21.01.2024 - Living in Love and Faith Survey RESULTS

Following our survey to the Parish and taking the views of those on the Electoral Roll, on Thursday 18th October 2024, the voting to establish the position of the Church on Living in Love & Faith (LLF) and Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) closed.

The results are now in and you can read the full results by downloading from the link below. 

We had responses from 109 out of 223 members of the Electoral Roll, showing the range of opinions across the Parish. 

53.2% were in favour of the use of the blessings

40.4% against

6.4% expressed no strong opinion. 

The results are now to be considered by the PCC, who are now reviewing the Parish Profile, with the aim to formally adopt this at a meeting in November, and if all goes according to plan, we would then advertise for our new vicar.

Download Survey Report

Mark Puddy & Sue Witney (Churchwardens)

18.01.2024 - Living in Love and Faith Survey Closed

On Wednesday 2nd October 2024, members of the Electoral Roll were contacted with regards to responding to a survey on Living in Love & Faith (LLF). 

This survey was to establish the position of the Church on LLF and Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF), for use in blessing people in same sex partnerships, enabling us to recruit potential vicars and understand our viewpoint during the Interregnum and the appointment of a new vicar. 

It was determined by the PCC that it was important to know the Parish’s view before the new vicar arrived. 

Three documents were produced: 

- Sexuality timeline in the Church of England by The Church of England

- Why I support Prayers of Blessing for same sex couples by Revd Steve Turville

- A faulty umbrella and the Bible: Why PLF is not good news by Jubi da Silva

It was agreed that only members of the Electoral Roll (233 people) should be able to take part in the survey, which closed at midnight on Wednesday 16th October 2024. To demonstrate however, that we are open to hearing all responses within the Parish, we also ran in parallel another survey for those that were not on the Electoral Roll. 

Results are to be shared on Monday 21st October 2024.

Mark Puddy & Sue Witney (Churchwardens)

02.10.2024 - Living in Love and Faith: Survey

Living in Love and Faith (LLF) refers to a range of written and video material, including a 5-session course, produced by the Church of England to help churches engage with the issues of same sex marriage, partnership, gender and sexuality.

Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) are the prayers recommended by some Bishops, including those in the Oxford Diocese, for use in blessing people in same sex partnerships. 

John Cook gave us clear teaching from a conservative position which was also expressed by Richard Eves, from the pulpit and in the parish magazine. Two years ago we held a forum led by Dr Andrew Goddard where we learnt about some of the issues facing worshippers concerning same sex partnership, reflecting the biblical basis and pastoral considerations. Subsequently, there has been sporadic discussion in some house groups but no wider involvement of the Church. 

When Sue and I met the local hierarchy of the Church of England to consider the process for the Interregnum and the appointment of a new vicar, we were advised we should include in our parish profile the position of the parish concerning LLF, to help potential vicars understand our view point. The Archdeacon then spoke at a recent PCC meeting to suggest we either decide to clarify the range of opinion during the interregnum or defer the process, making it clear we would want our new vicar to take us on this journey.

At the latest PCC meeting we discussed these options and would like to determine your views before a new vicar arrives. We have produced from within the Parish 3 articles, the first giving the historical background of the journey undertaken by the Church of England over the last 60 years to reach this point, followed by articles for and against the blessing of same sex partnerships. After reading, considering, and praying, we then invite all the members of our church on the Electoral Roll to take part in a survey, to demonstrate the range of opinion within our parish. The closing date for submissions will be Wednesday 16th October.  The link to the survey was emailed to you separately.

Download Articles

The feedback that we have received while drawing up the priorities for the Parish Profile has demonstrated that there are strongly held views on both sides on this matter. The PCC is not of one mind over LLF and is aware of the potential hurt and upset caused by this issue. We pray that the arguments and distress will be minimised by giving people the opportunity to reflect on this document in a time of prayer and quiet at home, and we are grateful that Revd Steve Turville after his return from Japan has offered to talk and pray at any time with individuals.

We are very much indebted for the time and effort which Revd Steve Turville, and Jubi and Annie da Silva, have spent to produce these articles. We feel it is particularly valuable to us as a congregation that the differing positions are explained by people we know and trust. 

We are also grateful for the counsel of the PCC as to how we should proceed, and the work of The Parish Office Team and Andy Ferguson’s team at PursuitNHA for their support. As we are aware of the strength of feeling on this issue, and also the need for everyone to be reassured that these responses to be handled in a confidential way, the PCC has decided on what if feels is the most robust method for handling and analysing your responses. We are also grateful for Helen Vonka for her work maintaining the Electoral Roll of the Parish.

