St Mary's, Chesham

Could you be our next Associate?

We are a thriving church.

We have just gone through some significant changes arising from recent growth and are now ready to spread our wings.

We are a fun-loving, committed and creative team. We have room for one more!

The Parish of Great Chesham

1. General Information

The Parish of Great Chesham is in South Buckinghamshire and in the Buckinghamshire Archdeaconry in the Diocese of Oxford.

Incumbent – Revd. Simon Cansdale, The Rectory, Church Street, Chesham, HP5 1HY

Tel: 01494 783629 Email: rector@cheshamchurch.co.uk

Ordained June 1995.

Team Rector of Great Chesham since June 2008.

As Team Rector, Simon oversees the staff team for Great Chesham, currently comprising 2 team vicars, Associate Vicar (St Mary's), Youthworker, Children’s Worker, Minister for Evangelism, Children’s & Community Worker, 2 NSMs, 3 retired clergy, 2 Licensed Lay Ministers, Rector’s PA. The team comprises six congregations, but the focus of Simon’s, and the Associate Vicar's ministry is at St. Mary’s, Chesham. Simon is Chair and a Founding Trustee of Chiltern Foodbank, Chair of the South Bucks Police Independent Advisory Group and Adviser to the Haven, London (Mission to Creatives).

Simon did his own curacy at St. Mary’s, Bletchley, and then was Associate Vicar at Holy Trinity, Cambridge. He was for 8 years the Rector of St. Giles’, West Bridgford, Nottingham.

Simon has considerable experience of supervision, training and helping colleagues develop to the best of their ability. He is a team-player, with a clear sense of vision for the Parish Team overall, and values time for prayer, Bible-reading and unhurried reflection with team members. Simon and the current St Mary's team recently completed an 18 month Training Programme for Larger Churches called Lead Academy.

The whole Parish Team meets twice a week, once for prayer, bible-study and planning, and once for prayer. We do Marriage Preparation, bereavement follow-up and funeral ministry, some leadership training, and many aspects of finance, buildings and DBS, at parish level, whilst each congregation has a recognised leadership team. We are also active participants in Churches Together for Chesham and the Amersham Deanery.

2. Nature of Post

We appointed our first Associate, Tom Watts, in 2012. Tom has been an important part in our recent growth and helping to steer through important changes. The Job Description gives a fuller picture of the role.

3. The Context: the Parish setting

Chesham is a market town in the beautiful Chiltern Hills, at the very end of the Metropolitan Line. The population is about 30,000, and the Parish of Great Chesham has three churches in the town centre – St. Mary’s, Emmanuel, Christ Church – and three in villages surrounding Chesham –St. George’s, St. John’s, Bellingdon, and St. John’s, Ashley Green.

Chesham is hard to categorise. It is not wealthy south Bucks, though there are some big houses. There are considerable pockets of poverty and social deprivation, and the High Street has struggled, along with many others, in recent years, but is now turning around. As we are at the end of the tube line, many people move here either because it’s cheaper than being closer into London, and/or because we are a town surrounded by open space and there are some excellent schools.

Chesham has a Mosque and a significant Muslim community, many of whom originally came from Pakistan. We have strong and deepening links with the Mosque; Simon is a part of Multi-Faith, One Voice Chesham, and members of the congregation are involved in 'Beyond Difference'.

Chesham is a little quirky, truth-be-told. It’s not picture postcard pretty, though you are out in the beautiful Chilterns very quickly. Access to London via the Metropolitan Line is good. Schooling is generally good to excellent – including the Chiltern Hills Academy, the local Upper School, of which the Diocese of Oxford is the lead sponsor, as well as Chesham Grammar School (mixed). Tom Watts, our previous Associate Vicar, was Chaplain at Chiltern Hills Academy.

There’s a good sporting scene, especially rugby, football, cricket, cycling and running.

The nearest hospital is in Amersham, and nearest hospital with A & E and Maternity is Stoke Mandeville in Aylesbury.

You could best describe Chesham as a country town, but with significant pockets of poverty and social problems.

