Vicar’s Report

This is a slightly edited version of the report I gave to the Annual Meeting on 26th April.
‘They worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God’ (Luke 24: 52).
So Luke describes the disciples immediately after Jesus’ ascension to heaven. In a moment we’ll look back over the main events of the past year at St Matthew’s and look forward to what the next year might hold. But this verse again reminds us of what is central to our calling – to be people who continually and joyfully worship God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Paul tells us that it is our own bodies that are now the temple of the Holy Spirit rather than the temple in Jerusalem. Our commitment is therefore to worship God day in, day out, with our whole selves - heart, soul, mind and strength. As we continue to develop our ministry at St Matthew’s in many and varied ways, we must stay rooted in that commitment to continual, joyful worship.

For me, the key events of the past year have been:

• The development of our ‘St Matthew’s Values’, based around the phrase: ‘Open, Reconciling, Nurturing’ – words that are at the heart of God’s relationship with us, and therefore need to shape the relationship we have with him, each other and the outside community.

• We received a grant from the Bishop of London’s Mission Fund of £10,000 per year for up to 3 years. That enabled us to employ Robert Jones from September 2008 to develop Outline Theatre and take forward our outreach to young people. There are so many exciting opportunities linked to Outline, and Robert is working as hard and as creatively as ever.

• Vibe, our new youth group. So many churches either have too few young people to start a viable youth group, or if they have the young people, they don’t have enough willing helpers. We have both! At the first 2 meetings of VIBE, we’ve had 14 young people (and not the same 14 each time) and about 9 helpers!

• The amazing teamwork that has enabled us to redecorate so much of the building using our own resources. We have saved many thousands of pounds through people’s generous giving of their time and talents, and it’s a great joy to see St Matthew’s looking in such great shape for the anniversary celebrations. A very generous donation of £3500 paid for the work on the Parish Centre ceiling, and enabled us to use our own funds to pay for the Lounge, Lady Chapel and rest of the Parish Centre to be completed.

• The developing links with St Matthew’s School, particularly our 3-year Church-School Development Plan which the PCC has approved. Key parts of the plan are (1) establish a church-school liaison group (2) develop better after school provision using the church facilities (which will involve seeking funding to build a kitchen at long last!) and (3) obtain funding to employ a church-school worker, specifically to work with Year 6 children as they prepare to transfer to secondary school.

• The imminent installation of glass inner doors at the main entrance to the church. The plans have now been approved by the Diocese and the doors will be installed in the next few weeks in time for the visit of the Bishop of London.

• Our 150th anniversary celebrations which have occupied the 150th Anniversary Committee throughout 2008 and are now well underway. We’re planning to involve as many different parts of the community in the celebrations. But it’s a great deal of work, and at the moment the burden is falling on a small number of people. We will be looking to everyone at St Matthew’s to play your part, particularly when it comes to the Community Fun Day and Flower Festival on 5th July.

• Our Stewardship campaign which was held to address the level of our planned financial giving. I’ve written a more detailed article about the campaign elsewhere in this magazine. But it seems that the campaign was successful: approximately £23,200 was pledged for 2009 on the new pledge forms received, an increase of over £4000 form 2008. So thank you to all of you who responded with great generosity.

• The Faith in Willesden course, run by Penny Pedley who works for the Willesden Area. I was delighted by the commitment shown to the course by St Matthew’s people, and it has been very encouraging to hear how people have been enjoying the course and growing in their faith. After the course has finished in the summer, Kay Robinson is planning to start a Bible study group. As this was one of the things I hoped for in last year’s report, I was delighted when Kay mentioned this to me - a real God-moment!

• The arrival of Andrew and Era McCormick when Andrew was appointed as our Director of Music in January. Andrew brings just the right mixture of experience of traditional and contemporary Christian music, and a real desire to develop our worship to deepen our encounter with the living God. I’m excited at what we might develop in the coming year.

• The purchase of a new set of hymn books, made possible by using the money we saved by not having a Director of Music last year!

And what of the coming year? Here are some of the opportunities and challenges ahead:

• First of all, we will be saying farewell to Julia on 10 May as she leaves to become a Trainee Hospital Chaplain in Chelmsford. It’s an exciting time for Julia but sad for us at St Matthew’s. As I said in the magazine, Julia’s made a great impact in her nearly 4 years at St Matthew’s, and we have much to thank God for about Julia’s ministry, her love and care and particularly her passion for creativity and fun. And I shall miss Julia’s friendship and all the laughs we have had over the last 18 months.

• We need to try to integrate the many newcomers we have at St Matthew’s, but who mostly remain on the fringe.

• We also need to develop our ministry to the elderly and the housebound, and see whether we have the resources for a daytime group.

• We’ll be developing our monthly youth group VIBE, trying to grow the group and perhaps moving to meeting fortnightly.

• We’ll begin to plan for a Christian basics course, like Alpha, to be ready to start at the beginning of 2010.

• We will continue to develop creativity, vitality and openness to God in our worship, using a variety of traditional and contemporary music.

• Bruce will be licensed by the Bishop as Reader at St Matthew’s on Wednesday 7th October at 8pm. We look forward to seeing Bruce’s ministry develop.

• Our current baptism policy and practice needs to be looked at and revised so that we both welcome people but also recognise that baptism is intended to be a sign of genuine Christian commitment. The PCC will begin to look at this at its forthcoming Away Day on 9th May.

• We’ll need to work through the consequences of the recent eco-audit report on reducing the carbon footprint of our building.

• And hopefully, we’ll start to put together plans to build a kitchen and raise the necessary finance. (It goes without saying that this will be a long-term project.)

And while all that’s going on, I think we need make a concerted effort to take things at a slower pace in 2010 once the 150th celebrations are out of the way. Perhaps the biggest challenge of all!

Richard Young
Vicar

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Our Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
help us here at St Matthew’s Church
to serve you with joy
and to support our community with love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.