Pete Evans started the meeting by leading us in a quiz about the Parish, our boundaries and neighbouring parishes. It was fun and also a great reminder of who we serve. He read from the Church of England official PCC member booklet about a PCC members' role. They liken it to a life boat crew; our 'crew' is here to serve others who are not on our team. We looked at educational settings with our parish and then prayed for the parish as a whole and especially for those who are within the educational settings, such as staff and children.
Dan and Angel shared the good news that there will be provision for children on the fourth Sunday each month from January 2024.The PCC was pleased about this and discussed a potential name for this group as it includes all the children across the different ages. We discussed different days, times and means to pray regularly and intentionally for our children, families and young people. This is in line with the Church of England’s initiative on increasing the numbers in these groups. Dan told us we were still waiting for a quote and plans for a new Communion table. The meeting finished with a fun time participating in an escape room activity. Thank you to Nicola Caveney for all her work organising this! The next meeting is on Monday 15th Jan.
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Dan & Andrea finished our Proverbs "Wisdom for Life" series on Sunday, looking at some of the proverbs relating to marriage (although many of them also relate to people who aren't married!). You can catch up on the talk here, and below the video is the handout they offered with some marriage-strengthening resources and top tips for combatting sexual temptation. If this talk raises issues for you - whether married or single, divorced or widowed - do get in touch with Dan & Andrea. Marriage-strengthening resources
The Marriage Course from HTB – www.themarriagecourse.org Care for the Family - www.careforthefamily.org.uk/support-for-you/family-life/couple-support Southampton Family Trust - www.sftrust.org.uk – offer couple support, online courses and in person courses “Let’s stick together: the relationship book for new parents” by Harry Benson “The meaning of marriage: facing the complexities of commitment with the wisdom of God” by Tim & Kathy Keller “The marriage book: how to build a lasting relationship” by Nicky & Sila Lee “On marriage” by Tim & Kathy Keller “The five love languages: how to express heartfelt commitment to your mate” by Gary Chapman “What did you expect?: redeeming the realities of marriage” by Paul David Tripp Avoiding adultery – some tips Don’t go near her house! Prov 5 Walk the long way round! You may need to avoid them all together and take drastic action to do so. It may hurt their feelings but your marriage is more important. Don’t flirt – it stirs up a hornet’s nest of expectation. Be self-aware – if you find someone attractive acknowledge it to yourself and to your spouse if it’s becoming an issue and guard yourself If you are someone that others find attractive, be mindful of this and the effect you have on others, again, don’t flirt, dress appropriately. Hold back from gravitating towards them, don’t spend time alone with them. Don’t dress with that person in mind. Bring it to God, confess any sin, pray for wisdom and self-control. Find your wholeness, your acceptance, your love and your security in God. Lean into God. Don’t justify your sin. Think through the eventual consequences of adultery, not just the initial short lived pleasure. Take every thought captive for Christ. Work on your marriage. Don’t question your choice of marriage partner, unless they’re abusive. You may have a list of attributes that you wanted your ideal partner to have (this may also change with time). The one you’re being tempted by completes the bits of the list that your spouse doesn’t. Believe me, they’ll also have plenty failings that your spouse doesn’t, have you thought about that?! They may be even worse, plus, are you going to trust them not to cheat on you? They’ve already done it once. Do not confide your feelings in the person you’re attracted to – it stokes the fire and creates further intimacy. If you’re lonely search out appropriate relationships to meet that need. Make yourself accountable to a trustworthy friend and your spouse if you can. Our Beacon missional community has made a wonderful difference to the lives of its members and those they have helped. Their aim has been to bring hope to those facing financial hardship in the Shirley area. Over the years, they have prayed, studied, hosted meals, packed and delivered food hampers - and had great fun along the way. They have grown in gifting and faith. This video looks back on some of the highlights, and shows how being part of the Beacon has made a real difference for its members. Marie Gray started the meeting by reminding the PCC of the ‘mindsets’ that had been agreed by the PCC that we should adopt in pursuing the Church’s values. These are Courageous, Whole-hearted and Expectant.
