Saturday 27th June, St. Wilfrid's Church

The new PCC members spent Saturday morning attending a special workshop specially organised for St. Wilfrid's Church with honorary Growing Healthy Churches co-ordinator, Mr Peter Scofield from the Mission and Renewal Team, Diocese of Chichester and Gordon Banks.

Angels - from Robbie Williams song through to all the imagery used to portray angels in art were featured very effectively in this most helpful self examination of just how mission focussed we are at St. Wilfrid's and what we need to do to help us grow and become more healthy in this direction. For example, in thinking about the Angel of the Church, we  were asked individually and in groups to best describe  colour of St. Wilfrid's as it stands now. We were reminded that to make this work the answers needed to be honest and 'not those to please' variety and the feedback was very interesting - from grey right through to all the colours of the rainbow!

Despite all the variations of opinions it was clear that there was agreement on the changes needed to build on St. Wilfrid's core strength of Eucharistic based services but to make us far more accessible and engaging with the community and make us truly mission focussed. The imagery of the Angel of St. Wilfrid's that had the personality and vocation we would like to see was whittled down to two images shown below. A desire to engage with the community, the taking out of the bread and the wine , the reaching outwards and upwards to what is going on outside rather than a preoccupation of what we are doing inside amongst ourselves and the fact that we are frail and need the support of all those rungs on our journeys are all powerfully expressed.

The fact that there was nearly a full turnout of the PCC for the whole of this Saturday morning is encouraging because it emphasised, as did the ensuing debate and discussion, that we are dedicated to making our church grow and we need to start NOW. The task now is for the PCC to refine the ideas discussed and then engage our whole church family so that we can all play apart in the mission of our church.

Peter and Gordon were thanked by the PCC and Fr. Andrew for heading a most worthwhile event and all agreed that we should invite them back in the not too distant future to review what progress we had been able to achieve.

PG