The 'L' plates are off! - June 2007

In the Vicarage we have been celebrating with my oldest children, Paul and Jennifer, that they have each passed their driving tests. They have had months of driving lessons, and gaining confidence driving around in our family car too. It’s a nerve-wracking business, letting someone else behind the wheel, but they have been really very good, and they deserved to pass. It was an important milestone to achieve.

So, the red ‘L’ plates are off, and we can now put on some green ‘P’ plates, because we all know that just because you pass a test, it doesn’t mean that you are a brilliant driver. I think the ‘P’ stands for ‘Provisional’, and should help other drivers to be a little more generous and understanding to someone gaining confidence as a new driver – we’ll see how well that works out in practice!

In May I passed an important milestone of my own. I was invited onto the First Incumbent’s Course – a training course for those becoming a Vicar for the first time.

A group of seven new incumbents spent three days at Foxhill retreat centre, learning some new things, and sharing our experiences with each other.

We each had to give a 20 minute presentation on our respective parishes to the group and then lead a discussion on our findings. It was really interesting to hear about the situation in parishes across our diocese – from really poor urban priority areas, to leafy rural parishes, from small struggling churches to large popular ones.

As with many courses nowadays, the real work was done before we got there. We had to complete an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing our parish – and what we now need to do to be a growing and more effective church here in Crewe.

There are harder places for ministry within our Diocese, but we know that we face difficulties here in Crewe. Despite this we have lots of strengths, mainly in our faithful people at St. Peters and All Saints, who work so hard and with great love. The opportunities for ministry and mission are all around us, and the need is great – so we do need to focus our efforts.

Over the next few months we will be working together with PCC members to see the best way forward. We want to celebrate the good things that are happening, and to see which areas can be improved. We’ll be thinking about what kind of Church God wants us to be in the future. I hope we can all think about these things and share our ideas.

So, in lots of ways I do feel that the ‘L’ plates are off, and some kind people have even given me a set of green ‘P’ plates to celebrate. That does mean I will still make mistakes, and I’ll still need your generosity and understanding as we journey on together.