Mark Puddy and Sue Witney

Churchwardens

01.10.2024

Since the last update, things have been moving apace with the work towards appointing our new Vicar. 

There have been a number of meetings of the steering group appointment by the PCC to oversee the preparation of the Parish Profile, the prospectus for the Parish senone thinking of becoming our new vicar. This has been reviewed by the Diocesan Advisor, and we are working on incorporating his suggestions before sending it for review by the PCC. However, we are pleased with the progress.

The PCC has held a formal meeting, called a ‘Section 11’ Meeting, and they chose Sue Witney and myself to be the Parish Representatives to sit on the interview panel for the new vicar. 

The PCC has decided to send out a discussion document electronically to everyone on the Electoral Roll for whom we hold an email address, giving arguments for and against the use of blessings in Church for those in a same sex partnership, and then giving them the opportunity to let us know their feelings by a survey, so that we can include the results in the Parish Profile. If you do not receive an electronic link to this document by Saturday 5th October and would like one, please contact the Parish Office, and, if you let us know your email address, we can send it to you. If you would prefer to collect a paper copy, we can print it for you to collect in Church at a service, or else from the Office. 

Since the departure of John Cook at the end of June, and Richard Eves at the end of August, all was left to Steve Turville...and then he went off to Japan for 3 weeks in September! However, Sue Witney has done very well in recruiting other clergy in the area to lead most of our services in Steve’s absence. Although we did not manage it on 15th September, we, otherwise, are on target to have a communion service in the Parish every Sunday. We have needed some adjustments, and we are grateful to the 8am congregation in Wargrave, for agreeing to reduce their services to twice a month, and to Knowl Hill and Warren Row, for having moved their services to 11.15am. This is all really helpful, and should mean that Steve can have a Sunday off each month, which we all agree is absolutely necessary.

Please continue to pray for whoever is going to be joining us as our new vicar, and for all those who are working so hard to maintain this as a Parish where God is Praised, week by week.

01.09.2024

We have been going through a process of seeking the views of the congregation and our local community to work out what we feel are the priorities for our parish and what characteristics we need in selecting the vicar to address the priorities.

On the morning of Saturday 3rd August, 52 of us from all over the parish met in the Church Centre for a session excellently led by Rhodri Bowen, the Parish Development Officer for Berkshire. There was constructive agreement on a range of priorities. We then had an excellent lunch, organised by Sue Witney and her team. We had 8 replies from the wider community as a response to the survey advertised in the Wargrave News. The Churchwardens have received lots of thoughtful written responses from our congregations. 

All of this feedback was then presented to the members of the PCC (Parochial Church Council), who held a very constructive meeting on 12th August, and we have a good basis to help with the work on the parish profile, (the prospectus viewed by anyone thinking of applying for the vacancy for our new vicar). While Sue Witney and I have done a lot of work producing an initial draft of the Profile, we now have a team in place to drive this on. 

There will be a formal meeting, called a Section 11 Meeting, for the PCC in September, when the two members of the Parish on the Interview Panel will be selected. Once the Parish Profile has gone through further modification, and meets with the approval of the Berkshire Church of England Administration, this will then return to the PCC at another meeting to be confirmed.

Then we will be able to post advertisements and await the response. Your continued prayers for this process, and for our next vicar, continue to be vital for this process.

Provisioning for the future

We are in the process of writing the Parish Profile and we are keen as a church to work together to identify what our priorities are for our church and the people God has placed us amongst. 

We want to provide an opportunity to think about our vision for the future, the job of our next leader and what sort of person we feel might be called to this role. 

To this end we are providing the opportunity to spend time listening to God, to each other, and most importantly praying, in order to help us discern our vision and what might be needed from the next vicar on Saturday 3rd August from 9.30am - 12.30pm.  There will also be a light lunch to follow.

Some questions to be thinking about before the day: 

• What is valued about our church?
• What is done well? 
  
• What is good/of God?
• Where have we noticed God at work in and around our church?

As we are catering for this event we do need to have an idea of numbers so please RSVP to or by Monday 29th July.

Saturday 3rd August  |  9.30am - 12.30pm

St Mary's Church Centre

07.07.2024

Having completed his curacy training in June, our curate Richard Eves, his wife Mel and their daughters, Alice and Sophie, will be leaving in late August to begin studying for a Masters in Theology from September. His last service with us will be Sunday 25th August.

