Top of the list of notices in this week’s sheet is one drawing your attention to the forthcoming Annual Meetings. These meetings are a legal requirement for all Church of England parishes and they take place for two main reasons: to elect the officers of the parish and to receive the annual report.
Our last Annual Meetings took place just before the first Covid lockdown. We could not have foreseen then what was just around the corner. Yet despite the enormous challenges that have been thrown at us, St Nicholas Church is in many ways stronger now than it was then. We have developed an online presence that shares our ministry with people all around the world. Our team of pastoral workers, led by Carolyn Jones, has taken a quantum leap forward in the number of people it supports, keeping the phone lines of Lincoln hot with the love of God being shared with the most isolated and vulnerable in our community. We have seen a Deacon be ordained priest and welcomed a new priest to our Ministry Team as Mother Alice and Father Alan have moved into new chapters of their ministry. And last, but not at all least, we have managed to keep our church and its congregation Covid-free.
At our Annual Meeting we will have an opportunity to express our thanks to some of those people who have worked hardest to achieve all this. We will also, in some cases, be electing their successors, and I do want to encourage you to pray about that. No church can be healthy without the active and enthusiastic involvement of a large number of volunteers. Might that number include you? Might there be someone you would like to encourage to offer themselves for election to one of these roles?
The early church, which we read a lot about in Acts this Easter season, had to work out how to organise itself as it went along. They did better with some decisions than others, if you ask me! But in one thing they were absolutely right – prayer should be at the heart of this process.
So please pray today and in the coming weeks that God the Holy Spirit will be active and involved in these matters in our own parish now, at our Annual Meetings, and into the year ahead.
May God bless you all,
Hugh