Basildon Deanery Vacancies

We are currently advertising for three exciting clergy opportunities in the Basildon Deanery:

Rector of Pitsea with Nevendon

The Parish of Pitsea with Nevendon is seeking a new Rector. This busy parish with two churches hopes to appoint a new Rector who will help our faithful worshipping community to grow both in faith and in number. We do not have an exact image of the ideal candidate, but we know we want you to have passion and drive and be someone who lives the Gospel in your daily life and demonstrates it in all you do.If you think this could be you, do please get in touch. 

Click here for more information.

See here for videos about the Parish - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Team Rector of Billericay & Little Burstead Team Ministry

The Billericay Team, in the vibrant town of Billericay, seeks and will warmly welcome a Team Rector who can lead them through change with wisdom and grace, helping them grow in faith and unity and equipping them to become a confident and outward-looking parish ready to share the good news. Click here for more information.

Click here for videos of services - Christ Church, Emmanuel, St John's

Assistant Diocesan Director of Ordinands (part time) and Team Vicar of Wickford & Runwell (half time)

Are you passionate about enabling people to explore God’s call to ordained ministry?

And are you an inspirational and collaborative Leader who can contribute to Christ’s mission in a thriving Essex community?

The Diocese of Chelmsford has an exciting opportunity for an Assistant Diocesan Director of Ordinands (part-time) and benefice of Wickford and Runwell are seeking a half time Team Vicar to join a ministry team in an expanding town that is grasping significant opportunities to grow ministry among young people, creatives and seniors. We are connecting churches, connecting with individuals, with our community, and with God. Click here for more information.

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Michael McDermott - The Struggle Makes You Stronger.

Videoshoot in Bowers Gifford

St Margaret’s Church, Bowers Gifford, was recently used for a videoshoot, the second time that churches in the deanery have been used for film projects this year.

Directed, shot and cut by Sam Moore, the video, which stars Thierryna Ngavandje, is an unofficial music video for the song ‘The Boy Who Played The Harp’ by Dave. View the music video here.

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Dave - The Boy Who Played The Harp | Unofficial Music Video.

Deanery Prayer Walk

Deanery Prayer Walk
with Bishop Adam Atkinson, Bishop of Bradwell
from St Mary’s Runwell to Our Lady’s Well

Saturday 23 May, 9.00 am (beginning in St Mary’s Runwell)
A contemplative walk from the Prioress’s tomb in St Mary’s Runwell to the Running Well.

Walk in the footsteps of those who have prayerfully visited the well previously to collect water for use in baptisms at St Mary’s.

Recall the stories of the nunnery based at the Running Well and the last Prioress who was buried in St Mary’s.

All are welcome.

Parking available in the Church car park beside the Church Hall

St Mary’s Church, Runwell Road, Wickford SS11 7HS

+Adam will visit Basildon Deanery to visit and pray at and for every church in the Deanery. He will also leave a pack of prayer resources for each church. This is part of the 100 days of prayer initiative in the Diocese (https://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/about-us/travelling-well-together/travelling-well-together-sustaining-ministry/#Prayer). The day begins with a Deanery Prayer Walk to which there is an open invitation.

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Contemplative Prayer Saturday 27 September

Praying the Stations of the Cross

Today, the Basildon Chapter prayed the Stations of the Cross by Valerie Dean, which are temporarily at St Andrew's Wickford during Lent and Holy Week, using a set of meditations and prayers that I wrote and which are entitled The Passion.

Valerie's Stations of the Cross have a very clear and intense focus on details which are evocative of the whole. They have previously been shown at St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Diocesan Offices of the Diocese of Chelmsford.

Valerie Dean returned to England in the summer of 2007 after living for 27 years in Belgium. There, she studied art for six years and had various exhibitions, in and around Brussels. On returning to England, she became involved in the Kent arts scene and exhibited, regularly, in the Francis Iles gallery, in Rochester. She also took part in the Canterbury Arts Festival and exhibitions in Whitstable.

