Dear all,
Summer is now upon us and we are all enjoying, or enduring, the heat. I hope you are able to make the most of this season and can find time for rest and relaxation. Here are a few key notices which I need to circulate:
Living Faith in Milton Keynes
A draft Deanery Plan was launched at the Deanery Pastoral Committee on Wednesday 1st July. It was produced after six months of reflection and discussion and reflects a great deal of thought. It will be discussed at Synod on the 23rd September, but the deadline for comments will be the end of October. We intend to put a the new plan to the Synod for formal ratification on January 27th 2010. This time-scale has been lengthened so that there is plenty of time for people to comment and contribute to our thinking so that we develop a really useful strategy for mission and ministry.
There are ten hard copies for each church, but you can download an electronic copy from www.livingfaith.mkdeanery.org - You can also view the draft plan on-line and make comments.
Please do have a look. We hope that this process will give us more clarity about our work together and the way we can support each other in mission and ministry.
Tim Clapton
Our development Chaplain, Tim Clapton, has decided to move to London but will be working with us part-time over the coming year to help us think about his future. For more details, please see his newsletter, or follow this link: Tim Clapton.
Mission Shaped Ministry
We are hosting a major regional mission course next year which is a huge opportunity for us in Milton Keynes. For more details about the course visit: msm. To book a place call or email Peter Ballantine.
Deanery Secretary
We are looking for a volunteer to act as Deanery Secretary. The Deanery has a part-time administrator who works two hours a week. This is really helpful but we also need a lay volunteer to focus on minutes and agendas so that things run smoothly. For more details, please download the Deanery Secretary Job Description.
Deanery Lay Chair
We are also looking for a new Deanery Lay Chair now that Paul Bright has completed his term of office. We will miss Paul since he had built up a great deal of wisdom and experience. Over the next couple of months we will be asking people to nominate a new Lay Chair, so please share any thoughts you may have. For more details, please see Lay Chair's Responsibilities, Lay Chair in Milton Keynes Deanery or download the Diocesan Handbook for Area Deans and Lay Chairs.
Fresh Expressions
Looking ahead to the Autumn, a small group has been formed to develop CafeChurch in Milton Keynes - starting in the City Centre working with Christ Cornerstone. If you'ld like to be part of this project, please let me know.
There will also be a FEAST Day on Sunday September 27th between 4:00pm and 7:00pm which will be an opportunity for networking, conversations and tasters. I'll send more details out soon but do pop it in your diary if you think it may be for you...
Have a great summer, all the best,
Tim Norwood
Showing posts with label area dean's notices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label area dean's notices. Show all posts
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Happy Easter
Dear Friends,
I hope you had a very positive Holy Week and Easter and enjoyed some time off in the midst of your life and work. I'm just writing to you with some news and updates from the Anglican Deanery as the summer term begins.
Names, addresses and the year book
As you probably know, we did some work last term with the diocese to tidy up the arrangement and details of our entries in the diocesan year book. There will be more work to do on this as the new book is produced and the diocese will want to double check our entry. We also need to discuss with them how we include the details of chaplains and religious orders. I'll probably be sending out a draft at some point for you to check.
At the same time, of course, there will also be changes of officers after the annual meetings. Could you please make sure that any changes are sent to the diocese and to Jenni our administrator (admin@mkdeanery.org or 01908 568586).
The Archdeacon's Visitation
Speaking of officers, the annual swearing in of church wardens will be taking place at St Mary and St Giles in Stony Stratford on Wednesday May 6th at 7:30pm. Everyone is welcome, so please feel free to come and support your church wardens. If you can't come, please remember to pray for them, since they do so much for the ongoing life and work of our churches.
Deanery Strategy Group
The Strategy Group will be meeting on Thursday 23rd April to talk about the diocesan vision, "Living Faith". This meeting will now be at 8:00pm at St George's Wolverton so that it can follow the St George's Day Patronal festival service. If you would like to join us for this meeting, please drop me a line.
