Aberdeen City Centre Parish Grouping
"Commentary on the Basis of Grouping of Aberdeen City Centre Churches"
The aim and purpose of the Parish Grouping is to enable the neighbouring churches (Queen Street , St Mark's, The Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting) to work together in order to be more effective in developing their common ministry and mission to the communities which they are called to serve. By agreeing a 'Basis of Parish Grouping' the congregations do not lose their separate identities but do agree to work collaboratively in agreed areas such as youth work, pastoral concern, mission, staffing, or whatever areas are appropriate in the particular area of the parish grouping."
With the difficulties experienced by the website since December 2008 these pages did get just a bit out of date and I took the decision to remove all the old material with a view to refreshing the Grouping information. This page will therfore deal with issues considered by the Development Group and the next page with contributions submitted by each congregation for publication as a supplement to our individual Parish Magazines.
Autumn 2009
Since the last supplement the Development Group has been busy, both in relation to the Additional Ministry post and preparation for Team Ministry. We organised a joint meeting of all three Kirk Sessions which was held on 4 July at Queen Street when Jim Merrilees of the Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting gave a presentation on Team Ministry. This had been developed from previous presentations to the Development Group and introduced the topic to a wider audience.
While all this was going on we were also heavily involved in moving forward the post of Additional Ministry and this was finally advertised in Life & Work in August under the title of “Community Development and Outreach Worker”. At the time of writing however there is no progress to report in relation to recruitment although many students will not be completing their placements etc until later in September.
At the beginning of September we joined together at the Kirk of St Nicholas to celebrate Communion when the preacher was Tormod Woxen, who Bill Ross has written about in his contribution. The service involved children from our Sunday Schools who spent some time apart but were present at the start of the service and for the celebration of Communion with several of the youngsters sharing in the elements.
At the time of writing the Development group is looking forward to its next meeting when discussions will involve both, Team Ministry and the Additional Ministry post as well as plans for future joint services and our next joint social event. The previous events have been very successful and we want to continue developing our relationships as contributors to the City Centre Grouping.
Probably our most successful project to date has been arranging for distribution of the “Big Issue” where our team of volunteers, drawn from all three churches, is fulfilling a vital need in the City centre and beyond. Changes in the arrangements with the magazine’s publishers are due to take place and these will have some impact on the way our volunteers are organised. However whilst there are likely to be some changes to the way the distribution service will operate we believe that these will be minor both for ourselves and for the vendors. If you can spare a couple of hours during the week why not consider adding your name to the rota for this very useful service to the City Centre.
Summer 2009
Sometimes you can speak too soon, and so it was in the 'Grouping' page in last quarter's supplement. You will have read that advertising for our Additional Ministry post would go ahead "in a couple of months". Regrettably it was not to be. Despite the positive reception we received from the Parish Development Committee's visiting team the full committee had reservations aboutboth our approach to the new post and to the overall progress of the grouping itself. At a meeting with the PDC Chairman however weappeared to overcome all of the hurdles and were confident that our citation to Presbytery would see us attend a meeting at which the formalgo-ahead would be given.
On the night however a speaker from the floor questioned the whole idea of additional ministry to the Grouping and suggested that the needs ofother churches within the bounds should be examined first, with all churches invited, effectively, to "bid" for the post. Thankfully the PDCconfirmed that we were as much in the running as any congregation and that we should confirm our interest as part of their examination of theposition across Aberdeen.
As well as deciding that we would indeed 'bid' for the post we agreed to look further at the job description and person specification to removeany lingering doubts that might be held within the PDC. The Grouping is indebted to Jim Merrilees of the Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting for thework which he undertook in a short timescale to get our paperwork to the Committee and we now wait to hear what the PDC and Presbytery will decide.
Summer 2009 News from the Churches is on Page 2
Spring 2009
As of the start of 2009 the Development Group were heavily involved in considering an Additional Ministry post. We spent a number of meetings looking at the job description and person specification for the post and thought we had made good progress. A sub group with representatives of all three congregations prepared the documentation for us, putting in a great deal of effort. Regrettably however there developed considerable confusion following our meeting with representatives of the Parish Development Committee (PDC).
The Development Group proceeded to contact 121 with our Job Description etc (as advised by the visiting PDC delegation) only to find the full committee had not endorsed our thinking, nor did they have a favourable view of progress in reviewing the Grouping. A further meeting with the Chair of the PDC however clarified a number of issues and a good report was presented to Presbytery.
At the Presbytery meeting however views from the floor saw our application for Additional Ministry effectively blocked until the needs of other congregations were further explored. As part of this review by the PDC the Development group has submitted a case for the post and we await further developments.