The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

of the meeting held on 7th February

The major item on the PCC’s agenda on the 7th February was a discussion of the Deanery Mission Action Plan.
Attitudes to the Deanery were ambivalent; few members of the PCC seemed to have any strong feeling of beilonging to the North Camden Deanery. But most acknowledged that cooperation with our neighbouring Churches was important. In the 1970s the deanery had been much livelier. Its decline was attributable to a shortage of clergy (which meant stretched clerical resources concentrated on the Parish rather than any larger unit).

The Council accepted the Initial Statement, that “..the spirit of unity and co-operation would, if realised, release the energy for us to do more creatively together ” but with the qualification in italics.
The most significant challenge revealed by the statistical analysis of the Deanery population was the depressingly small number of regular church goers. One reason for this might be our closeness to central London churches where the choral tradition and resources outmatched anything in the North Camden (and the proximity of the West End made it much harder for concerts and plays, albeit of a high standard to compete with international performers only half an hour away). The generally high level of education in the population and the number of church buildings were seen as ambiguous advantages; pace St John’s, intellectuals tended to be irreligious and buildings were expensive to maintain.
Loyalty to the Deanery was valuable, partly because historically most of churches in the Deanery were originally part of the parish of St John’s and, more importantly, because we should not see ourselves in isolation (although it was questionable with how may groups an individual could identify – parish, Deanery, Area and Diocese were probably too many).

The Council thought that project, rather than parish based, initiatives were more promising and a number of existing initiatives were mentioned. Sharing clergy (“clustering”) was hampered by differences in churchmanship and the perceived threat from stronger neighbours.
Some thought that the DMAP did not address directly the fundamental problem (as they saw it) that, in the Deanery overall, very few professed Christians actually came to Church. It paid too little attention to the under use of some resources (human and physical) which existed alongside over stretched clergy and cramped buildings. These were the real problems of the Deanery but they were for the Bishops to resolve not the Deanery Synod.

The PCC also approved the annual report and accounts for 2004 and budget for 2005, the latter prepared as usual by Inigo Woolf, for submission to the Annual Parochial Church Meeting . It was gratified to note the complimentary remarks made by our Auditor especially the exemplary Gift Aid/Stewardship records kept by Robert Welsford. As in previous years, legacies had eased the churches cash flow and there was no urgent need for additional income yet; there would be in the Autumn and steps would have to be taken then if extra giving had not materialised.
The PCC’s other business was to welcome Richard and Pamela Lloyd- Hart and Valerie Wells on to the Electoral Roll and to approve resolutions to raise a Voluntary Rate, hold Lotteries (with one dissenting vote) and to apply for an alcohol on licence for the Spring Fair. It also heard of the revival of a project for an art installation (this time to be permanent) which a small committee was chosen to examine.