Fresh Expressions
Unfortunately, the Mission Shaped Intro course planned for the summer term has had to be cancelled due to lack of bookings. I suspect this was partly because the main advertising came out rather late in the day... The Fresh Expressions Project Group is still keen to expand this work and is happy to talk to local churches or groups if that would be helpful.
Preparations are still under way for the year long Mission Shaped Ministry course that we will be hosting in Milton Keynes next year. This will involve people from a much wider area and should be really positive. I attach the posters for this again, and there should be hard copies available soon.
At the same time there is a group coming together to think about working with Costa Coffee to explore the possibility of cafe church in Milton Keynes. This involves some training through the CafeChurch Network. If you want to know more, please get in touch.
We're hoping to put on some more networking events to bring together our entrepreneurs and creative thinkers to share ideas and support each other. I'll circulate more details when I have them...
Music and Message
Speaking of Fresh Expressions, I will be talking about this area of mission at the next Music and Message event at Shenley Brook End Community Centre on the 9th May at 7pm. I've attached the details of this event.
Local Shared Ministry
The Local Shared Ministry Project Group was set up following our last Deanery Plan and has been looking at ways to encourage and develop local and shared forms of ministry. This work started with an exploration of how people have developed "collaborative" or "mutual" ministry elsewhere, but has increasingly focussed on local ideas which have been developing in our own city. This group is now getting to the stage where it really wants to start a conversation with other parishes and churches about where this is all going... If you'd like us to come out and share our discoveries and ideas with you or you'ld just like to tell us what you think, please get in touch.
Jeremy's Sabbatical
Jeremy Trigg from Wolverton will be on sabbatical from the 29th April and will be doing some focussed reading. During the next three months if you need to contact anyone about business involving either of the two Wolverton parishes, please get in touch with the church wardens.
Funeral Collections
As you may know, the Chancellor John Rees came to Deanery Chapter recently to talk about a range of legal issues. One question that was raised concerned collections at funerals. After the meeting, Jeremy pursued this further on our behalf and has been given the following advice by Karen and John:
The Starting Point is that all collections taken within Church Funerals are for Church Funds and a collection plate should have beside it a notice clearly pointing this out.
Where donations have been asked for a Charity people should be asked to send their donations direct to the Charity (via the Funeral Director if this is what the Family have requested), this should be clearly stated on Service Sheets and in a note at the side of the retiring collection for Church Funds.
Collections should be counted by two people at the end of the service, entered in the Service Register and banked in the normal way.
However a PCC may pass a resolution to allow collections for nominated charities to be made in Church, but are advised not to. This is important. It cannot be done by the Ministers Discretion.
Where a PCC has passed such a resolution, the collection should be counted in the same way after the service and entered in the service Register with a note that this collection is to be given to the charity of Choice. If there is a representative of the Charity present at the time that representative may be given the collection provided that they count it in the presence of a Church Officer and sign a receipt for it, this receipt to be held in the PCC's records. Otherwise the money should be banked in the normal manner and the amount sent by cheque to the nominated charity. Under no circumstances should the funeral director be allowed to take the money away nor place their own collecting box in church nor collect on church land.
If we follow this procedure the Chancellor will defend us if any accusations are made. If we don't we are on our own.
As I say, this is the official advice.
Strangers into Citizens
Hopefully you've had the following notice from Tim Clapton:
Bank Holiday: It's a time for gardening and chilling out. But there are two Bank Holidays in May. I would like to invite you to join me and a coach load of others from MK to speak up for 700,000 people who are too afraid to speak up for themselves.
The campaign is "Strangers Into Citizens" – calling for a pathway to citizenship for those who have been waiting too long to hear about their asylum application, an earned amnesty or regularization for those who have settled into the UK community, made a contribution to our society but who do not have papers to be here. A couple of weeks ago a child was dragged out of school by armed police in Camberwell so our government could throw the whole family out of UK. They had been here for years paying taxes ! This sort of thing is happening every day. See http://www.strangersintocitizens.org.uk/
We are going to London on the 4th May – £10 for your place on the coach. It will be a family fun day and an opportunity to do other things in London. Do please pass on this message to others you know on Facebook and who live in MK. More details ring 07958182077. cheers Tim C.
