Looking back - a year like no other
Annual report of the Priest-in-charge
Re-reading my Annual Report from March 2020 is pretty sobering; we were the only church in the Mission Area to have our Annual Meeting before the national lockdown; our meeting on Sunday 15 March was preceded by our last service in church for several months – and we know that it has been stop-start ever since.
I must begin my report, then, by acknowledging what an extraordinarily difficult year this has been for us all, in different ways. When someone suggested to me last year that ‘we’re all in the same boat’, I reflected back that ‘we’re all in the same storm, but in different boats’. In all my work, I have witnessed the variety of ways in which the pandemic has affected people and we should neither over-estimate its long-term effects, crying ‘doomed’ before we can possibly know what will happen, nor under-estimate the damage covid-19 has done to so many people as individuals and in communities.
So, we will wait to assess the damage, but I do want to thank all those who have remained faithfully supportive of St Mary’s throughout the last year. That includes not only those who have had a public role to sustain, but every single person who has continued to worship with us, on-line or in-person, to pray for us, and to support us financially. To those in church for this service and meeting, to those watching on Zoom, and to all who read this report, I say a heartfelt “thank you”.
When we read the gospel accounts of Jesus’s resurrection appearances, I am always struck by his greeting “Peace be with you.” In case we are tempted to think that this is just the conventional greeting ‘Shalom’, Luke tells us “They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.” So, coming into a context where we have our doubts and fears, covid-related or arising from other circumstances, Jesus says to us “Peace”. It is his invitation to relationship, to trust him; “Peace be with you”, he says.
Economically, personally, and as a church community, we have been threatened by the pandemic. The demise of the High Street was already predicted, with retailers like Debenhams already struggling, but this crisis seems to have accelerated that change; some are saying that the same thing is true of the church. We have seen numbers declining here in Overton, over many years, but in many churches the question that is now being asked is “will they ever come back?”
What we want, I suppose, is a kind of resurrection. Sometimes we have our annual meeting during Lent; one advantage of having it in the Easter season is that we are reminded that we are a church founded in resurrection; hope is in our DNA. Like the disciples, we may not always believe it, fear may cloud our vision, but Jesus stands in our midst and says, “Peace be with you.” To the disciples, he says “Look at my hands and my feet… Touch me and see…” and then he eats a piece of fish, to prove he is not a ghost. Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate, the divine made flesh – and at his resurrection he demonstrates that he is still very present; they see him, they hear him, they touch him and he shares their meal of fish. The resurrection is experienced with all the senses and Jesus is present in an embodied way.
The theology that says that the church is Christ’s body in the world is developed by St Paul in his letters – but Luke shows us this theology in action in his stories of the early church, the Acts of the Apostles, and he underlines it as he remembers Jesus’s words here: “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations… You are witnesses of these things.”
St Mary’s, then, is the body of Christ in Overton. In this last year that has meant being some of those who have helped to support the community; some of you have volunteered and come alongside other people in the village in supporting those most at need, particularly through deliveries. I am not claiming this as a church project, but acknowledging the way in which some of you have lived out your Christian faith and witness in care for your neighbours.
Could we have done more? I suspect we could – and I am grateful to God that the gospel message of ‘repentance and forgiveness of sins’ is, in part, an acknowledgement of our human weakness. We make mistakes and I, for one, am sorry that I haven’t always got things right in the last year. I am particularly conscious that our pastoral care hasn’t always been as immediate as I would have liked it to be – and for that reason I am undertaking a review of how we offer care from St Mary’s. We have probably all been used to a model where pastoral care has largely been the responsibility of the priest, but my part-time hours make that unrealistic and a model where we share that responsibility would be more realistic and more effective.
But as the body of Christ we have done much this year. I am grateful to those who have helped me sustain worship – on-line as well as in church; to those who have read and recorded Bible readings and prayers, thanks for your patience with the technology; to Paul for recording music and for helping us to get back to singing in church; to Ian and Jo, for solos and choir items. Thanks to Euan for setting up in church and for coping with the necessary changes; to the Davies family who have taken on the changing of altar frontals; to Grace, Janet and others for flowers when it has been possible to have them, and to Janet, Jennifer and Val for making up enough Christingle kits for school to be able to have them.
