All Saints Margaret Street.

Dear friends,

At our PCC Meeting on Tuesday, the PCC finalised an important document which is referred to as our Mission Action Plan.  This is the fruit of much reflection and discussion, and is a way of setting some clear, achievable, realistic goals for our parish to achieve over the next 18 months as we seek to respond to God’s call, and grow in faith and in number.

It is a document I hope everyone in our parish can get to know, so that we can own together the vision for our parish’s future which has emerged from our PCC’s reflections.

I want to thank the PCC for all the time and energy they have put into drawing this plan up, and for the sensitivity, imagination, and creativity with which they have been thinking about the future of our parish.

The Mission Action Plan lays out some key aspirations which we wish to achieve in the next 18 months. Our PCC away day a few weeks ago agreed that we need to spend some time getting our parish back on its feet and to where it was before COVID struck before we embark on more adventurous initiatives.

I suspect it will take longer for most churches to bounce back from COVID than many imagine – certainly in terms of congregational attendance figures. It is also the case that we do not know how choppy this autumn will be in terms of possible further waves of the virus.

As a result of all this, we decided to make plans at a more realistic pace, and really focus on some basics in our parish’s life that need attending to before we grapple with bigger problems. The next 18 months will be, therefore, a time for the renewal and revitalisation of the foundations of our parish’s liturgical, pastoral, and missional life.

As part of that, we need to renew a number of key areas such as our many means of communication both with parishioners and with the wider world, some elements of PCC governance, how we welcome people, and what pattern of regular services we hope to see in the future.

With those foundations set in place, we will be able to explore in 18 months’ time what our next steps might be in terms of growth and development – particularly in the realms of charitable interaction with the world and making our church more welcoming to younger people, families and children.

I am very pleased to share the Mission Action Plan below. I ask people to make it a focus for their prayer, that God may assist and help us to achieve these crucial goals so that we can grow and develop as a parish.

Fr Peter

Mission action Plan for 2021 & 2022

The PCC of All Saints Margaret Street, aims to have another away day in July 2023 to reflect and make further plans for the future. By that date, we commit to accomplishing the following as realistic, measurable goals.

Recovery from COVID

• To have restored weekly attendance at our Sunday liturgies to their pre-COVID levels.
• To have re-opened our church for daily visiting and prayer.
• To train a group of welcomers who will staff our church building whenever it is open in accordance with best practice.
• To have re-established a second daily Mass in the evening, with a rota of people committed to supporting it.
• To push ahead with the redevelopment project of our undercroft spaces under the courtyard, which was put on hold by COVID, creating a new kitchen and lavatories.
• To repeat the recent success of our Assumption procession and to offer other opportunities for people to join us for outdoor processions and significant feast days, including Corpus Christi.

Communication and connection with the world

• To install permanent cameras in the church for regular broadcasting of liturgies.
• To review and tackle the inadequacies of our present sound system.
• To undertake a review and refreshment of our parish website.
• To review the usefulness of the Parish Paper and introduce whatever suggestions that review produces.
• To completely refresh and renew the organisation Friends of All Saints’.
• To renew all public facing signage.
• To establish a new worshipping community for German speakers.
• To begin planning a theological mission conference which might take place at All Saints’ in two or three years’ time.

Governance

• To have established a Finance sub-committee of our PCC; to have reviewed other committees and to reduce them to an absolute minimum.
• To have 5 people under the age of 50 on our PCC, of whom 2 will be under the age of 40, and one under the age of 30.
• To have elected two new church wardens.
• To have an average PCC meeting length over the whole 18 months of no more than 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Coffee returns

The serving of coffee in the courtyard after the High Mass has returned. We are very grateful to Janet Drake for organising the rota. She would be very grateful for a few more volunteers to help with this crucial task. Please be in touch directly with her or email the parish office with any offers of help.

Online theology by Zoom

Forgetting and Remembering: does memory make us human?

