Vicar's Report to the Annual Parochial Church Meeting, Wednesday 6 March 2011

St Peter’s Eaton Square
The Vicar’s Report to the Annual Parochial Church Meeting

Wednesday 2 March 2011



I love going to the gym. I can gaze at those around me with envy or contempt. I can ignore everything else that’s going on and plug myself into my own private soundtrack. And I can leave feeling enormously superior to those who haven’t made the effort.

All in all it’s a bit like going to Church. And yet the fact is that four and a half million adults in the United Kingdom belong to a gym. And while only just over a quarter of them make regular use of their membership, that still probably means that more people go to the gym each week than worship in a parish Church of the Church of England.

Why is that? There are all sorts of reasons, of course, but my guess is that chief among them is that people go to the gym for a purpose and if they are moderately persistent they achieve that purpose. The purpose of the gym is to get you fit. At the gym you are given your individual programme, and you are promised that if you follow it you will achieve the purpose. Contrast that with us. The purpose of Church is…well, it has a variety of purposes: glorifying God; building his Kingdom; making us into better people, into a better people. Lots of purposes are difficult to sell in the age of the gym. And if there are lots of purposes then it’s hard to see which of the programmes we offer serves which of the purposes. Does the May Fair glorify God? Does the baptism of infants create a fairer world? And if our programmes don’t appear to fit our purposes then perhaps it’s unsurprising that the various promises that the Church makes - of forgiveness, of redemption, of a more virtuous life – probably seem pretty remote from the weekly round of hymn-singing and of constantly being asked to give to this and volunteer for that.

Now I’m certainly not an advocate of muscular Christianity of the ‘Real Men Love Jesus’ variety and I see much to dislike about the cult of the gym, which breeds narcissistic obsession with an ideal of perfection. But I also think that it poses us a challenge. Purpose; programme; and promise are vital for the gym. Might they also be vital for us?

I believe there is a double purpose to which God is calling St Peter’s Eaton Square. It is the formation of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of God’s world.

“We’ll get there together” says LA Fitness; “Let’s start your journey” says Fitness First. “Forming disciples:” says St Peter’s Eaton Square, “transforming the world”. Come here, worship here, belong here, and you will be formed as a disciple; come here, worship here belong here, and your discipleship will transform the world. We promise.

Why have I come to believe that formation is our key purpose? Because it is the sum of all that we do here. We offer worship to God, whether it’s the glory of the Sung Eucharist or the flickering candle-lights of Taize. We pray, whether it’s in the monthly Silent Hour or in the clamour of the Family Eucharist. We study, whether it’s in the upper room of the Phoenix or on a sparsely-attended morning in Lent. We serve, whether it’s in the busy-ness of the May Fair or in our nascent link to Angola. Worship, prayer, study and service are the disciplines of disciples. Through them we are being formed as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Why ‘disciples’ – why are we not forming ‘Christians’? It’s just that a Christian sounds like a finished product, while a disciple is a traveller. We’re not finished products, we’re travellers. The journey before us is a long one, and there’s a lot of learning we need to do. But if we journey together, and if our journey follows Jesus Christ then it will be a journey into truth and fullness of life.

Why is our discipleship for the world’s transformation? Is it not for its own sake? The answer is no, it’s not, because this is not a gym. We’re not about the body beautiful and we’re not about the soul beautiful either. William Temple once remarked that the Church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of non-members. We exist to build the Kingdom of God and as we are formed in our discipleship, as we grow in love, forgiveness, trust and hope, we will change the world around us.

And why can we promise that our discipleship will transform the world? Because our discipleship is of one who calls us, one who, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, is faithful, and he will do this.

So I am as ever deeply grateful to those who have formed my own discipleship in the ten months that have passed since we last met. Chief among these are my ordained colleagues James, Claire and Mark. There are different things I value about each of them: James’s manifest ease with almost every situation, however bizarre or improbable; Mark’s apparently unquenchable energy (he said Yes to chairing the May Fair committee with barely a second’s pause); Claire’s utterly reliable pastoral good sense. But what I value most about them as a group is the quality of the conversation and exchange that we have had over the last few years, and the assurance that together there has been no issue that we have not been able to resolve. Thank you, all three of you. It is a privilege to work alongside you.