Richard says "Over our our three years here, I feel like we have received vastly more than we have given. It has been a blessing from the Lord to serve and learn here, among such lovely people, and the church and village will remain in our prayers in the years ahead." 

This will obviously mean that we will be under more pressure in covering all our present services, and we will be meeting with Steve Turville to discuss how we will need to adapt. We wish Richard and family well.

Sue Witney & Mark Puddy

01.07.2024

What is an Interregnum? 

What is the normal process of appointing a new vicar?

• The process normally begins after the vicar leaves but to try to get things ready within the appropriate timespan, John has kindly given us permission to start the process sooner.
• A “Section 11 Meeting” is held by the PCC, to plan the creation of a prospectus of the parish for prospective vicars. This is called the “Parish Profile”. The two representatives of the parish on the interview panel are chosen at this meeting.
• Work starts on preparing the Parish Profile. This includes a description of the life and mission of our Church, views on how we would like the Church to develop, and our view of what we are looking for in a new vicar. It is important that we receive the widest range of views from people throughout our Parish. We are hoping to arrange an open forum for the Parish to encourage discussion. This has not been finalised, but we are aiming for the morning of Saturday 3rd August.
• Once the Parish Profile has been written and amended, another meeting of the PCC, a “Section 12 Meeting”, is held to adopt the Parish Profile. The Diocese is represented at this meeting.
• The Vacancy is advertised, with prospective vicars visiting the parish. Applications are received and a shortlist is drawn up.
• There is then a formal Interview, with the two Parish Representatives present and the Patron of the Parish (In the old days it was Lord Remnant, but the patronage is now held by the Dean of Windsor). The Diocese is also represented.
• Once a new vicar is selected and accepts, it is usual for them to see out their notice period in their current position before they are able to take up their new role.

01.06.2024

Part I - Parish Profile 

Over the coming weeks/months you will be receiving regular updates from our Churchwardens regarding the appointment of a new vicar to Wargrave and Knowl Hill. We will do our best to always keep you in the loop, however, as much of the process is managed by the Diocese, there will always be a slight delay. Do keep your eyes out for emails.

Last Sunday at St Mary’s, Mark Puddy gave an update on what progress we have made towards the appointment of a new Vicar for our parish. 

Although we were able to reach an initial consensus on the way forward, including holding a survey, in the light of further conversations we have decided to pause and revisit the question of process over the coming weeks. The Archdeacon has offered to meet with the PCC to share insights from other vacancies. In the meantime, we will focus on celebrating John and Camilla’s remaining time with us.

We do apologise to John, and to the Parish, for the uncertainty and distress that this has caused. Please continue to pray for our Parish, and all those seeking to ascertain God’s will over the process of the appointment of a new Vicar for our Parish.

Sue Witney & Mark Puddy

22.04.2024

Announcement: End of an Era

Dear Friends,

At the Annual Parochial Church Meeting last Sunday 14th April, John Cook announced that, because of health reasons, he had decided with sadness that he should retire as Vicar of the Parish of Wargrave with Knowl Hill, at some point over the Summer. His last service is scheduled to be on Sunday 30th June at the Village Festival Songs of Praise service. 

John’s health has been in many of our prayers for some time, and, sad though we are to think of him leaving us, we know that this is the right decision for both Camilla and John. When John Ratings was approaching his retirement after a third of a century in the Parish, it was difficult to envisage how things would be without him. We are now coming to the end of 15 years where the Word of the God has been at the heart of everything we have done in this Parish, and this forms John’s legacy, as we look to steer the times ahead without his hand on the tiller. Details of how we will mark the end of John’s ministry in the Parish will be announced in due course.

We are in a very fortunate position that we have in the Parish, Steve and Richard as well as Andy to assist with funerals, and we are planning how to continue worship throughout the Parish. Moreover, we are fortunate to have so many servant minded members in our Church family.

During the previous gap between vicars (interregnum), a number of the members of the congregation gave talks in services, and, if you feel called to look for an increased role, please do speak to one of the Clergy or Churchwardens. 

The process of advertising for, and selecting, a new Vicar for our Parish, is unfortunately a very drawn-out affair in the Church of England, and so the interregnum is likely to last at least well into next year.

Please join us in your prayers, and heartfelt thanks, for John and Camilla, and for our Parish. 

Sue Witney & Mark Puddy Churchwardens