Tuesday 14th September 2021 – 7.00-8.00 pm

Zoom meeting ID: 884 0442 9227

A few months ago, we announced a programme of online theology seminars organised by All Saints to enable us to grow in faith. It is intended that these should be open to anyone who wishes to attend online through Zoom. This means they are open to friends of All Saints no matter where they live, and will also be available after the event for people to watch if they were unable to participate live.

Our first session will revolve around the question of what makes us human. As a focus for our discussion, participants will be asked to watch the recently released film, The Father, in preparation for this session. The Father can currently be rented on Amazon and watched at home. (We had originally planned to include the film Supernova, but it has become evident it won’t be released for domestic streaming by the date of our seminar.)

The Father explores questions to do with dementia and human relationships. How does the Christian tradition respond to the idea of dementia?  What does Jesus teach about what it means to be human? How does memory define who we are? How can we contribute to debate on this topic in a way that values human life? To kind out more and explore this crucial area, join us on Tuesday 14th September at the following Zoom meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88404429227

Church Times Coverage

Links for Sunday

The link for the Propers for Trinity 14 is at the end of this email.

And click here for the YouTube live stream.

Evensong and Benediction is at 6pm. The music includes Gray in F minor, Parry Never weather-beaten sail, and Paul Brough O salutaris and Tantum ergo. The service is not live-streamed.

Flowers

We are looking for volunteers to help with the flowers in church. If you have a particular talent for flower arranging and would like to help from time to time or on a regular basis, please contact Shawn on 07988 287 663 or shawnwilbe@outlook.com

If you would like to make a donation for flowers, please contact Shawn or speak to Chris Self.

Walsingham Devotion

Tomorrow week our monthly Walsingham Devotion, in the form of the Rosary with intercessions, will be offered at 1130 before the noon Mass.

Prayer list

Prisoners and captives

Nazanin Zhagari-Ratcliffe, Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, Nasrin Sotoudeh
Maira Shabhaz
Rohingya Christians in Pakistan, Karen Christians in Burma, and Tigrayan Christians in Ethiopia

The sick

David Fettke, Vallery Tchukov, Sara Vice, Katherine Lee, Lorna Smith, Beth Klausing, Hilary Porter, Bruce Ross-Smith, Benjamin Woolf, James Shrimpton, Tony Rodger, Rachel Pereira, Fr Michael Gudgeon, Chris and Carole Radley, Fr Harry Hodgetts, Rosemary Orr, Martin Berka, Barbara Schiefer, Joan Anna SLG, Poppy Harris-Thompson, Sheila Wood, Jennifer Spreckley, Sue Yesnick, Elizabeth Lyon, Rosina Sargon Eskrya, Malcolm Brown, Tim Knight, Hillary Rodger, Geoff Vardy, Fr John O’Brien, Max Fernandes, Mark Willoughby, Craig Williams, Ross Dixon, Bernard Holmes, Elaine Bishop

Those known to us recently departed

Olivier Maire Pr, Benedict Reid OSB Pr, Charles Hoff

Anniversaries of death

5th – Joanne, Guy & Alicia Wace
6th – Anne Adams, Sister Jean Margaret ASSP
7th – Edith Senior, Maud Burling, Nell Titley
8th –
9th – Annie Harrison
10th – Marion Richards; Elizabeth Barker; Winifred Harland, Anne Peduin, Jean Harmsworth
11th – Allan Yates, John Monk, Maurice Keen

Supporting All Saints

Parish Giving Scheme

You can set up a regular donation to All Saints here.

We use the Parish Giving Scheme, which allows contributions to be anonymous and deals with Gift Aid, saving our office a lot of time. You can read about how the scheme works here.

Donations for general church purposes

To give by BACS please use the following details, advising the Administrator to collect Gift Aid:

PCC All Saints (Charity no. 1132895)
Sort Code 60-09-15
A/C 04559452

Parish Legacy Policy

We are always delighted to hear from anyone who wants to support us with a donation. Our PCC Legacy Policy encourages people to leave bequests specifically to one of our two related charities to be used for purposes of lasting value (rather than day to day costs):

All Saints Choir & Music Trust (Charity # 802994)

or The All Saints Foundation (Charity # 273390).