Deanery Communications
Comminications in a deanery are always tricky and there are added complications here because we do so much on an ecumenical basis. On the other hand there are many items of anglican news and information which do need to be shared - and certain notices which need to be shared through the anglican network.
We have no plans to set up a news letter at the moment, but I will continue to circulate news and notices to a wide group of anglicans and to our partners in other denominations. If you know of anyone who I should include on my circulation list, please let me know. If you are no longer an office holder and don't want to get messages about the deanery, please let me know as well and I will stop sending you information.
We do have a web site which was set up when the last deanery plan was produced. This largely consists of links to parish web sites, meeting dates and local rss feeds. It has also been used as a place to access files and information. It can be found at www.mkdeanery.org
Please let me know of any thoughts or ideas you may have about communications in the deanery.
Happy Easter
Anyway, I hope you have a very happy Easter and that you enjoy all 50 days!
All the best - -
Tim N
I hope you had a very positive Holy Week and Easter and enjoyed some time off in the midst of your life and work. I'm just writing to you with some news and updates from the Anglican Deanery as the summer term begins.
Names, addresses and the year book
As you probably know, we did some work last term with the diocese to tidy up the arrangement and details of our entries in the diocesan year book. There will be more work to do on this as the new book is produced and the diocese will want to double check our entry. We also need to discuss with them how we include the details of chaplains and religious orders. I'll probably be sending out a draft at some point for you to check.
At the same time, of course, there will also be changes of officers after the annual meetings. Could you please make sure that any changes are sent to the diocese and to Jenni our administrator (admin@mkdeanery.org or 01908 568586).
The Archdeacon's Visitation
Speaking of officers, the annual swearing in of church wardens will be taking place at St Mary and St Giles in Stony Stratford on Wednesday May 6th at 7:30pm. Everyone is welcome, so please feel free to come and support your church wardens. If you can't come, please remember to pray for them, since they do so much for the ongoing life and work of our churches.
Deanery Strategy Group
The Strategy Group will be meeting on Thursday 23rd April to talk about the diocesan vision, "Living Faith". This meeting will now be at 8:00pm at St George's Wolverton so that it can follow the St George's Day Patronal festival service. If you would like to join us for this meeting, please drop me a line.
Fresh Expressions
Unfortunately, the Mission Shaped Intro course planned for the summer term has had to be cancelled due to lack of bookings. I suspect this was partly because the main advertising came out rather late in the day... The Fresh Expressions Project Group is still keen to expand this work and is happy to talk to local churches or groups if that would be helpful.
Preparations are still under way for the year long Mission Shaped Ministry course that we will be hosting in Milton Keynes next year. This will involve people from a much wider area and should be really positive. I attach the posters for this again, and there should be hard copies available soon.
At the same time there is a group coming together to think about working with Costa Coffee to explore the possibility of cafe church in Milton Keynes. This involves some training through the CafeChurch Network. If you want to know more, please get in touch.
We're hoping to put on some more networking events to bring together our entrepreneurs and creative thinkers to share ideas and support each other. I'll circulate more details when I have them...
Music and Message
Speaking of Fresh Expressions, I will be talking about this area of mission at the next Music and Message event at Shenley Brook End Community Centre on the 9th May at 7pm. I've attached the details of this event.
Local Shared Ministry
The Local Shared Ministry Project Group was set up following our last Deanery Plan and has been looking at ways to encourage and develop local and shared forms of ministry. This work started with an exploration of how people have developed "collaborative" or "mutual" ministry elsewhere, but has increasingly focussed on local ideas which have been developing in our own city. This group is now getting to the stage where it really wants to start a conversation with other parishes and churches about where this is all going... If you'd like us to come out and share our discoveries and ideas with you or you'ld just like to tell us what you think, please get in touch.
