St. Edmund Campion Parish, Maidenhead

Pastoral Area Update February 2024

Dear Friend and Parishioner,

I write to update you, following the first meeting of clergy and nominated representatives from each parish, in our new expanded Parish formation, as part of the 10-year mission plan: You will be my Witnesses.

As a reminder, the churches of:

I mentioned in the first edition of these updates, that in our first meeting of the Parish implementation team in November, we were asked to think about our new wider Parish name and we agreed that "The Holy Family", using the church names, St Elizabeth, St Joseph, Christ and Our Lady especially, and underlining our intention to be a wider family of churches and parishioners in the future was the name we preferred. We are just awaiting approval from the diocese to use this name as we move forward.

As a reminder, each church in our new Parish retains their name, their identity locally and publicly. There is no intention at all to change this.

So, what have we been doing in December and January?

We had a long agenda both months, to put in place the structure for these meetings as we move forward.

1. We agreed that we are called the Holy Family transitional group
2. We agreed our role in the formation of our new wider Parish by 2027, which is:
   1. To develop a vision of who we are as one parish and missionary community; what we stand for,and a plan as to how we achieve it
   2. To lead the fruitful transition from a number of individual faith communities into one. (Fruitfulness will include how we engage and relate to our parishes and the wider community in sharing and engaging them in our vision, our goals and our faith)
   3. To focus on renewal in how we live and how we express our faith
3. We carried out a SWOT analysis of our new Parish – What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of this change – so that we can build our strategy, clearly understanding what actions we will need take and when
4. In January we refined this SWOT into Who are we now? This was shared, discussed and agreed at the meeting with minor amendments
5. We agreed the role of the nominated representatives
1. They help us transform how we operate by inspiring and influencing others
2. They will promote, champion, enable, and support our New Holy Family Parish implementation
3. They will help with 2-way communications from the faithful in our churches to the implementation team and back, to make sure everyone has a voice and knows that they will be heard
6. And we agreed that we’ll create posters to display in each church, so that everyone knows who their representatives are
7. We shared details of our individual skills, experiences and gifts, so that we can see if we have any gaps – with a view to applying these gifts in later meetings and as we start to move through the many plans we will have to put in place
8. A number of people had expressed concern about the differences in style and culture between the churches. We shared and considered possible cultural differences and points of concern and concluded that this was less of an issue than might have been feared. Indeed, our Catholic identity is one of diversity, inclusion and expressing our Faith in a local context, and at the same time, celebrating that we belong to a Worldwide Community of Christ. However, we will keep this topic open for more voices to be heard
9. Who do we want to become as a Parish? Following a group discussion, we are now creating a Mission, and Vision for the new wider parish

Getting to know your representatives…

They want to hear from you, so they can feedback your thoughts to our meetings.

If you don’t feel comfortable airing your opinions in this way, please write to me directly at: lcummins@portsmouthdiocese.org.uk and I will listen and respond. The most important thing for me – is that we, the faithful, in all our churches feel included, listened to and heard. This is not being done to you, but with you.

On some subjects, we may want to canvass opinion more widely through surveys or questionnaires. Please look out for my regular ‘You will be my Witnesses’ updates where I will give more information.

Any change is always difficult to accept, and I’m determined to make this journey as transparent and collaborative as I can for everyone in our wider Parish.

Father Liam

 

Parish of the Holy Family, made up of the following church communities:

• Maidenhead: St Edmund Campion, and St Joseph
• Cookham: St Elizabeth
• Twyford: St Thomas More
• Wargrave: Our Lady of Peace (currently closed)
• Culham: Christ the Redeemer
• Kiln Green: St John’s convent

Read the previous letter (November 2023) here.

Edition 2 – 30 January 2024