It has been another busy year at St Mary’s with much to be grateful for. As ever, we depend on our Lord Jesus for all things, guided by our verse of the year; ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Corinthians 12:9). We are hugely grateful to all those on the staff team and the many volunteers who have worked for God’s glory. We pray for continued blessing on our family as we seek to grow as disciples and to step out in faith to build his kingdom. Below are some highlights from the past 12 months.
Growth and diversity at St Mary’s
At our Annual Church Meeting last year, our vicar Jon Drake spoke of “working together to make Jesus known” within Maidenhead and surrounding districts, with particular focus on the residents of the new tower blocks in the town centre, families with children and those with UK minority ethnic backgrounds. And across 2024/25, we have been blessed to see our church family grow both in number and diversity, with new people coming to participate in our Sunday services, as well as a raft of international activities including iFellowship, iCaf, Ukrainian+ welcome hub and new English-speaking classes. It was a joy to celebrate both the unity and diversity of our church family at the Taste of All Nations event in September where a diverse congregation of believers from numerous nationalities were brought together by their shared faith and love for God.
It has been exciting to see the growth of both Christianity Explored and Al Massira, holding out the gospel message to those exploring the faith, and at the other end of the spectrum, there has been quite a buzz around church with the new Pop-Up Theology initiative that seeks to deepen the faith of already mature Christians so their love for Jesus and others may grow.
It has also been a huge blessing to be able to offer support groups and encouragement to our church family, for those who have experienced bereavement, for those who are same sex attracted and wanting to follow Jesus faithfully, and Third Thursday Table; a monthly lunchtime time event where people who are free during the daytime can enjoy each other’s company over lunch and listen to testimony from members of our church family.
International mission and local out-reach
Across 2024/25 we supported 14 mission partners; ten international and four in the UK. It was great to catch up with a number of them, who joined us for our United Church Sunday last July. We also had an afternoon tea for World Focus Sunday in January, where we heard about each partner from members of the mission partner support group.
2024/25 also saw significant progress on the five projects we have sponsored through our International Mission Fund; Build Partners who train gospel leaders in Rwanda, Word of Life who develop content for Muslim background believers, funding education for clergy members of the Anglican church in Peru, supporting unreached people groups in North Africa through AIM, and funding ministry apprentices at Latimer Church Trust in New Zealand.
We have also enjoyed many outreach activities in our local community, including delivering welcome cards to all the new high-rise flats in Maidenhead, street-flyering for the Christmas and Easter services, and outreach events including the Everyday Evangelism Conference, and an evening of magic and witness.
Staff team changes
We are hugely grateful for our staff team, led by Jon Drake. They are a group of godly and humble people who love the Lord and their calling at St Mary’s. Across the last 12 months we have welcomed a number of new members to the team; Johan Schoeman joined as our new Trainee Youth Minister and Jonny Hayward as our new part-time Director of Music. Sharon Bedford has moved into the role of Pastoral Trainee and Biblical Counselling Intern, doing much to develop this important area of our pastoral ministry. On the operations side, Dick West has taken on the full Operations Manager role working four days a week, and we are hugely grateful to John Blackbeard who since stepping down from his operations role has continued to head up finance. Phil Richards joined Scott Bedford as part-time facilities manager. Special mention also goes to Kate Wheatley for her continued dedication and commitment on leading Safeguarding at St Mary’s. This is a huge responsibility with a very significant workload, for which we are immensely thankful.
PCC (Parochial Church Council) matters
We continue to operate against the challenging and disappointing direction of travel of the Church of England and the bishops, who have adopted the Prayers of Love and Faith for the blessing of same sex relationships. We have responded, upholding our decision to be in impaired communion with the Bishop of Oxford and the other bishops in the diocese whilst they continue to deviate from scripture on this matter of primary importance and diverting a portion of our Parish Share to supporting gospel ministry in faithful churches in the Diocese; St Pauls, Slough and Holy Trinity, Theale.
In February we re-visited the resolution that the PCC had passed in 2016, and re-affirmed in 2022, known as The House of Bishops’ Pastoral Provision. This provision enables the PCC to request, on the grounds of theological conviction and in light of our understanding of the Bible, that we have a male vicar and that we receive oversight from a male bishop. The PCC voted in favour of the resolution by a majority vote.
Following the Annual Church Meeting in May, we welcomed seven new members onto the PCC, taking our total headcount to 25, seven of whom are representatives on Deanery Synod, three on Diocesan Synod, and two (Daniel Matovu and Gracy Crane) on General Synod. We are very thankful to all the departing members for their faithful service and to all those who continue to serve and contend for the gospel at all levels of representation.
Looking forward: challenges and opportunities
Looking forward, we see a number of challenges and opportunities:
Living in Love and Faith
One important challenge remains to stand firm in the gospel in the face of opposition and false teaching from the bishops and others in leadership in the wider Church of England on the matter of Prayers of Love and Faith. We will continue to work together with likeminded people within the Church of England to ensure we stand united, contending for the gospel.
Growing together in dependent prayer
Our church theme for 2025 is growing together in dependent prayer. This is vital for our personal and corporate growth, as prayer is the main way we express our faith and our trust in God. To this end, we have just completed a four-part sermon series teaching on prayer, and in June, dependent prayer was the theme of our annual PCC away day and recent book Sunday. We will continue across the year to consider how we can all grow in prayer; our own personal prayer, amongst family and friends, within Growth Groups, in and around church services and in all of our different ministries.
Men and women flourishing at St Mary’s
Following on from our workshop in January, Jon Drake and Rachel Meynell are working to develop proposals to ensure we can all flourish in our diversity in ministry at St Mary’s, with input from the PCC and church family. We expect these proposals will be shared with the church family and begin to be implemented this autumn.