doing to make that vision a reality, and have focused our thinking in three areas: creating inclusive community, exploring spirituality, and outreach, particularly to children and to young people.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus spoke these words to his disciples: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you should love one another”. As Kate has said in her comment on the readings in this week’s sheet: easy to understand, but perhaps not so simple to do!

Yet this is the vision that we have signed up to as a church: our work is to make God’s love visible in the world, just as Jesus did. And that’s not easy, because Jesus loved without limit, and without any conditions. He loved everyone equally – the young and the old, women and men, people from all cultures and backgrounds, those who had nothing, and were sometimes treated as nothing, as well as the rich and the privileged. Jesus loved even when it cost him his life; he even forgave those who caused that suffering. A high ideal for us to even attempt to follow.

So we are indeed here to proclaim and celebrate the love for all – without conditions, and with no exceptions. And notice our vision statement says ‘we’ – St Mary’s – are here to proclaim and celebrate the love of God for all. It is our work to make God’s love visible in the world – not mine, not the ministry team – but it’s the combined work of all of us. My job is to help and encourage and enable you to live as God’s people, and proclaim and celebrate God’s love in the world. It’s exciting that we are growing, and that we have more people on our Electoral Roll than we did last year, but if we are to continue to grow, we need the infrastructure to sustain it. I can’t do it on my own.

What will it look like for us to proclaim and celebrate the love of God for all? Well, the priorities that we’ve identified give us a starting point.

We say we want to create inclusive community. So let’s be sure that our welcome really is inclusive. Here’s a challenge for you: can you try to get to know someone new over the coming weeks? It’s very easy after church to speak to someone you know already – but when we do that, we risk excluding some.

Within our second priority, exploring spirituality, the PCC felt that it would be good to try some new forms of worship from time to time. Some of you have already experienced the new service at the University chaplaincy on the first Sunday evening of the month that I’m involved in leading. Also coming up on the last Sunday evening of this month, I’m going to be leading some Taizé worship here in St Mary’s. Why not give it a go? Sometimes experiencing something different can inspire us in our faith and spirituality in new ways. It’s also important that we are a church community where it’s ok to ask questions rather than dealing in easy answers. Questions enable us to grow in faith and explore spirituality more than neat answers.

Finally, our third priority: outreach, especially to children and young people. Our junior church is growing, which is great, but we need more leaders to work with the children, and to be able to offer something for our older young people as well. Our Junior club on Wednesday evenings is also going well, thanks to Gerald and his team. Our schools work is growing, more than I can handle on my own, and I may be looking for some help with that over the coming year. I’m also aiming over the summer months to try to visit our families, to listen to their needs, and discover more about how we can best serve them as a church.

So, the message from me this morning is that we have lots of encouraging things happening in the life of our church. St Mary’s is a great place to be! But let’s not keep that to ourselves – we are here to celebrate and proclaim the love of God to others. And let’s not be afraid to offer our gifts, and play our part in this.

Do read the Annual Reports, if you haven’t done so already, they are on the website, and we also have some hard copies available. They give an encouraging picture of all areas of our church life.

And I want to end by saying thank you: thank you all who contribute to our church life in so many different ways, and thank you to each one of you for being part of our church. As we move into God’s future for us, let’s continue to proclaim God’s love for all, and each do our own little bit towards God’s work of renewal – a renewal that one day will lead to nothing less than a renewed heaven and a new earth – but a work of renewal that begins with us, now, today. Amen.

Here are all the reports for the

Annual Parochial Church Meeting

on Sunday 15th May (after the 10am service)