Hounslow Deanery Christmas Mailing
***Merry Christmas All! This month’s mailing is a special edition featuring sections by some of our Deanery Standing Committee.***
Dear Friends,
This time last year we were sadly postponing our Clergy Christmas lunch because of COVID fears. Which meant that we finally celebrated Christmas 2021 together on the hottest day of the year in June – it was the first time I’ve had to apply sun cream before pulling a Christmas cracker!
But, thanks be to God, this year we can all go ahead with lots of lovely church services and events. And we can look forward to our Clergy Christmas lunch in January.
2022 has been a very full year. Who would have thought that we would see three different Prime Ministers? And who would have thought we would both celebrate 70 glorious years of her late Majesty’s reign and also queue through the night to pay our final respects to our Queen in Westminster Hall?
I do hope that you will take time to rest and reflect during the Christmas season. Christ came to take on our heavy burdens, not to add to them! Thank you for being such a support to me and to each other. I
do hope that we will be able to meet up face to face more in 2023 at both Chapters and Synods. Thanks especially to Kat McQuarrie who ensures the show stays on the road behind the scenes.
Please continue to pray for our Bishop-elect and for the Holy Spirit to be powerfully at work this Christmas – through all we do – to bring hope and comfort to the world around us.
Warmest wishes and a Merry Christmas,
Rev Martine Oborne
Hounslow Area Dean
February Deanery Synod
The next synod meeting is planned for February the 8th, with refreshments from 7pm and will be hosted by Christ Church Feltham. We are currently planning to look at how churches can minister to asylum seekers within Hounslow and will feature the Rev Jonathan Samadi. Please do reach out to Rev Andy Watkins, the Deanery Community Champion, if there’s anything you would like to contribute to this event.
Our Mission in Pakistan – the Rev Sally Baily
This year Rev Sally Baily, the Deanery Diversity Champion, spent some time visiting Churches and Christians in Pakistan. Below is a her account of the trip.
We spent 3 weeks in Pakistan during Oct/Nov visiting churches, preaching and leading worship with our band of local musicians. This was our first mission trip to Pakistan since before COVID. The team visited the Assemblies of God Church in Iqbal Town Lahore which is the founder of the Pentecostal movement in Pakistan. This church has many church plants around the Punjab region and runs a nursery school and computer training centre for Christian students.
We also visited New Life in Christ church to preach and lead worship. Pastor Imran is a businessman who has a vision to open a college for Christian students who want to learn business skills.
We renewed our connection with the Presbyterian Education Board where our friend, the late Lyn Masterson, worked for over 20 years. We have visited many of their school in rural areas over the years. During this visit we led worship at a staff thanksgiving lunch. Many of the schools programmes have not yet restarted after COVID, but we are hopeful that we can visit the schools again next year.
Some of the most precious memories are from visiting a poor Christian village for a worship programme, and praying for a young girl who had been abducted and abused for 3 months. Thankfully she is now free but still has to face a court case against her abusers. We also visited a brick kiln for filming a music video. It was shocking to see the poor state of the houses where Christian families were living and the back‐breaking work involved in making bricks.
It was a privilege to pray with them and other Muslim workers making bricks. We have a long standing relationship with Lahore Evangelical Ministries (LEM) under the leadership of Rev Waseem Khokhar. He also had a relationship with HT Hounslow via Stu. During this trip we supported LEM’s teaching programme for local pastors and Sally led a session on preaching for transformation. LEM has a ministry among Brick Kiln workers and is looking for funding for their Christmas outreach/support programme.
If you would like to support this work, please reach out to us for the Rev Waseem Khokhar’s UK bank account.
Unconscious Bias Training – Simon Surtees
The PCC of St Pauls Chiswick recently went through unconscious bias training. Our Deanery Lay Chair, Simon Surtees, recalls how it went for them and how this has affected their interregnum.
One of the things that has taken us slightly by surprise since the beginning of our interregnum at St Paul’s Grove Park have been the challenges thrown out to us a Parish as we begin to think about the person who might be coming to lead us in the future.
Our previous Incumbent had been with us for over 30 years. He had established traditions and ideas that had become second nature to us as a Parish, but which also made us open to styles of prayer and liturgy to keep us alert to the different ideas to add subtlety our worship. Nevertheless, our PCC are working hard to sustain the life of the Parish, however much the congregation might be feeling the loss of him. So, we wondered why the policy of the Diocese was to ask the PCC to come together on Zoom for a session on Unconscious Bias Training. This asked us to ask ourselves just how set in our ways we were as individuals and how prepared we might be to embrace change.
The Zoom session we were offered came from a team from St Stephen’s in St Margaret’s. It challenged us to ask ourselves questions at every stage of the process of change, it asked us to think of what we were for and what we were against and, crucially, why we were against it, and we were asked to consider how would we react in the face of change? In an open way, we faced what we might be open to, and where we would be uncompromising. Above all, it provided much needed space for thought and circumspection and we would encourage other PCCs to consider this training as well.
Our Church Wardens have been strong in their leadership. We have had good sessions which have allowed the Parish to express their own views. Our advertisements in the Church Times have just concluded and we await the recruitment process with some excitement. Our prayers have been honest and forthright. We look forward to what they will bring.
Working against Modern Slavery – Nick Lines
St Nicholas Chiswick has been working hard against Modern Slavery. Nick Lines, the deanery Mental Health Champion, tells us what they’ve been doing.
St Nicholas Chiswick held the Hidden Voices course this autumn, with some participation from other Chiswick parishes. A course run by the Church of England’s Clewer Initiative, Hidden Voices focuses on modern slavery. It was conducted by Clewer Initiative staff and volunteers with the Metropolitan Police anti-slavery unit; and one session included a presentation by Hestia, a charity that works with survivors of modern slavery. The course presents what modern slavery is, how to identify its presence in the community and how to prevent it. Participants felt the course made them more aware, more able to detect and more empowered to work against modern slavery. Following this course, we are now planning on:
- Creating protocols for all St Nicholas parish activities to help detect and handle potential cases of slavery
- Spreading awareness of modern slavery in the local community in Chiswick and in Hounslow more broadly
- Approaching Hounslow Friends of Faith and others to widen the propagation of awareness
- Working with Hounslow Council and the Met to facilitate detection of and action on cases in the area
Deanery Updates & Notices
Bishop of Kensington – until the consecration of the new bishop of Kensington, Bishop Ric Thorpe (the Bishop of Islington) will be Acting Bishop of Kensington during this interim period. Archdeacon Richard will be leading the Area Team locally during this time, but for any Bishop’s Office enquiries during this period, please continue to contact Emma Hughes (PA to the Bishop of Kensington).
Diversity Awareness – Rev Sally Baily strongly recommends everyone make time to to engage with the Rev John Root’s blog. He is the former curate of Harlesden, led an estate church plant in Hackney, and planted two Asian language congregations in Wembley before his retirement ministry in Tottenham.
Multiply Estates Mission – 23-28 March 2023, 10am – 1pm at St Barnabas Church, North London. For practitioners with a deep love for estates mission and for those who are new to the call but hungry to get going. Join us to hear stories from across the nation and discover practical tools for starting this work in your community. Register here
Merry Christmas everyone!
Kathleen McQuarrie
Hounslow Deanery Secretary