Mission Action Plan, Advent 2016 – Easter 2019
Faith, Hope and Love
This Mission Action Plan (MAP) aims to set out, with key priorities and objectives, a positive vision for St Matthew’s church. This is a working document produced through shared, prayerful reflection on what the vision is that God would have us pursue for our parish. This reflection involves considering the story that we are a part of: who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.
Who we are
Our church is named after Saint Matthew, the apostle and evangelist who left his tax collector’s booth to become a follower of Jesus. In his former work, Matthew would have been unpopular with many: not only did he collect taxes but he did it as a collaborator with the Roman occupation. When he was called by Jesus, Matthew was a social outcast and his first act was to invite others from the margins of society – tax collectors and sinners – to meet and eat with Jesus. Matthew’s legacy is therefore to go out and invite in. As a tax collector, Matthew would have likely been literate in Aramaic and Greek. Tradition tells us that Matthew was the author of the Gospel which bears his name.
The symbols for St Matthew are the money bag and the spear. The money bag reminds us to be responsible stewards of the resources that we have and to look to what we have in our hands – and wallets – and consider how it can be used for God’s kingdom. The spear is a symbol we share with St Thomas’ and it reminds us of the injustice in the world that we need to pin-point and cut through. It also reminds us of the pain in our lives and our community that needs to be spoken and offered to God for healing as we come together to be the re-membered and reconstituted people gathered in communion with one another and God.
Our parish is among the 4% most deprived parishes in the country. According to national statistics, many in the parish have no qualifications (26%), child poverty is high (38%), and many live in social housing (49%). Our parish is very ethnically diverse (76%), including a large Charedi Jewish community and many Muslims from different backgrounds, including a large Turkish group. In the south of the parish near the river, increasing numbers of young professionals are moving in.
St Matthew’s history goes back over 150 years, when the parish was first established out of the parish of St John at Hackney. The permanent church building was consecrated on April 5, 1869 and so we will celebrate our 150th anniversary on this date in 2019. St Matthew’s Church has known high points, including in the late nineteenth century when attendance on a Sunday was over 1500 (second only in Hackney to St John at Hackney). The parish has changed dramatically during the lifetime of the church, from a rural/suburban setting to the urban and now diverse neighbourhood of today. The church has also come through various challenges, including bomb damage during the war, the demolition of the spire in the early 60s and the extensive fire which finished off the main building in 1977. In recent years, the threat of closure was only abated after the intervention and offer of support by Rev. Tunde Roberts. St Matthew’s has been a part of a group ministry since the early 70s and following the work of Rev. Susie Paddock as Transition Chaplain, now is more closely linked to St Thomas’ with Fr. William Campbell Taylor as Priest-in-charge and training incumbent for Rev. Graham, whose ministry focus is St Matthew’s. St Matthew’s challenging history and uncertain future has perhaps given the church both a sense of resilience and determination to thrive, along with a sense of dependency and precariousness.
So who are we? I describe St Matthew’s congregation as warm and welcoming, committed in faith and caring for the needs of one another practically and in prayer. We are concerned for the blessing and well-being of our parish but sometimes struggle to find the resources beyond our own needs (which are often significant and complex) to serve the needs of others. We have an Anglo-Catholic tradition of worship but are flexible and gladly make space for some informality along with contemporary music as we aspire to engage our diverse range of ages. We are blessed with a good number of children. Many are from single-parent families where the mother is the carer. We lack young people (teens and twenties) but otherwise have a good range of ages. We are not very ethnically diverse, being predominantly black Caribbean and African in heritage. We have limited resources with most members on low incomes and many lack capacity and or confidence and training to take on roles beyond involvement in Sunday services. St Matthew’s is also limited by not having a full-time minister and the lack of a stipend associated with the church currently perpetuates this. St Matthew’s small building has advantages in being physically warm and also fostering emotional warmth. However, we have outgrown our building and have inadequate space for children’s groups as well as limited scope for other bookings.
Where we have come from and where we are going
Below, I set out my reflections on recent years. I want to invite you to also make your own reflection on the history and story of St Matthew’s so that we can together seek God’s vision for our church and parish.
Looking back over my time at St Matthew’s, it seems to me that there have been a number of phases, which roughly correspond to the years that I have been here. The first phase was characterised by ‘learning’. I was getting to know the congregation, tradition and parish, and people were getting to know me. Through this relationship building, trust and understanding were being established and I was grateful for the welcome, patience and support I was shown during this time.
The second phase was characterised by ‘the beginnings of growth’. As I grew in confidence in my role, the congregation also seemed to be growing in confidence around our potential for a positive future and what God is doing through our church. St Matthew’s was beginning to add new people and the relatively large number of children brought a sense of new life and energy to our gatherings. Our income was also modestly growing such that we hope to balance our limited budget this year.
Looking forward, and as we enter a third phase, I pray that St Matthew’s will not only continue its positive trajectory of growth but that this will be balanced growth. That means growth that is not only sideways (growing in number, in finances, in self-confidence) but also growth that is upwards (growing in intimacy with God and in the depth of our faith) and also outwards (growing in connections with the parish, mission to new people and social action responding to the needs of others). These latter two might characterise the third phase such that it becomes one in which we increasingly become a church that serves the parish. With our ‘Faith, Hope and Love’ strapline, our aims for growth are that we would grow in faith; our knowledge and experience of God, in hope; our pastoral care and encouragement of one another, and in love; our sharing of God’s love with the world.
Following the three phases (learning, the beginnings of growth, local mission) we might also expect a fourth phase which is transitioning in leadership as Rev. Graham’s curacy comes to an end in 2018. Anticipating this means that it is important to share the ownership of initiatives and activities of this MAP widely within the church and key partners.
What is your sense of where we have come from and where we are going? What are the priorities for the future and what are the resources we need and concerns that we have?
This document
The key priorities and objectives of our MAP have been organised around the three headings ‘Pen’, ‘Pasture’ and ‘Croft’. This makes our MAP correspond to that of St Thomas’, our sister church, with whom it is good to look for opportunities for joint ministry and partnership. As Fr William explains, these names come:
…from the passage in John 10, where Jesus teaches that he is the gate between the sheep-fold and the pasture and that through him the sheep may have abundant life. The titles derive from an extrapolation of the text: The “Pen Group” is concerned with the inner life of the church; the “Pasture Group” is concerned with relationship beyond the walls of the sheepfold; the “Croft Group” is concerned with maintaining the infrastructure of the smallholding so that the sheep can come and go and enjoy abundant life.
It is important for St Matthew’s PCC and wider congregation to share the vision of our key priorities and to appoint lead people who will oversee the three ‘action plans’. These lead people will report at each PCC meeting on the progress in the different areas and offer support and encouragement to the named individuals who are especially involved in each objective. The MAP will be evaluated annually as part of the reporting for our APCM in April.
St Matthew's Church 