Despite the restrictions, highlights for the church community have been the re-imagined Harvest, with our online auction; Remembrance Sunday, with that stunning display of poppies; Advent, when we shared in an Advent Calendar trail in the community and had an amazing nativity scene set up in church; our Christmas services - with music! And Palm Sunday, with the crosses and the ribbons on the church railings. Thanks to Tracey, Sam, Paul, Rachel and Jo for the different roles that you played in making all of that happen. I think that we are learning some valuable lessons about using our church building as a resource for connecting with our community at times other than weddings and funerals; and even more about looking outward and taking symbols of our faith out into the community, rather than waiting for people to come to us. Isn’t that what Jesus meant when he said that the good news should be “proclaimed to all nations”? In his ministry, Jesus took his message outside, rarely preaching or teaching inside synagogue or temple; and at the end of his ministry, he told his disciples to start in Jerusalem but then to go to all. How can we start in our church but then carry the message outside, to all?
One of the most obvious ways in which the church’s presence is noticed in the community is in the ringing of her bells and the striking of the clock. Last summer, Keith Overthrow retired as Tower Captain, at a time when the bells had fallen silent. I want to record our thanks to Keith for his many years of service to this church – in a number of roles, including churchwarden and, for over forty years, as Tower Captain. I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to thank him as publicly or fully as his service warrants – but we are very grateful. Keith also wound the church clock for many years; I am grateful that Mike Hamer now shares that responsibility with other volunteers and that the clock continues to be heard. Keith’s responsibilities in the tower have been taken on by Clare Morris and we are grateful to Clare and the other bellringers who have been able to ring, socially distanced and with a reduced number of bells. We look forward to the time when normal practices can resume and a full peal be heard again.
We have lost two ex-churchwardens this year – Gwyn James and Bryan Done – as well as other significant members of the community who have had links with St Mary’s, especially Reg and June Jones, David Burton and Den Owen. We remember all of these friends of St Mary’s with thanksgiving and hold their families in our love and prayers.
Euan Stevenson has served as churchwarden for some sixteen years and has now decided to retire; in his absence, we thank him for his many years of service, which have included several periods of vacancy, including the months before my arrival in 2018. We know that we will continue to share fellowship with Euan and Val, and he has offered to continue helping in various ways – but we must now think and pray about who might pick up some of the work he has done. Thank you, Euan, for all you have done in the life of the church here.
None of us will forget the last twelve months. It was good to be back in church for Holy Week and Easter, albeit socially distanced and with face coverings. I found Good Friday particularly moving. Just as the disciples witnessed Jesus’s death without knowing what was to follow, we have faced challenges this year and can’t know what is to come. The Mission Area review, initiated by the diocese, for which we are preparing, may make recommendations that we find challenging – or it may simply encourage us to continue the work we are doing to shape a stronger future for St Mary’s, along with our sister churches in the area. We plan to ask serious questions about the financial viability of St Mary’s and to challenge one another about our financial commitment. We continue to be very grateful to the Friends of St Mary’s, under the leadership of Peter Rosselli; the money they have raised and given will enable us to do necessary maintenance work on the building in the next year and beyond. But the sustainability of St Mary’s depends on us being able to pay the parish share and other bills, to maintain and extend ministry and mission here, and so we are making stewardship a high priority in this coming year.
I wonder, what else you would like us to do in the next year, three years, or five years? We will be returning to our conversations about shaping a vision for St Mary’s and I look forward, post-pandemic, to being able to engage with school again and our families, looking to a younger generation to invest in the life of the church.
As I conclude, on a personal note, I would like to thank those who prayed for my wife, Jo, as she began her ministry as a curate in Wrexham, and those who have prayed for our daughter, Lizzie, as she contracted covid-19 in January and continues to struggle. Please remember Jo as she is ordained priest on June 26th; I will be joining her in Wrexham for her first celebration of Holy Communion on June 27th.
And so, ministry continues. “You are witnesses”, said Jesus. May we bear witness to what we know, in order that others can come to the same knowledge and the same faith, that the name of Jesus may continue to be heard in Overton and the Maelor.
Peter Mackriell