Letter from the Vicarage

Dear Friends and Neighbours,

I love the summer with its bright skies and long evenings. It takes me back to my childhood when school summer holidays seemed to stretch on forever and one’s time was one’s own to follow hobbies and interests with little else to get in the way.

These days, I find the summer seems to be a natural time for reminiscing and reflecting on life, and so, as we head into another heat wave, I find myself thinking about where we are as a parish, and what our future may look like.

We are very fortunate now to be in a position which allows us to reinvest in the infrastructure necessary for mission and ministry. That, after all is what will secure the future of our parish long-term. We are flourishing as a church in so many ways. We are blessed to have very good and growing numbers of families, children and young people at our services with a highly committed team of leaders who provide an imaginative and varied program for them. We’re also seeing healthy growth in the 8:30 am Holy Communion service using the Book of Common Prayer sometimes leading into fellowship over coffee and pastries after the service and pancakes on the Sunday nearest to Shrove Tuesday. Our support for inclusion in all its forms is drawing new people to St John’s too.

Until the sale of Meadvale Hall, we did not have available funds to support our church’s growth and ensure our fitness for the challenges of ministry in the future - and there will be challenges for the Church of England and for our Diocese of Southwark. A modest surplus left over after paying off our Church Centre mortgage in full has enabled us to address some of the obstacles to a successful outlook for our future.

Our church sound amplification system continues to be upgraded with high-quality, modern equipment bought from Dunottar School. Of course we may have the occasional issue caused by learning how to use the new equipment, but the sound quality, reliability and usability are all radically improved. This work will be completed soon.

Much of the central heating pipework in church dates back many decades and it’s beginning

to show its age. We discovered that some weeks ago when it sprang a leak under the floor outside the Lady chapel. With the increasing number of evening concerts taking place in church, this threatened a chilly experience for those attending and a loss of interest in St John’s as a venue for such events. This particular leak has now been repaired, and a further upgrade to the system will be undertaken with the intention of reducing the likelihood of further leaks and burst pipes in inaccessible places.

The Wi-Fi in church, which is essential to enable people to donate by card, is used by our CCTV system and enables the sound system and the streaming to be controlled flexibly, was extremely unreliable. I could virtually guarantee that I would need to reset the system on a Saturday for it to have a reasonable chance of working on the Sunday morning. The Wi-Fi has now been extended from the Church Centre into church making all of these systems which depend upon it, far more reliable. As a welcome bonus, we will no longer need a separate digital line into church, which will make a considerable cost saving every month from now on. Having extended the Wi-Fi from the Church Centre into church, and also into the space between the two buildings as well to accommodate plant sales, etc the opportunity was taken to replace the two incompatible and malfunctioning CCTV systems in church with a fully integrated system covering church, Church Centre, and the grounds in between. The security of church and Church Centre are very important particularly as we have had instances of unauthorised people gaining access to the Church Centre. All the cameras can be viewed from church and from the Centre office and have provided the office staff with a very welcome enhancement to their personal safety.

For a couple of years, St John’s has been part of Surrey County Council’s Warm Spaces scheme which aims to provide places of refuge for people who are homeless or having to live with fuel poverty to quite literally warm up, charge their phone, and have a coffee and some conversation with a volunteer. Councillor Natalie Bramhall kindly arranged for us to receive “warm spaces kits” to hand out to visitors, consisting of thermos flask, blanket, warm gloves, snood and balaclava. It has been a real eye-opener chatting with people who have found themselves homeless and who are yet also in work. It makes you think how lucky you are. In order to further our ability to be an effective “Warm Space,” we have been re-fitting the walk-in store off the Resource Room in church with kitchen cupboards salvaged from Meadvale Hall, so that it can double as a kitchenette as well as a store. It will be equipped with kettle, toaster, and microwave. A number of people have already come forward to be part of an on-call rota of volunteers prepared to meet with visitors. This enhancement will also mean that the Resource Room will be more suitable for use as a meeting room when the Centre is fully booked.

Summer temperatures in the Church Centre foyer have become an increasing problem over the last few years as high temperatures have become more common and this is clearly not conducive to our hirers’ enjoyment of the building. A new control system is being fitted to activate more powerful motors to open the roof vents when required and to close them again automatically and to close them when it rains.

We now have sufficient funds for a fixed data projector to enable the All Age Family Communion and other Family other Services to be fully screen based thanks to a Mission Grant from our diocese, a generous gift in memory of a loved one and a restricted fund set up to fund the data projector project. This will transform the All Age Family Communion and other Family Services making them more attractive for younger people and changing the social dynamic of the congregation from “heads down,” buried in a booklet to “heads up,” looking around at other worshippers – altogether more conducive to fellowship.

All of these things are about ensuring that St John’s is “fit for purpose” to meet the challenges ahead. People are no longer prepared to suffer sitting a cold and draughty church, straining to hear a barely audible liturgy only to find that the card machines do not work when they try to donate. We have to be realistic about the expectations people now have when they go to church, or we will lose the opportunity to retain their interest and to grow.

Our bishops have spelt out the challenges ahead. Since 2019 inflation has risen by 29%, yet our diocese’ Parish Support Fund income has risen by just 1.5% in total since 2019. Like other dioceses, Southwark is wrestling with this and other challenging financial realities. Therefore, diocesan and parish finances will have to be planned very intentionally from now on for longer-term sustainability. A review will also be undertaken of how the services our diocese provides for parishes are funded. The aim is to ensure that the ministry of the parishes is sustainable to 2030 and beyond and to make the most of available resources to best support churches to flourish and grow.

Bishop Rosemarie is clear that it is better to do this now prayerfully, reflectively, and collaboratively, rather than deferring decisions until they are forced upon us, making them more painful and less strategic. St John’s will not be exempt from the impact of these initiatives and if we want to retain our unique identity and character beyond them, we must demonstrate that we are not only flourishing as a church, but that we are financially sustainable as well. Bishop Christopher points out that the Apostle Peter reminds us that we are part of something greater than ourselves when he wrote “Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” (1 Peter 4:10). In other words, we are all members of the body of Christ, a community of faith working together and we all need to play our part.

Our future is in our own hands. It’s often been said that the last part of a believer to be converted is their purse/wallet and it’s true. It took me years to discover why regular giving is such an important part of the Christian life, and it was only then that I discovered the level of my own commitment to Christ. There’s never a good time to start giving regularly, but the time really is now. If you already give regularly, I thank you on behalf of your church and I ask you to please consider prayerfully whether you can increase your regular giving. If you do not yet give regularly, please seriously consider why should you not make a regular donation through Parish Giving? The body suffers when we do not all play our part fully.

May God’s love be poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit and in all things may we seek to be Christ Centred and Outward Focused.

With every blessing,

Revd. John Kronenberg