CURATE'S REPORT 2008
I am now in my second year of curacy and am continuing to learn and understand more about ministry, church leadership and the complexities of parish life. It has been a year of significant personal growth where I feel both my confidence and skills have increased.
There have been several highlights, one being my ordination in June to the priesthood enabling me to preside at Holy Communion and to convey Gods forgiveness and blessing, a privilege and a responsibility beyond words. Another has been the new experience of being a part of a growing ministerial team and seeing the gifts of others being encouraged and developed. Being involved with preparing children for their fist Holy Communion and seeing the positive effects this has had upon our church community was the icing on a very generous cake.
Throughout the year I have become more involved with children's ministry both with Abbacus and by undertaking assemblies and other work in our local primary schools. The school work continues to be a personal challenge.
I have continued my involvement with; Blackheath Churches together, Hope 08 events and with people from other faiths through the Asian Elderly Group.
Most of my time has been spent gaining practical experience in the bread and butter work of parish ministry and management which I enjoy very much including; home and hospital visiting, sermon writing, prayer, visiting groups, funeral and wedding ministry. I have also taken some services at our neighbouring churches of St Giles and St James and have continued to attend curate training sessions with a focus on mission and church initiatives.
I am amazed at how quickly my time here is passing. It feels to have been a productive and enjoyable year with many challenges and I am excited for the future of S Paul's church community. It is a great privilege to serve God in this place of much love and endless opportunity. Thank you all for your support, encouragement and patience as we continue to learn and share the love of God together.
God Bless You All
Ann Simmons, Assistant Curate.
Dear Friends,
In June I attended my first Birmingham Diocesan clergy conference, an event that is held every three years at Swannick conference centre. Like all firsts it was a little daunting, very noisy and demanding with a full programme of worship, bible study, reflection groups and lectures.
The theme of the event was Telling the Story; God's story, Our story and My story. Story sharing connects with our current Diocesan Transforming Church and Discipleship programme, the daily prayer diary booklets and the new Transform magazine (available at the back of church). Both of these publications are part of the current mission to share the essence of our faith.
The main bible texts studied were Philippians 2.1-11 and 1 Peter 2.1-10. The conference aim being to encourage us all to think about what it truly means to be the parochial church in the place where we are called to serve. The word parochial comes from the Greek word paroikos, with 'par' meaning alongside and 'oikos' meaning the household. In 1 Peter's time the Christian community because of their faith were considered to be outsiders. Today as St Paul's church we remain called to be alongside the households of the people of Blackheath, many of who still think of us as strange and outsiders.
Last year for our 140th anniversary celebrations we displayed St Paul's history in our church building and our gatherings were alive with the buzz of past events, but what was less apparent was the story of our present witness.
Rowan Williams wrote; 'The church is the community of those who have been immersed in Jesus life, overwhelmed by it. Those who are baptised have disappeared under the surface of Christ's love and reappeared as different people'
Only God's love has the power to transform us all into the beautiful people we are meant to be.
The conference made it clear that God is calling us all to tell our story now, to share our own personal faith journeys as a witness to Gods precious love made visible in our lives.
Jesus didn't leave us with any other strategy for church growth other than to tell the story, His story, our story and my story, the major challenge for the coming year is how are we going to do it as St Paul's?
With love and prayers,
Ann
