Author: Hazel Berry

WHO’S WHO IN SONNING DEANERY

Who’s Who in the Sonning Deanery

Area Dean: Revd Richard Lamey H: 0118 327 9116
W: 0118 979 2122.  click to email

Lay Chair: John Smith 01189 290 996 click to email

Secretary: Bridget Crossley 01344 751456 click to email

Treasurer: Vacant

Quinquennial Inspection Secretary: Michael Byrne

Ecumenical Representative: David Hare

Members of the Standing Committee:  Revd Canon Julie Ramsbottom, John Smith, Revd Richard Lamey, Bridget Crossley, Gillian Gyenes,  Pauline Humphreys, Judith Scott, Rev’d Catherine Vaughan, Sharon White.

Representatives on Diocesan Synod: Revd Piers Bickersteth, Gillian Gyenes, Revd Hannah Higginson, Martin Hughes, Geraldine Lea, Revd Canon Andrew Marsden, Judith Scott, John Smith.

Intercessions from High Leigh Conference

Intercessions: opening worship of the High Leigh Conference 2019

God of compassion, we remember today
Those for whom earthquakes, wind or fire
Has brought chaos and destruction.
For those who have lost everyone and everything they love.
We hold in our hearts and before you, those for whom the future is uncertain because of ill health, precarious relationships, or economic challenge; and those for whom the end of life in near.
And we share in in joy, with those experiencing new birth, new life and fresh starts – full of hope and expectation.
We bring before you our sacred and beautiful planet, teaming with life, renewal and healing forces.
May we do all we can to halt and mitigate the slow death of biodiversity
The continuous assault on what you have made.

God of mystery,
Where are you
When the world flings demands
Like a rain squall at the window,
When the pressure to perform steals us from ourselves,
When grasping for our future leaves us empty handed?
Where are you
When confusion is in heady ascendance,
When digging for surety lacerates and fragments?
Where are you in the fray,
In the tangled threads of feeling with no beginning or end?

God of our depths, be with us.
Do not rescue, but hold us;
Befriend, and reacquaint us
With our roots,
Our core,Our true desires.

Help us to know
How slowly moves the deep;
our connection to earth
and stars,
and the life that is you.

Help us to know
What we carry inside;
a space that does not always, or often,
know its shape
or size,
or what its purpose is.

Help us to know
That beyond our striving and our need
All you are is love,
And all we have is you.

Amen

 Alison Webster May 2019

OUR DEANERY

WHAT IS A DEANERY
The Diocese of Oxford is divided into four smaller ‘episcopal Areas’, three of them overseen by their own Area Bishop. One such area is Reading. Each area is then further split into deaneries. The deaneries of the Reading Episcopal Area are: Bracknell, Bradfield, Maidenhead and Windsor, Newbury, Reading and Sonning. Sonning Deanery stretches from Wargrave in the north to Sandhurst in the south. It contains 12 benefices with 23 places of worship in a mixed rural, semirural and urban setting. Our current Area Dean is the Revd Richard Lamey, Rector of the three Churches of the Parish of St Paul, Wokingham. 

What does the deanery give to the parish/benefice?
The deanery represents a manageable level of organisation between a parish/benefice and the Diocese/Archdeaconry. Its aim is to assist churches to do things together that they could not do on their own; to support and encourage clergy in a role which can often be isolated and pressured; to perform an administrative function (eg allocating the Parish Share/organising building inspections); to act for the Archdeacon on inspections; to offer ideas, challenge and inspiration through meetings; to offer prayer and encouragement for each other; to work together towards input to the diocese; and to support mission and ministry in the parish/benefice.

What is a deanery synod?
The deanery synod has a membership of all clergy who are licensed to a parish/benefice within the deanery, plus elected lay members from every parish. The larger your Electoral Roll, the more members you are entitled to elect. Members meet approximately four times a year at varying venues throughout the deanery. All meetings include a financial report, including reports on Parish Share, followed by a talk. Over the past year, lay discipleship, fundraising, and human sexuality have been discussed. All members share in a Eucharist service at one of the meetings. Currently, the Deanery Plan is being finalised. The emphasis of this plan will be on those areas of mission that can be done better as a deanery than as individual parishes: for example, outreach into new communities, empowerment of lay leaders, shared training courses, to name but a few.

What is Deanery Chapter?
Clergy within the deanery meet monthly over lunch at Deanery Chapter. These meetings form an important basis for support, challenge and collegiality for clergy to learn from each other and from those who address the meeting.

Regular Prayer Letters are sent out from the Deanery- do please use those intentions as a way of weaving us all together in prayer.

Pauline Humphreys (Deanery Synod Standing Committee Member)

 

 

Resources

DEATH AND LIFE WEBSITE

Christian Resources for Living Well
in the Light of Mortality
 
Inspirational resources to help ministers and pastoral leaders support conversations on death and dying. Visit this new website for a course, workshop, prayer walk, sermon starters, reflection cards, Bible studies and meditations.

Deanery Planning Day

A Brief Report on the Deanery Planning Day: 1.12.18
by Revd Richard Lamey, Area Dean of Sonning

The Deanery Plan has been in construction over the past 18 months or so. After two major conversations at Synod the overall plan was discussed by every PCC and received very positive comments: and then on Saturday the 1st of December 2018 50 people from Deanery Synod and from the PCCs of the Deanery came together in Finchampstead Parish Rooms to turn a plan into a plan of action.
The day was led by John Smith (Deanery Lay Chair), Richard Lamey (Area Dean) and Rhodri Bowen (Parish Development Advisor for the Archdeaconry). Read more

Chapter Programme

CHAPTER PROGRAMME 2018 – 2019

DATE TOPIC LEADER FACILITATOR
11 Sept 2018 ‘Flourishing in Ministry’ (1)

 

Catherine Vaughan Hugh Barne/John Cook
9 October 2018

 

            Deanery Plan

In preparation for Deanery Day on Dec 1st

Richard Lamey Richard Lamey and Julie Mintern
13 November 2018 Lectionary year ‘C’ John Castle Hannah Higginson
11 December 2018 Vocations Tina Molyneux David Hodgson
8 January 2019 Reflections on Deanery Day & Plan Rhodri Bowen Richard Lamey
12th February 2019  

Woodland/Forest Church

Tonia Elliott and Gemma Wilkinson Colin James
12th March 2019 Flourishing in Ministry (2)

 

Archdeacon Olivia Jane Kraft
9th April 2019

NB No meeting

Easter break Easter break Easter break
9th May 2019

 

Greater Chapter – EVENING MEETING TBC

 

James Lawrence (from CPAS)

on Courage in Christian leadership

Richard Lamey
11th June 2019 Bible Study – Ecclesiastes Julian Bidgood Lisa Cornwell
9 July 2019  Planning Meeting for next year

 

Richard Lamey Julian McAllen