I am similarly grateful to our musicians, to Andrew Sackett, to Dan Moult, to April Frederick, to all our superb singers, and above all to our Director of Music, Andrew-John Smith. He would be the first to admit that his administrative skills have not always been 100%. I will be the first to insist that the quality of what he delivers is never less than 500%. His skill is consummate and the care that he brings to what he does here is absolute. If you have not bought his new recording of Max Reger’s music then you should. The music that we hear week in week out has been instrumental is shaping my prayer and thought this year, and we remain exceptionally fortunate in those who make it for us. Thank you all.

Then I want also to thank our office and premises staff. They may think they are doing their jobs. What they are actually doing time and again is forming my discipleship. Let me give you an example. Yesterday Douglas took an early lunch break because the Church was in use in the afternoon. Consequently he did not serve at the lunchtime Eucharist as he usually does. One of the regular members of that congregation rang me in a state of panic. Was Douglas all right? He is so constant in his duties in the sacristy that the person concerned could not believe that he was absent from them. What an example of service. I could give you many others: Olivia, who never finishes work at her prescribed time of 1 pm but remains at her desk into the afternoon; or Susan Redwin, whose attentiveness to the preparation of our figures for audit means that Citroen Wells heave a sigh of relief when our file reaches the top of their pile every year. Thank you all.

And lastly I want to thank those whose time is given freely and sacrificially: those who devote hours to service as Foundation school governors; those who help out in the office; those who launder and iron; those who garden and cook. The Parish could not thrive as it does without you, and for the example you give me of faithful discipleship I am very grateful. Thank you.

The year behind us can be characterized by steady growth and development on the one hand, as we approach the end of our current Mission Action Plan, and radical change on the other.

We have seen steady growth and development in our worship, teaching and service. The revision of our Sunday liturgy and ceremonial has largely been completed and innovations such as the Taize service and the Silent Hour have been established. The occasional Parish Eucharist has gained an unassailable place in the calendar, and we have worked successfully to make it cohere better. Of particular note was the Advent Carol Service, which opened what we observed as the Season of Exile. The Choir’s singing of the Spirituals from A Child of our Time will never be forgotten by those who heard it. The Life Course has found its feet and found a home at the Phoenix; we ran another liturgical teaching series, this time on the songs of the Eucharist, and this time at 11.15 as well as at 10 o’clock; we invited a range of speakers to address us in Lent and in Advent. Our long hoped-for Angola link received a setback when we discovered that the Angolan Government had built a school where we had planned to. However it also received a huge boost when a member of our congregation, Richard Wildash, was appointed Her Majesty’s ambassador to Angola. He has linked us firmly with the Diocese of Angola and with Save the Children in Angola, and the prospect of our funding an Early Childhood Development Centre suddenly seems very realistic.

The radical change that has taken place has been in this building. As I indicated would happen at last year’s Annual Meeting, work took place last summer to divide the Crypt into two lettable units. The work was not without its difficulties and involved us in expense that could not have been foreseen at the outset. In particular, a serious damp problem in the Crypt had to be addressed, and the introduction of tenants revealed that the fire alarm and detection system throughout the building was seriously inadequate for its purpose. With our history that plainly needed to be addressed. So although these issues were not foreseen they would both have had to be dealt with at some point, and dealt with they have been. The Crypt is now let to the Knightsbridge Kindergarten and to Bodydoctor Fitness. The Bodydoctor has refurbished his unit to a very high specification, far beyond anything we could have spent ourselves, as the PCC saw at their last meeting, and the rent that we will receive from our tenants will enable us to plan for the future more securely. I cannot leave the subject of the building works without expressing one more word of thanks, to Peter Wilde, Andrew Elder, and Stefan Turnbull. They are a trinity of the most modest men I have ever met, and they will hate this, but they really are the most significant trinity any Parish has ever had, with the obvious exception of the Holy one. Their expertise and their care has driven this project and they are owed a huge debt of thanks.