She worked in acrylics and her technique was usually to put materials and colours on canvas or board, to see what emerged. It was a dialogue between the artist and her materials. Because of her background, this often consisted of figures around a religious theme. They just appeared! Very often, people seemed to want to appear in her paintings, a little like the pictures in the fire that she used to see in her childhood. At other times, she found that buildings and places she knew inspired her.

Mark of the Cross and The Passion are collections of images, meditations and prayers by Henry Shelton and myself on The Stations of the Cross. They provide helpful reflections and resources for Lent and Holy Week. These collections can both be found as downloads from theworshipcloud.

Mark of the Cross is a book of 20 poetic meditations on Christ’s journey to the cross and reactions to his resurrection and ascension. The meditations are complemented by a set of semi-abstract watercolours of the Stations of the Cross and the Resurrection created by Henry Shelton.

The Passion: Reflections and Prayers features minimal images with haiku-like poems and prayers that enable us to follow Jesus on his journey to the cross reflecting both on the significance and the pain of that journey as we do so. Henry and I have aimed in these reflections to pare down the images and words to their emotional and theological core. The mark making and imagery is minimal but, we hope, in a way that makes maximum impact.

Jesus dies on the cross

The sun is eclipsed, early nightfall,
darkness covers the surface of the deep,
the Spirit grieves over the waters.
On the formless, empty earth, God is dead.

Through the death of all we hold most dear, may we find life. Amen.

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Mr Mister - Kyrie.

Look at what my people do in my name

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning at St Gabriel’s Pitsea at a Parade Service that included a Toy Service and a Baptism:

A major new art installation at Canterbury Cathedral in which ordinary people pose questions to God split public opinion ahead of its official launch, with visitors reporting visceral reactions to the bold graffiti-style graphics and thought-provoking questions displayed on the ancient walls. Whilst many reported their delight and intrigue, others have been discomforted by encountering the artworks.

Featuring questions including “Are you there?”, “Why did you create hate when love is by far more powerful?” and “Does everything have a soul?”, the “Hear Us” installation is the culmination of poet Alex Vellis and curator Jacquiline Creswell’s collaboration with marginalised communities and a team of skilled artists to create vibrant handwritten literature responding to the question “What would you ask God?”.

“Surely we have all wondered about the mysteries of the universe, the meaning of life, or in times of uncertainty, sought advice?” Jacquiline Creswell says. “Within a theological context, posing a question to God is viewed as a form of prayer, meditation, or contemplation, in return receiving guidance and solace from a source believed to be all-knowing and compassionate. By reaching out to the Divine with personal inquiries, individuals may find comfort, clarity, and direction amidst life’s uncertainties.”

I wonder what questions you would like to ask of God as we gather here today. Rather than responding to questions with intellectual answers, Jesus often asked those with questions to look and see what God is doing in their lives and times. That’s what we see him do in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 11.2-11) in response to the questions brought to him by the disciples of John the Baptist.

Jesus says to John’s disciples: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Then he says to the crowd, “Look at John the Baptist, at what he has done and said, and see a true prophet from God”.

When we have questions, God still directs to look around us and see what He is doing through his people. When we question whether God is there and whether He is loving or not, He continues to say look at what my people are doing in my name. If we do so in this Deanery, we will see churches organising food banks, supporting those who are homeless or migrants, working intergenerationally with people of all ages to enhance wellbeing and encourage creativity, reducing their carbon footprint and setting up environmental initiatives that show care for creation, going into schools and care homes to minister to people at the beginning and end of their lives, coming alongside people at key moments in their lives including birth, marriage and death.

God continues to answer our questions by saying look at what my people do in my name. That is why when children or adults come to baptism into the family of God supported, in the case of children by parents or godparents, we talk to them in the service about their actions.

We ask those who are baptised to: continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers; persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord; proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ; seek and serve Christ in all people, loving our neighbour as ourself; acknowledge Christ’s authority over human society, by prayer for the world and its leaders, by defending the weak, and by seeking peace and justice; so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, that we may be rooted and grounded in love and bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. We ask this because, as Jesus said, it is by their fruits (their deeds) that true Christians will be known.