The PCC split into groups to look at these words in the context of money and think about how they would finish the following sentences: Because we are courageous, we will … Because we are whole-hearted, we will … Because we are expectant, we will … The groups fed back and then prayed for the meeting in the groups. Marie finished by reading Ephesians 3:14-21. Marie, as Treasurer, then presented a draft budget for 2024 which shows income very slightly less than the expected out-turn for 2023 with expenditure very slightly higher, giving a budgeted deficit of £28k. Although this is not sustainable in the long term, we built up a surplus over the period 2018-21and it was felt appropriate to use some of this rather than have it sitting in the bank, whilst still maintaining a sensible level of reserves. After some discussion the draft was approved unanimously. The PCC then considered the next steps for the plans for the buildings. Nick Smith reminded the meeting that the City Planning Department had raised various concerns about the proposal for a two storey new build for the Church Hall. The architect had come up with a couple of modifications to address these but they involved less floor area and it was not clear that they fully satisfied our requirements. The PCC agreed to commission the architect to produce costings for the latest proposal but also to produce a scope of work to cost a full refurbishment of the current building. It agreed that there should be a meeting in January with the Buildings Development Group, representatives from the PCC and from wider church to see if anything had been missed and to look for other possibilities. Nick had circulated a paper prior to the meeting concerning the proceeds from the sale of St John’s. 21% of the site had been donated by the Atherley family with the stipulation that, if it ceased to be used a place of worship, it (or that proportion of the proceeds from any sale) should revert to the family. The PCC had obtained a legal opinion that the requirement was still satisfied but the Charity Commission has taken the opposite view. In the light of this, the diocese had advised the PCC to go back to the lawyer for a further opinion at a cost of up to £1,500 plus VAT. The PCC agreed to this. The cost coming out of the 21%. The meeting ended with an extended time of prayer for the buildings next steps and for the General Synod which was due to debate the latest Living in Love and Faith proposals over the following two days. What proportion of our church community do you think are single – whether because they’ve never married, or because they’ve experienced divorce or lost a spouse – 10%, 20% or 30%?
We sometimes talk about ‘church family’ – but some people, especially if they’ve never been married or have children, find that language difficult – so I try to talk about ‘church community’ instead. We often talk about families – and how we’re working, with God’s help, to encourage the next generations to choose to follow Jesus as their Lord and Saviour for themselves. But we don’t often talk about single people – despite Jesus himself being a single man! So over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to take a break from our Proverbs series, and look at singleness in the Bible and in church life. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and eventually got round to! This mini-series isn’t just for single people; it’s for married people too. Not least because at least half of us who are currently married will land up being single again one day. But also because part of being church community together, part of being a good brother or sister to those who are single, is to understand more of the challenges and joys of being single, and knowing how we can love and encourage and serve those who are or who become single. The flip-side is also true, and so when we look at marriage and parenting in Proverbs later in the term, those talks won’t just be for married people or parents. They’ll be for everyone – partly because some who are currently single may get married or become parents at some point. But also because part of being church community together, part of being a good brother or sister to those who are married and those who are parents, is to understand more of those challenges and joys, and knowing how we can love and encourage and serve those who are or who are married or parents. Back to the two talks on being single. We’ve got two guest speakers. Eleanor Jeans is an old friend and colleague of mine from 20 years ago. She’s never been married; she’s written a course called Securely Single, and she’s going to be speaking on Singleness and Identity this coming Sunday. The following week, Jonathan Berry from Above Bar Church will be speaking on Singleness and the Lord. He describes himself as same-sex attracted, and has previously worked for True Freedom Trust, an organisation which helps gay and same-sex attracted people in the church. Now I know that with the discussions we’ve had over the last few months in our church community and in the Church of England about blessing gay relationships, me inviting someone who is same-sex attracted to speak could be misunderstood. So let me just try to offer some reassurances. First, for those who might be worried that this is just me trying to promote my opinion on sexuality issues, it’s not. Jonathan isn’t going to be speaking on sexuality or marriage; he’s going to be speaking on being single. I’ve invited him because he’s a great Bible teacher, and because as someone who’s made a life-long commitment to being single, he’s ideally placed to speak with integrity on this topic. Second, I know there are some in our community who aren’t sure that it is possible to be gay and be a Christian, let alone be gay and be a preacher or pastor. Let me reassure you that Jonathan is a wonderful servant of Christ; I’d urge you to listen to him and weigh up what he says. But again, the main reason for inviting him isn’t because he’s same-sex attracted, but because he’s single. So there we go – two sermons coming up on the Single Christian and the Single Saviour. That second Sunday is Remembrance Sunday – we’ll have a 2 minute silence as part of the service, and if you haven’t yet heard, we’re also having a church lunch after the service to which everyone is invited. I’d love everyone to listen and learn from this mini-series – whether you’re in the 30% of our community that are single, or the 70% that aren’t. And I hope that lots of the cell groups and others will have discussions off the back of these talks. There’s a few other resources that we’re highlighting as part of this mini-series, and I’d certainly welcome anyone who wants to chat with me about how our church community can be more welcoming to single people and can better serve those who are single. |