At last year’s meeting I also spoke of the impending changes to the Charities associated with the Parish: the creation of the new Pimlico St Peter Trust, and the dissolution into it of the St Peter’s Eaton Square Charity and the Vicarage Charity. The decisive changes are still, I regret, impending. The new Trust has been constituted: its Trustees are the Vicar, Caroline Downey and James Lawson and Hilary Schofield – Bob Enslow has resigned because of his increased commitments overseas, and the other Trustees have yet to meet to appoint his replacement. However it has not been able to begin work because of the difficulties we have encountered in transferring the assets of the existing Charities to the new Trust. Banks seem depressingly unwilling to accept my claim that I am the Vicar of St Peter’s Eaton Square or that I or anyone else has any authority to move or change anything. Archbishop Rowan must feel like this every morning, and I thank God that I’m dealing with RBS and NatWest rather than the Anglican Communion. On this front – and only on this front – it has been a rather frustrating year, but there are at last signs of movement, and I am confident that by Easter the new Trust will be fully operational, minding our historic assets and using them to support our mission.

Next year we will celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Church’s re-consecration. The Bishop of London will be here for the Dedication Festival and we will launch a new Mission Action Plan for the next five years. Discerning its content will be the PCC’s principal task in the next twelve months.

Our purpose is the formation of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of Jesus Christ’s world. But a gym offers its members programmes to ensure the delivery of its purpose, and it is to the programmes that we offer that we must attend. Without pre-empting the discussion that the PCC will have overnight in Canterbury at the end of June I envisage three priorities.

The first priority (and these are not in any order) is our building. The gym is frequently an attractive space that its members want to be in – witness the Bodydoctor’s expenditure on our Crypt. Our building is similarly a great asset in achieving our purpose. It must be properly maintained; it must contain a sacred space that is the best that we can afford; it must be accessible to all, including those who come in wheelchairs or pushing buggies; it must proclaim its purpose effectively and tastefully; and it must contain different spaces in which different communities can grow and flourish. We need to set out a timed and costed plan for the maintenance of the building (including the work required by the last Quinquennial Report); for the refurbishment of the existing public spaces; and for the development of the Welcome Room and of the southern end of this floor. We need also to consider how we might spend the money raised by the May Fair and the 2012 Appeal to enhance the sacred space downstairs.

The second priority is our children and young people. The formation of disciples of Jesus Christ does not begin at adulthood. It begins in the pre-school years. The stories tiny children are told have a powerful impact on them for the rest of their lives. Are we telling the stories in the best way we can? Then come the school years. We have a thriving Primary School with a Headteacher dedicated to the link with Church. But what do we offer school-age children on Sunday mornings? Does a member of the Butterflies need the same as a member of Year 5? And what of those children – and there are some – who don’t go to our School? How are they included when they don’t have schoolfriends at Church? And then comes secondary school and the teenage years, and the palpable drift away from St Peter’s. What do we offer that generation – how do we give them a place where it is safe to question while still belonging? These are just a few questions, but there are others. We need to look at the effectiveness of the Family Eucharist at forming disciples as it is presently constituted; at how we offer Baptism and Confirmation; and, crucially, at how we help worn-out parents to grow not just as parents but as…what else, but disciples of Jesus Christ. I want St Peter’s to become a place where our formation of the young is, quite simply, excellent. I see no reason why we should settle for anything less.

The third priority is the interface between our discipleship and the transformation of the world. We offer opportunities for worship, prayer, study and service. We believe that faithfulness to those disciplines will change us and increase in us the Christlike virtues of trust, hope, love and forgiveness. But how do we then do something real with them? On the Day of Pentecost the apostles were quite literally set aflame by the Holy Spirit, but they didn’t keep it to themselves. Only three hundred years later the mighty Roman Empire had fallen to the disciples of Jesus Christ. How do we convert our personal faith into energy for change? How do we exchange religion for the building of God’s kingdom, the kingdom of mercy, justice and peace? Members of the former PCC are aware that the clergy have some ideas about this, based upon the work we did together at the PCC Day Conference, and upon our further work with the theologian Ann Morisy. The new PCC will debate our ideas further and will act upon the fruits of the debate.

Forming disciples: transforming the world. Four years of working with you, four years of receiving great kindness from many of you, four years of discipleship here has grown my confidence that this is what we need to be about and convinced me of the three key areas in which we need to act. I am looking forward to Lent, I am looking forward to Easter (and to seeing all of you – all of you here at 5.30 on Easter morning), I am looking forward to 2012, I am looking forward to the next five years, and I feel full of energy and hope. Thank you for allowing me the privilege of continuing to serve this Parish.