When I delivered my address to you at the AGM last year I asked that we go back to basics. It was my first AGM and I hadn’t been in the Benefice very long but my over-riding impression was that we needed to spend much more time as a staff team and as a benefice thinking together, praying together and then gradually, and I suspect slowly moving forward together in a more strategic manner. As I said last year, slow streams run deep and we need time to look in depth at the problems and the opportunities that are facing us before we can be confident in moving forward.

And clearly we have got to move forward together.

We can only be strong if we work closely together and share all that God has given us to his glory and for the good of the church and its mission here in Wrexham. We rely on each other and we need each other and we will only succeed together. But our strength is not just in our unity, it is also in the diversity that recognises the different strengths that we each bring and the different roles that we each play in the overall work of mission.

I believe that one of the most creative ways of understanding the life and work of the church is to recognise that we are a pilgrim people. We are a people on a journey with God and with each other. And if we are going to make the most of the opportunities presented by our journey together, we need to develop some clear principles that can guide our decisions and support our life. Indeed I believe that living with principles and models that support practice can be more flexible than more strictly ordered plans, you know the kind, those carefully constructed five year Deanery Plans that get filed somewhere and lost.

During last year the PCC agreed to begin a piece of work that will result in a more strategic approach to our future life and work. Therefore sixty people met before Christmas for a course of group work sessions to tell their own faith stories and the faith stories of their local churches and to learn more about the ways in which the church examines issues of ministry and mission. During the last session of that piece of work we were able to feed in the three diocesan priorities and talk them through.

It was recognised at an early stage that certain key principles had already found expression in our work together. The first was that we should understand our mission in a broad, holistic sense valuing and supporting ministry that is pastoral, prophetic, priestly and evangelistic. In other words whenever and wherever we care for people in Christ’s name, nurture people in faith, challenge individuals to change and grow, confront the unjust structures of society, offer people options and spell our consequences, represent people to God and God to people in prayer, point to the holy in the midst of life, and share the Good News of Jesus Christ by word and deed we are engaging in the mission of God. And this mission is broad and deep, embracing every part of our lives and all that we do and say.

The second key principle that emerged near the beginning of this process reflected the first diocesan priority. It was to enable the growth and development of the ministry and mission of the whole people of God here in Wrexham. We believe that this will lead to the development of ministry teams based in each of the churches in the fullness of time and will enable the people of the church to engage more effectively with the local church’s work of ministry and mission. Along with this we have committed ourselves as a benefice to develop genuinely collaborative ways of working together.

We have identified three elements to this. The first is to attempt to model a process of decision making which will ensure that people in the benefice become and remain fully involved in decisions that affect the church and its life. The second is to support the development of new forms of discipleship and ministry by creating appropriate prayerful opportunities for people to be able to explore what God is calling them to be and do during the next part of their lives. And thirdly, in order to support this growth and development in new ways of being church a group from across the benefice has begun a course entitled ‘Living Theology’. This is the first element in a course of study that will help individuals and churches to become better formed into Christ and transformed into new forms of discipleship and ministry

The third key principle that has emerged from this discussion relates to the way in which stipendiary clergy may work in the benefice in the future. It is clear that the development of ministry teams will enable the work of stipendiary clergy to gradually change and develop. This has been my experience in the past both in my own ministry and in the ministry of many other clergy. Indeed, this should enable us to develop a more mission orientated role for stipendiary clergy. Those clergy currently in the team and those who will join us will be committed to working closely together and working across current church boundaries in order to be more effective in our work of mission. We are committed in the future to support all our churches in mission and to support them equally.

A fourth key principle that has been established is that the mission of the church should be developed in response to the needs and opportunities presented by the benefice. I shall therefore ask the new PCC to consider identifying a small working group tasked to undertake a careful and detailed profile of the benefice in order to identify where the opportunities for mission may develop in the future. This group will meet with ecumenical partners to better understand the nature of the work that is currently being undertaken and the ways in which the benefice may best use its resources most appropriately in the future.

I will also ask the PCC to consider meeting for an away-day in September to agree a strategy that will inform us as we deliberate on future plans and opportunities.

Part of the urgent need for the development of a series of principles to guide our actions in the future is the belief that appointments need to be made in a strategic manner. During the past year I have spent a considerable amount of time preparing the way for a new appointment at St Mark’s Church that will enable a major new mission to Caia Park. I am committed to this process because I feel that it is essential to our overall work to have a direct and creative engagement with one of the biggest and most demanding housing estates in Wales.

We have therefore agreed a financial package with the diocese that will enable this to happen without putting our finances at risk in the short term and an advertisement appeared in the Church Times last Friday that we hope will stimulate interest in the post. We know that this will not be an easy appointment but we also know it needs to be the right one.

In the last little while Gary Owen has moved back to England to take up a new post in his home Diocese and we are very hopeful that we will shortly be able to announce that we have made progress in appointing a person to join our benefice clergy team to replace Gary. A new colleague would to be responsible for developing the mission of the church in a flexible way in our benefice while being based at St John’s Church.

And finally I am going to visit the District Church Councils of all our churches in the next few months to discuss how they feel their ministry might develop in the future and what resources they feel they need to accomplish this.

I believe that it is going to be a creative time for us all. I am hopeful that the new Centre for Religious Education and Faith Development will be established in St Gile’s Church in the next year. The Centre is a collaboration between St Mary’s Trust and the Wrexham Parochial Educational Foundation and will be managed by Gavin Craigen, until recently a senior RE Adviser in North Wales. It will work closely with the Local Authority and the Diocese to promote good practice for RE in Schools and will develop work with ecumenical partners to support the church’s work with young people. But one of its key tasks will be to focus and enable outreach work with young people across the benefice.

Richard, will launch our new Website at the end of this meeting and I am grateful for the work that has been done to produce a piece of mission of really exceptional quality on a tiny budget. We are lucky to have Richard and Gary’s expertise because websites are hugely important these days and we will all need to work hard to make sure that our website contains up to date information that reflects and supports our life and work.

I am grateful to my clergy colleagues for their professional expertise and for their commitment. I am also grateful to our Lay Readers, worship leaders and pastoral assistants, for the retired clergy that make such a key contribution to our life but mainly I am grateful to you all for the ways in which you support and enable God’s work in the benefice. The future will be challenging but I believe it will be hugely exciting.