Update from Joint PCC meeting and the decisions made on Service Patterns
Do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43: 19-20
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
John 17:20-21
We had a really encouraging and united joint PCC meeting on 2nd October and Dave shares a summary of the discussions and the decisions made in a short video that you can access here.
More than anything we sensed God calling us to a new phase of working together even more closely for His Kingdom, where together we offered a variety of services and mission activities in order to serve God’s people and reach those in our communities who don’t yet know Jesus.
We want to thank everyone for contributing to the consultation process. All of the comments received were shared with the PCCs and you can find a summary of all the results here: Questionnaire Survey Responses SUMMARY September 2021
Dave’s full vision talk at the PCC meeting was recorded and can be viewed here.
The decisions made, following the consulation, about service patterns were as follows:
- That we permanently move to a single blended service at All Saints – for those from either church who are looking for a ‘mix of traditional and contemporary’ on a Sunday morning. the All Saints leadership team and PCC will now go away and pray and discuss more about what that looks like – its format (e.g. Communion every week?, Balance of traditional and contemporary?), provision for children and young people.
- The time for this service will remain at 10am (85% of people who expressed a preference voted for 10am)
- We continue with the contemporary service (10:30am) at St Andrew’s & Six (6pm) which would remain at St Andrew’s mainly but be held as a joint service on occasions up at AS (for example when we had a guest speaker). Both these services are open to people from either church who want this style of service.
- The Early Birds Service will continue as now (1st, 3rd, 5th Sundays).
- The Midweek service would remain at 11am on a Thursday (56% voted to retain the midweek service, 19% to move back to Sunday morning, 25% no preference) and, following the survey, we would look to develop a monthly lunch to build community and create more missional opportunities for this service.
- That we would pray and explore the possibility of a fresh expression Sunday gathering at the Octagon. The PCCs felt this was a stronger calling at the moment than exploring a service in the Malvern Wells Village Hall. But nothing would be started until we had a clear sense of God’s leading and a lay team who can lead and sustain this.
Thank you all for your prayers and support in this. These changes will not be easy for some and so we continue to be sensitive to each other, continue to pray and listen to God’s leading about the finer details and continue to transition slowly and together through these changes. But all the decisions made were unanimous and there was real unity amongst both PCCs that this was the way forward that God was leading us into in this next season.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to talk to Dave or Peter or any of the leaders at either church.
Let us pray that God will do a new thing amongst us.