In baptism, God touches us with his love and gives us a place among his people. God promises to be with us in joy and sorrow, to be our guide in life, and to bring us safely to heaven. In baptism God invites us on a life-long journey. Together with all God’s people we then explore the way of Jesus and grow in friendship with God, in love for his people, and in serving others. That is the invitation made to James, his parents and godparents today, as to all who have been baptised, and not simply for ourselves and our benefit, but that we might reveal to love of God and the reality of God’s love to others through our lives and example. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace.

Vacancy – Deanery Mission Support Administrator

The Basildon Deanery is advertising for a Deanery Mission Support Administrator

The Deanery Mission Support Administrator will work for three days per week to relieve parishes of administration burdens in order to free up others in the parish (clergy and lay people) for mission and ministry.

S/he will identify parishes which have key roles unfilled or where the same people are undertaking multiple tasks and parishes which through pluralities and/or other forms of joint working have an increased administration load for clergy. Tasks involve: identification of parishes; visits to parishes and resulting support plans; and delivery of succession planning/ training.

• Salary: £15,192 per annum
• Work schedule: 3 days per week
• Time-limited: One year

Click DMSA Job Description to see the DMSA Job Description.

Person specification

This role would ideally be filled by a person currently actively engaged with an Anglican Church, but with an emphasis on and experience of organisational skills and practical project management experience.

Applications

To apply please send a CV and covering letter to Revd Jonathan Evens, Area Dean, at jonathan.evens@btinternet.com by 05/09/25. To discuss the role, please phone Elizabeth Murdoch Atkinson on 07880258262. Interviews to be held in w/c 15/09/25.

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Damien Jurado - Jericho Road.

The boundary-breaking call of Jesus

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford and St Gabriel's Pitsea this morning:

This story of Mary and Martha has often been interpreted in terms of being and doing (Luke 10.38-42). The Wikipedia entry on the story of Martha and Mary summarises the usual way in which it is interpreted: “Mary chose listening to the teachings of Jesus over helping her sister prepare food. Jesus responded that she was right because only one thing is needed, “one thing” apparently meaning listening to the teachings of Jesus… To simplify, this is frequently interpreted as spiritual values being more important than material business, such as preparation of food.”

Yet, Martha had opened her home to Jesus and his disciples and providing hospitality and welcome to strangers was of vital importance within Judaism and in Middle Eastern culture generally. The rabbis taught that Abraham left off a discussion with God and went to greet guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on that example, the rabbis said that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them (Luke 10). So, Jesus’ words to Martha, while they can appear critical, were not intended as a denigration of the role she was fulfilling, which, as we have thought, has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture.

Jesus had already affirmed Martha's hospitality by welcoming and receiving all she offered. However, he also wanted to affirm Mary’s action as well because Mary's action points to an alternative role for women which could only begin to be realised as a result of his affirmation.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. That was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females.

Tom Wright notes that: “To sit at someone’s feet meant, quite simply, to be their student. And to sit at the feet of a rabbi was what you did if you wanted to be a rabbi yourself. There is no thought here of learning for learning’s sake. Mary has quietly taken her place as a would-be teacher and preacher of the kingdom of God.

Jesus affirms her right to do so. Jesus’ valuation of each human being is based on the overflowing love of God, which, like a great river breaking its banks into a parched countryside, irrigates those parts of human society which until now had remained barren and unfruitful. Mary stands for all those women who, when they hear Jesus speaking about the kingdom, know that God is calling them to listen carefully so that they can speak it too.”

Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirmed Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Martha, Ayla Lepine suggests, “wrapped up in the anxieties of hospitality in relation to rank and status, is ‘distracted by many things.’ Jesus tenderly invites her to dare to offer loving attention that is not transactional – Jesus expects nothing in return for the wisdom and love he offers.”

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently put people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8.1-3. Throughout his Gospel, Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women; presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes.