Jeremy's Sabbatical
Jeremy Trigg from Wolverton will be on sabbatical from the 29th April and will be doing some focussed reading. During the next three months if you need to contact anyone about business involving either of the two Wolverton parishes, please get in touch with the church wardens.
Funeral Collections
As you may know, the Chancellor John Rees came to Deanery Chapter recently to talk about a range of legal issues. One question that was raised concerned collections at funerals. After the meeting, Jeremy pursued this further on our behalf and has been given the following advice by Karen and John:
The Starting Point is that all collections taken within Church Funerals are for Church Funds and a collection plate should have beside it a notice clearly pointing this out.
Where donations have been asked for a Charity people should be asked to send their donations direct to the Charity (via the Funeral Director if this is what the Family have requested), this should be clearly stated on Service Sheets and in a note at the side of the retiring collection for Church Funds.
Collections should be counted by two people at the end of the service, entered in the Service Register and banked in the normal way.
However a PCC may pass a resolution to allow collections for nominated charities to be made in Church, but are advised not to. This is important. It cannot be done by the Ministers Discretion.
Where a PCC has passed such a resolution, the collection should be counted in the same way after the service and entered in the service Register with a note that this collection is to be given to the charity of Choice. If there is a representative of the Charity present at the time that representative may be given the collection provided that they count it in the presence of a Church Officer and sign a receipt for it, this receipt to be held in the PCC's records. Otherwise the money should be banked in the normal manner and the amount sent by cheque to the nominated charity. Under no circumstances should the funeral director be allowed to take the money away nor place their own collecting box in church nor collect on church land.
If we follow this procedure the Chancellor will defend us if any accusations are made. If we don't we are on our own.
As I say, this is the official advice.
Strangers into Citizens
Hopefully you've had the following notice from Tim Clapton:
Bank Holiday: It's a time for gardening and chilling out. But there are two Bank Holidays in May. I would like to invite you to join me and a coach load of others from MK to speak up for 700,000 people who are too afraid to speak up for themselves.
The campaign is "Strangers Into Citizens" – calling for a pathway to citizenship for those who have been waiting too long to hear about their asylum application, an earned amnesty or regularization for those who have settled into the UK community, made a contribution to our society but who do not have papers to be here. A couple of weeks ago a child was dragged out of school by armed police in Camberwell so our government could throw the whole family out of UK. They had been here for years paying taxes ! This sort of thing is happening every day. See http://www.strangersintocitize
We are going to London on the 4th May – £10 for your place on the coach. It will be a family fun day and an opportunity to do other things in London. Do please pass on this message to others you know on Facebook and who live in MK. More details ring 07958182077. cheers Tim C.
Deanery Communications
Comminications in a deanery are always tricky and there are added complications here because we do so much on an ecumenical basis. On the other hand there are many items of anglican news and information which do need to be shared - and certain notices which need to be shared through the anglican network.
We have no plans to set up a news letter at the moment, but I will continue to circulate news and notices to a wide group of anglicans and to our partners in other denominations. If you know of anyone who I should include on my circulation list, please let me know. If you are no longer an office holder and don't want to get messages about the deanery, please let me know as well and I will stop sending you information.
We do have a web site which was set up when the last deanery plan was produced. This largely consists of links to parish web sites, meeting dates and local rss feeds. It has also been used as a place to access files and information. It can be found at www.mkdeanery.org
Please let me know of any thoughts or ideas you may have about communications in the deanery.
Happy Easter
Anyway, I hope you have a very happy Easter and that you enjoy all 50 days!
All the best - -
Tim N
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Area Dean's Notices
Dear friends,
I hope you're having a good Lent and finding time for yourself in the business of Church life. I've just got a few notices to circulate to Deanery Synod members before Holy Week begins...
The Diocesan Year Book
As most of you will know, we've been working with the Diocese to attempt to correct/amend the year book. I met with the Diocesan Secretary on Monday and we talked through all the issues that had been raised. We received over fifty suggestions for changes, and I hope most of them will appear in next year's book. Assuming all goes to plan the Mission Partnership will no-longer be known as "The Milton Keynes Deaf Church" and the minister of Spurgeon's Baptist Church will no-longer receive all the mail for St Frideswide's.
