Church of Ponsbourne, St Mary
« Mission Action Plan »

Success in finding new leaders and officers to ensure the continuation of the Church.
Eight new PCC members who all take an active part in services, support, treasury, secretariat and safeguarding at our Church.

Significant increase in attendance at Family Services through working in partnership with our local school. The school choir help lead our worship at half of all family services bringing more children and families to join our congregation. Analysis of our attendance register between July 2016 and July 2019 shows that the average congregation size more than doubled from 26 to 57 when the school choir helped lead our services, and the average number of under 16 year old children more than tripled from 6 to 22.

Introducing some more modern styles of music has also been welcomed by the majority. We are particularly proud that on 5 October 2019 attendance was so high that we did not have enough hymn books for all the attendees. Feedback from all ages is extremely positive as we now have more children involved in our services which gives us hope for the future of our church.

We are very proud that during the vacancy period, our Church Warden took the lead in ensuring that we had a minister, reader or lay leader present to ensure the continuation of all services. We also celebrate all the commitment shown by the PCC to support the recruitment process, the preparation of the Rectory and the welcome to our new minister.

We celebrate our ability to work across all the churches in the parish, engage with all three schools in the Benefice and bring them together for Reverend Theresa’s licensing service. This service demonstrated the commitment, diversity, care and creativity of all in our community and their ability to come together for a common goal.

We continue to work on building a more stable financial future for our Church. This has proved to be a challenge over recent years.

Our Church has no toilet facilities and no kitchen. This severely limits our ability to use the space for other spiritual gatherings or community events. We had also hoped to celebrate more festivals in our community but our facilities have limited our opportunities. We need to continue to find ways to raise funds to make this possible in the future.

Our vision is to make our Church appeal to all ages of the community, with a focus on children and families then we have a sustainable future. We want our Church to be welcoming to all in the community, a place of sanctuary, support, spiritual guidance and renewal, friendship, love and fun. We are fully aware that people lead increasingly busy lives and in order to attract them to a place where they can develop their own faith, we need to be creative and combine new ideas with existing traditions. If we can achieve this we will deliver something for everyone.

Our core values as a Church are:

We love our neighbours
We listen to each other and respect each person’s views
We embrace change and creativity
We nurture our community
We celebrate the gifts of God

We need to continue to build our Church community by appealing to more children and families.

Seek feedback from current attendees and the community on what they like and what they would want to see changed – focus on what they will find relevant to their lives. We can achieve this through a combination of a survey plus word of mouth feedback.

Listen to our congregation who are asking for more popular hymns they can enjoy singing.

Actively follow up on all baptisms to invite families to the next family service – and welcome them during the intercessions.

Secure the financial stability of our Church

Harness the power of social media to promote our fundraising activities and successes.

Set up a fund raising sub-committee to focus efforts

Involve the wider community in reaching this goal

Build a toilet and kitchen facility to create greater flexibility in our Church building.

Set up specific fund raiser on social media

Enlist the support of local volunteers, businesses and builders to see if they can donate skills or materials

Reach out to other Churches who have had the same challenge and learn from their experiences