Update to service times in 2023
Revision of service patterns and times across the Saffron Walden and Villages Team Ministry
In March 2020, we prepared a profile of our team in preparation for appointing a new Team Rector. At that time we were blessed with the ministry of 2 full time priests, 2 house for duty priests and 2 associate priests. Since then one of the house for duty priests has retired and has not yet been replaced and the associate priests have also retired. We have been able to maintain our service pattern post-covid by relying more and more heavily on the wonderful goodwill of our retired priests. This is clearly not sustainable in the longer term so over the last few months Team Council and PCCs have been consulting on a revised schedule of services across the team that will enable our licensed clergy to take most of our core services.
The approach to this consultation laid down some key principles for the whole team:
• Core Sunday services will be either at 9am or 10.30am -this will enable clergy to take services at two different churches.
• As a minimum, all churches in the team will hold two core morning services each month, one of which will be a communion service. St Mary’s, Saffron Walden and All Saints, Great Chesterford will have a more frequent service pattern reflecting the greater populations.
• Services that attract a specific but generally small congregation will continue to be held in one location where there is a demand: those who favour that service style would be expected to travel to a church within the team to attend, eg BCP services, Choral Evensong. These will generally be at a ‘non-core’ service time eg. 8am or afternoon/evening.
• Regular ‘joint services’ will be held eg. annual team service, monthly or quarterly joint services between linked churches. On these occasions, some regular services may be cancelled to encourage congregations to meet together for joint worship.
• Licensed ministers will work alongside local lay teams in all the churches supporting them in leading non-eucharistic worship .
We hope that these changes will enable greater capacity for licensed ministers and and lay teams to engage more effectively with our communites and encourage new forms of worship whilst maintaining a secure pattern of services for all our congregations.
The new service patterns will start in January – with a Joint team service at St Mary’s Saffron Walden at 10.30am on New Year’s Day. Full details of services in all the churches will be made available on websites, the bulletin, magazines and the Grapevine over the coming weeks so do double check before heading out! We hope you will enjoy the new patterns and variety being provided.
January Services