As a result, Tom Wright suggests: “We would be wrong, then, to see Martha and Mary, as they have so often been seen, as models of the ‘active’ and the ‘contemplative’ styles of spirituality. Action and contemplation are of course both important. Without the first you wouldn’t eat, without the second you wouldn’t worship. And no doubt some people are called to one kind of balance between them, and others to another. But we cannot escape the challenge of this passage by turning it into a comment about different types of Christian lifestyle. It is about the boundary-breaking call of Jesus.”

This counter-balance to the patriarchy of the time was necessary in order to signal the value of both women and men in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church. Ultimately, this led to the point that we have reached relatively recently in the Church of England of ordaining women as priests and bishops.

In our Gospel reading today, Mary shows us the importance of making Jesus the central focus of our life and learning while Martha shows us the value of welcome, hospitality and service. The ministries of each one of us can be enhanced by reflecting on the examples that both provide and, through that, the recognition that the saints are not special, super-human people but: sisters, like Martha and Mary, who become frustrated with each other’s choices; and engaged women, like Mary, challenged to obey God in ways that put their relationships under strain.

May we be inspired by their examples and also by all women who have followed in their wake as saints and leaders, and more recently as priests and bishops. May we be inspired by saints such as, in our/my Parish, Catherine, who bravely debated with scholars, philosophers, and orators and was persecuted for her Christian faith after protesting against the treatment of her fellow Christians at the hands of Maxentius, Roman Emperor from 306 to 312 AD. Also, Our Lady Mary, “the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity” remembering that “every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

We can add to those inspirational women, others associated with our churches or Deanery, [in our team, women such as Christine McCafferty, Tara Frankland, Jane Freeman, and, currently, our own Sue Wise and Emma Doe] [such as your own Jacqui Moss and elsewhere Trudy Arnold, Carol Ball, Ruth Dowley, Margaret Fowler, Christine Williams, Karen White and Sue Wise]. Additionally, there are a large number of lay women who have and continue to support and lead within our churches. Each are examples to all of us of what real commitment to Christ entails and involves. This is particularly so because the campaigns to see women take their place alongside men as bishops and at every level in the Church of England have not been about women gaining an ascendency which men have had in the past but, instead, about the full equality of women and men in the Church as part of God's will for his people, and as a reflection of the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.

What we see through their lives and examples is that each one of us are saints; whatever our gender and ministry, its prominence or hiddenness. The only saints to feature in the New Testament are each and every member of a local church. The saints are simply those who are church members whether in Ephesus, in Jerusalem, in Rome, or wherever including, today, those of us here in Wickford and Runwell / Pitsea.

In Christ’s Church and kingdom there should be no gender divide in how we serve and follow him. So, like Martha, each of us (male and female) can practise and value the ministries of welcome, hospitality and service of all and, like Mary, each of us (female and male) can practise and value making Jesus the central focus of our lives and learning as his disciples.

May we be inspired by their examples and those of other women we have mentioned and at the same time may we support all those women who lead us so well within our churches currently, recognising that these are they who are God-bearers, “those whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

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The Ocean Blue - Between Something And Nothing.

Deanery Confirmation Services

Deanery Confirmation Services at St Andrew's Basildon with The Rt Revd Adam Atkinson, Bishop of Bradwell, on Sunday 4 May at 2.00 pm and 4.30 pm. All are welcome.

The confirmation Service will be webcast - https://www.facebook.com/standrewholycross/videos. It will be live on Facebook and also loaded to the St Andrew's and Holy Cross webpage after the service for those who want to watch it at a later time.

See the Deanery News page for: Deanery Confirmation Services; upcoming Deanery Synod meetings; monthly Prayer Gatherings; HeartEdge Mission events; Re-dedication of St Margaret's Bowers Gifford following vandalism; and a range of new cultural events.

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McIntosh Ross - Jesus Nailed My Sins Upon The Tree.

Unveiled: Broomfield artists in the Basildon Deanery

 

Broomfield artists in the Basildon Deanery 

Friday 6 December, 7.00 pm

St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN

Find out about artworks in Basildon and Nevendon by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones and Rosemary Rutherford. 