The Diocese have also welcomed the suggestion that the names of Chaplains could appear in the Deanery section. At the moment they are only listed in a section at the back.
These things may seem insignificant but they are important to some - and they can be symbolically important.
The season of annual meetings is fast approaching, so please make sure that you send in any changes so that next year's year book will be as accurate as we can make it.
Thanks for all who contributed to this project and sent in comments. I'm sure it was worth doing.
Deanery Share Rebate
Peter Green tells me that he was able to send in the two-tenths of the share required by the diocese before the end of March. This means that we will get a small amount of rebate - which will help pay our overall share - since we are still looking at a big shortfall this year. This will be a difficult year for many of us financially, so this achievement is worth celebrating. Please thank your treasurers for the extra effort that they may have made to pay early. In difficult times every little helps.
Deanery Strategy Group
At the January meeting of the Deanery Synod we commissioned a small group to do some work on our deanery strategy. Members of this group agreed that they would meet four times between February and September and would attempt both to review the existing Deanery Plan and help the deanery produce a new one.
They met in February and spent some time reviewing our current Deanery Plan: A Framework for the Future. I've attached a letter which sets out their conclusions - which you may wish to look through for yourself. Do you agree with their initial comments about the life and work of the deanery over the past few years? What would you like to add?
This is going to be fairly long process and the group will meet again on 23rd April to look at the Diocesan Vision: Living Faith. I'm sure it would be possible for others to join us on that evening, so please let me know if you're interested.
The Strategy Group hopes to bring an initial report to the next Deanery Synod at which this will be the main discussion item. There will be more opportunities for engagement as this project develops.
It is important however to strike a balance between involving people and giving them another huge burden. We will therefore try to make this a light and low key process - with regular opportunity for involvement, feedback and engagement.
One way that churches could engage with this process would be to answer four questions that may give us a sense of where the deanery is going. The Deanery Strategy Group would therefore like each church, parish or partnership to answer the following four questions if time allows:
1. How does your church community relate to its local area?
2. How are church members engaged in Christian service in the church and the world?
3. What relationships does your church community have with other churches/Christians?
4. What are your hopes for your church/parish over the next five years?
It would be particularly useful to know if there have been any changes or developments over the past two or three years. A brief answer would be fine and it would be really great if you could send us a response before the next meeting on the 23rd April if you can.
As you know, we've been trying to sort out this scheme and have agreed that the financial element will be wound up. Our hard working Deanery Treasurer, Tony Stanyer, is now in possesion of the books so we are well on the way to sorting this out. He and Jenni have begun the process of setting up a new scheme - without a financial element - so we should have good news at our next Synod meeting. I am hopeful that we should also be in a good place to return money to churches that have paid in.
Fresh Expressions
I'd also like to remind you that there will be a Mission Shaped Intro course starting on April 20th. This will be an opportunity to learn more about mission in contemprary culture. I've attached the flier.
When most Christians hear the words "fresh expressions" they tend to think about trendy services with coffee, candles and young people. There's nothing wrong with coffee, candles or young people, but it's important to remember that what we now call "fresh expressions" is really what Paul was talking about when he said, "I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some." The fresh expressions process begins with listening and loving service, moves on to community and discipleship and ends with Church. It's about mission rather than worship.
It would be really good to encourage people to think more about how they might do mission in their community, so please advertise this course and encourage people to come along. It might even be fun.
Have a good Easter and a well earned break if you are able to take one.
All the best - -
Tim N
Tim Norwood
tim.norwood@wvep.org
To find out what I'm up to, please visit my blog which can be found at www.timnorwood.name
See: www.mkdeanery.org, www.wvep.org
I hope you're having a good Lent and finding time for yourself in the business of Church life. I've just got a few notices to circulate to Deanery Synod members before Holy Week begins...