Rutherford, Huxley-Jones & Gwynneth Holt were artists based in Broomfield who undertook many commissions in Essex.  

An illustrated talk by Jonathan Evens. 

Part of ‘Unveiled’, the Friday night arts & performance event at St Andrew’s Church.

Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. My poem 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations. For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here.

I will also be speaking about Huxley-Jones and Holt at Broomfield Parish Church on Saturday 8 February at 2.00 pm as part of their 'People and Stone' programme.

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World Party - Put The Message In A Box.  

Artworks in the Diocese of Chelmsford

My latest article for Church Times is about the artist Enid Chadwick, whose painting 'The Baptism of Christ' hangs in St Mary's Runwell. There are many interesting artworks to be found in the Diocese of Chelmsford; a fact I have been involved in highlighting previously through art trails in the Barking Episcopal Area - see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Most recently, I have included a listing of artworks to be found in the Basildon Deanery here and the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry here and here. See also my post about artists in Broomfield - here.

On the back of these and other sources of information, here is a partial listing of artists with work which can be found in churches within the Diocese of Chelmsford:

• Mark Angus: St Mary the Virgin Maldon.
• G.F.Bodley: St John the Baptist Epping.
• John Bridgeman: St Bartholomew East Ham.
• Sarah Burgess: St Edmund Chingford.
• Edward Burne-Jones: Ilford Hospital Chapel, St Lawrence Bradfield.
• William Butterfield: St Catherine Wickford.
• W.D. Caroe: St Barnabas Walthamstow.
• Sir Hugh Casson: St Andrew Greensted-Juxta-Ongar.
• Mark Cazalet: Chelmsford Cathedral; St Alban Romford.
• Enid Chadwick: St Mary Runwell.
• Fyffe Christie: St Margaret Stanford Rivers.
• Margaret Chilton: St Andrew Leytonstone.
• Clayton & Bell: St Barnabas Walthamstow.
• Stanley Clifford-Smith, St John the Baptist with Our Lady and St Laurence Thaxted
• John Coleman: St Andrew Romford.
• Ninian Comper: St Barnabas Little Ilford.
• John Constable: St Mary Dedham.
• Samuel Cooper: St Augustine of Canterbury Birdbrook
• Anne Creasey: Christ Church Thamsview.
• Robert Crutchley: St Michael and All Angels Manor Park.
• Hilary Davies: St Andrew Leytonstone.
• Lewis Davies: St Andrew Leytonstone.
• Louis B. Davis: St John Seven Kings.
• Georg Ehrlich: Chelmsford Cathedral.
• Peter Eugene-Ball: Chelmsford Cathedral; St Alban Romford.
• Leonard Evetts: St Paul Goodmayes.
• Faith-Craft Works: St Barnabas Walthamstow; St Paul Goodmayes.
• Eric Gill: St Barnabas Walthamstow.
• Angela Godfrey: St Peter-Ad-Vincula Royden.
• David Griffiths: St Andrew Ilford.
• Hans Feibusch: St Martin Dagenham.
• David Folley: St Andrew Wickford.
• Anthony Foster: St Peter Aldborough Hatch.
• Peter Foster: St Martin of Tours Basildon.
• Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn: St Michael Theydon Mount.
• Charles Gurrey: St Alban Romford; St Barnabas Walthamstow.
• John Hardman: St Lawrence Bradfield.
• Charles Hare: St John the Baptist Epping.
• John Hayward: St Peter-Ad-Vincula Royden.
• Henningham Family Press: St Peter Harold Wood.
• Gwynneth Holt: All Saints Stock; St Andrew Hornchurch; St Margaret of Antioch Downham; St Mary Broomfield.
• Derek Hunt: St John Seven Kings, St Peter and St Thomas Stambourne.
• John Hutton: Chelmsford Cathedral; St Erkenwald Barking; St George Gants Hill.
• Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones: Chelmsford Cathedral; St Martin of Tours Basildon; St Peter Aldborough Hatch.
• George Jack: St Margaret Barking.
• C.E. Kempe & Co. Ltd: St James Nayland; St John the Baptist Epping; St John Seven Kings.
• Mark Lewis: St Margaret of Antioch Ilford.
• Alison McCaffrey: St Edward Romford.
• Morris & Co.: Holy Cross Hornchurch; St Paul Goodmayes.
• Nicholas Mynheer: St Bartholomew East Ham.
• Kjellaug Nordsjö: Diocesan Retreat House Pleshey; St Margaret Barking.
• Joseph Nuttgens: St Martin of Tour Basildon.
• John Piper: St Paul Harlow.
• John Pitt: St Alban Romford.
• Hugh Powell: Little Horkesley, Essex
• Jane Quail: St Paul East Ham; St Paul Goodmayes.
• Patrick Reyntiens: St Alban Romford.
• Caroline Richardson: Church of the Good Shepherd Collier Row; St Luke’s Chapel Queen’s Hospital Romford; St Peter Harold Wood.
• Richard Richardson: St Peter-Ad-Vincula Royden.
• Zdzislaw Ruszkowski: St Peter Harlow.
• Rosemary Rutherford: St Edmund Tendring; St Lawrence Bradfield; St Mary Broomfield; St Paul Clacton-on-Sea; St Peter Nevenden.
• Jamie Sargeant: St Alban Romford.
• Henry Shelton: All Saints Goodmayes; All Saints Hutton; St Barnabas Walthamstow; St Luke’s Chapel Queen’s Hospital Romford; St Paul Goodmayes.
• F.W. Skeat: St Margaret Stanford Rivers.
• Charles Smith: St Barnabas Walthamstow.
• Peter S. Smith: St John Leytonstone.
• Francis Stephens: Church of the Holy Innocents, High Beach; St Martin Chipping Ongar; St Peter-on-the-Wall Bradwell.
• Alan Stewart: St Margaret Barking.
• Steven Sykes: Holy Trinity & St Augustine of Hippo Leytonstone.
• Josephina de Vasconcellos: St John the Baptist Epping.
• Leonard Walker: St Martin Chipping Ongar.
• Peter Webb: St Mary Woodford.
• A.Wyatt: St Peter Aldborough Hatch.
• Alan Younger: St Andrew Leytonstone; St Mary Woodford; St Paul Woodford Bridge.