The Diocesan Year Book
As most of you will know, we've been working with the Diocese to attempt to correct/amend the year book. I met with the Diocesan Secretary on Monday and we talked through all the issues that had been raised. We received over fifty suggestions for changes, and I hope most of them will appear in next year's book. Assuming all goes to plan the Mission Partnership will no-longer be known as "The Milton Keynes Deaf Church" and the minister of Spurgeon's Baptist Church will no-longer receive all the mail for St Frideswide's.
The Diocese have also welcomed the suggestion that the names of Chaplains could appear in the Deanery section. At the moment they are only listed in a section at the back.
These things may seem insignificant but they are important to some - and they can be symbolically important.
The season of annual meetings is fast approaching, so please make sure that you send in any changes so that next year's year book will be as accurate as we can make it.
Thanks for all who contributed to this project and sent in comments. I'm sure it was worth doing.
Deanery Share Rebate
Peter Green tells me that he was able to send in the two-tenths of the share required by the diocese before the end of March. This means that we will get a small amount of rebate - which will help pay our overall share - since we are still looking at a big shortfall this year. This will be a difficult year for many of us financially, so this achievement is worth celebrating. Please thank your treasurers for the extra effort that they may have made to pay early. In difficult times every little helps.
Deanery Strategy Group
At the January meeting of the Deanery Synod we commissioned a small group to do some work on our deanery strategy. Members of this group agreed that they would meet four times between February and September and would attempt both to review the existing Deanery Plan and help the deanery produce a new one.
They met in February and spent some time reviewing our current Deanery Plan: A Framework for the Future. I've attached a letter which sets out their conclusions - which you may wish to look through for yourself. Do you agree with their initial comments about the life and work of the deanery over the past few years? What would you like to add?
This is going to be fairly long process and the group will meet again on 23rd April to look at the Diocesan Vision: Living Faith. I'm sure it would be possible for others to join us on that evening, so please let me know if you're interested.
The Strategy Group hopes to bring an initial report to the next Deanery Synod at which this will be the main discussion item. There will be more opportunities for engagement as this project develops.
It is important however to strike a balance between involving people and giving them another huge burden. We will therefore try to make this a light and low key process - with regular opportunity for involvement, feedback and engagement.
One way that churches could engage with this process would be to answer four questions that may give us a sense of where the deanery is going. The Deanery Strategy Group would therefore like each church, parish or partnership to answer the following four questions if time allows:
1. How does your church community relate to its local area?
2. How are church members engaged in Christian service in the church and the world?
3. What relationships does your church community have with other churches/Christians?
4. What are your hopes for your church/parish over the next five years?
It would be particularly useful to know if there have been any changes or developments over the past two or three years. A brief answer would be fine and it would be really great if you could send us a response before the next meeting on the 23rd April if you can.
As you know, we've been trying to sort out this scheme and have agreed that the financial element will be wound up. Our hard working Deanery Treasurer, Tony Stanyer, is now in possesion of the books so we are well on the way to sorting this out. He and Jenni have begun the process of setting up a new scheme - without a financial element - so we should have good news at our next Synod meeting. I am hopeful that we should also be in a good place to return money to churches that have paid in.
Fresh Expressions
I'd also like to remind you that there will be a Mission Shaped Intro course starting on April 20th. This will be an opportunity to learn more about mission in contemprary culture. I've attached the flier.
When most Christians hear the words "fresh expressions" they tend to think about trendy services with coffee, candles and young people. There's nothing wrong with coffee, candles or young people, but it's important to remember that what we now call "fresh expressions" is really what Paul was talking about when he said, "I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some." The fresh expressions process begins with listening and loving service, moves on to community and discipleship and ends with Church. It's about mission rather than worship.
It would be really good to encourage people to think more about how they might do mission in their community, so please advertise this course and encourage people to come along. It might even be fun.
Have a good Easter and a well earned break if you are able to take one.
All the best - -
Tim N
Tim Norwood
tim.norwood@wvep.org
To find out what I'm up to, please visit my blog which can be found at www.timnorwood.name
See: www.mkdeanery.org, www.wvep.org
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