I'm looking to extend the list in order to make it more comprehensive, so do let me know of any artists or locations that are missing. 

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Joy Williams - One Day I Will.

Good News Story: New website supporting parishes across Basildon

The new website for Basildon Deanery features as a Good News story in the latest edition of The View, the weekly email from the Diocese of Chelmsford that is sent to church officers and subscribers. The View is full of helpful resources, news and events that are taking place across our diocese.

Click here to read the story about the Basildon Deanery website - https://mailchi.mp/chelmsford/chelmsford-diocese-e-bulletin-the-view-1079972

To see the Basildon Deanery website click here - https://basildondeanery.co.uk/

If you would like to receive The View, you can sign up to the mailing list here - https://anglican.us7.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=3ee1f9cb35d751b908bd79a83&id=b55c99cad3

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Simon Law - The Haven. 

Vision-crafting and team-building

We enjoyed a PCC Away Day on Saturday at St Mary Magdalene Great Burstead, which included a lunchtime tour of the church. Revd Sue led us in Morning Prayer and a Wellbeing exercise and Revd Steve celebrated at the closing Eucharist.

 
In between, we were led in vision crafting and team building exercises by Sarah Rogers, one of three mission consultants available to parishes in the Basildon Deanery through Mission Opportunities Funding from the Diocese of Chelmsford. Sarah helped us think about our vision and values based on our current mission and ministry activities and helped us identify challenges and opportunities whilst identifying key initiatives and those requiring additional resource. All in all, a very productive and enjoyable day.

Our thanks to everyone who took part and to St Mary's Great Burstead for hosting us.

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The Moody Blues - Minstrel's Song.