4. The Churches

The St Mary's website should give you a good idea of who we are - www.stmaryschesham.org. There are six churches in the Parish of Great Chesham, and to get a flavour of each, please see the parish website – www.greatchesham.org.uk

Minister 2017 Electoral Roll

St. Mary’s Simon Cansdale 299

Emmanuel John Shepherd 223

Christ Church, Waterside Sylvester Liyanage 49

St. John’s, Ashley Green Hilary Wilson 66

St. John’s, Bellingdon Tim Yates 21

St. George’s, Tylers Hill Sylvester Liyanage 44

St. Mary’s, where the Associate is based, is the historic Parish Church of Chesham. We are an evangelical church, with strong traditions in preaching and teaching, music, children’s and youth work. We work closely together as a whole Parish team, and from time-to-time, the Associate will have duties at other churches.

Our current Sunday pattern of worship is as follows:

Service Usual Attendance

9.00amHoly Communion/Morning Worship

100 adults 8 children

11am Morning Worship1st Sunday - All Age WorshipOther weeks - Morning Worship/Holy Communion

170 adults75 children & young people

Missional CommunitiesThe Haven (1st Sunday) - for those with additional needs & their carersSongs of Praise (2nd Sunday) - a simple service of hymns and storiesMessy Church (3rd Sunday) - for younger familiesThe Lounge (4th Sunday) - for 20's & 30'sChoral Evensong (1662) (5th Sunday)

The St Mary's team meet to read the lectionary bible readings and pray together every weekday at 8.45am, and we're joined by the whole team on Monday and Thursday. On Wednesdays we have a short and simple Holy Communion together.

As St. Mary’s, we average 18 baptisms, and 18 weddings in a year. As a Parish, we average 75 funerals in a year.

The St. Mary’s team consists of Simon Cansdale, as Team Rector, this vacancy for Associate Vicar, Chris Gercke, our Curate, Beryl Stannard, a retired minister, John Spence, our Youth worker, who works across the Parish, Hannah Martin, our Children’s Worker, Valerie Sanderson, Simon’s PA, Hilary Richardson and Paul Brooks, Churchwardens, Jean Corfield and Geoff Houston, Licensed Lay Ministers. We have strong and extensive lay leadership across each ministry area in the church.

We currently have 20 Small groups, which meet in different homes and follow centrally -resourced study material.

We are active in gospel partnership with 10 mission partners at present: The Beacon School in Ghana, Dave & Lucy Eastwood with OMF in Taiwan, Novimost, a mission organisation in Bosnia, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, CPAS, Matt & Vicky Coles (Matt is an Army Chaplain based in Cyprus), Tearfund, Chiltern Foodbank, Steve and Maria King (Betel), and CMS in South East Asia (no names). We currently give away 15% of our income to these mission partners.

We are the originators and provide the base and key leadership for The Chiltern Foodbank (averaging 25 clients per week in Chesham, with other hubs across The Chilterns).

We run Christianity Explored and Life Explored courses each year, as well as other discipleship training courses and confirmation preparation.

We have a monthly prayer meeting which is a ‘must-do’ for all staff and we do our best to keep that week clear of other evening commitments.

We have a strong presence in local schools, both primary and secondary. We do extensive youth and children’s ministry in the town, as well as ministry in sheltered housing and nursing homes. We run four Pastoral Care Teams who are all active within St. Mary’s and the wider community. We have separate programmes for Men’s ministry (breakfasts, curry nights, specials) and Women’s Ministry (dinners, guest speakers and things involving chocolate).

The vast majority of regular worshippers at St. Mary’s live in Chesham. We regularly run joint events with Emmanuel Church (such as Men’s breakfasts), as well as Parish wide events (though there’s nowhere big enough to fit us all in). We are part of Churches Together for Chesham.

We are warmly, sincerely and enthusiastically affirming of women's leadership in our church. No resolutions under the Priest (Ordination of Women) Measure have been passed.

5. Our Vision at St Mary's, Chesham

We have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this over the last 18 months.

This is how we see ourselves:

At St Mary's, we are:

a growing church of all ages next to Lowndes Park, Chesham

a loving community of Christians who need each other to live and witness faithfully for Christ

Bible people - committed to studying and living out God's Word

imperfect people who prayerfully rely on God's grace and the Holy Spirit's power

ambassadors for Christ in our town, Chesham, sharing the good news of Jesus in what we say and do

working for social justice in our community and beyond

delighted to be part of the worldwide church, working and praying alongside Christians around the world

united in Christ, believing that every Christian has a vital part to play

stewards of a beautiful building that has been a centre of prayer and worship for hundreds of years

an evangelical Anglican Church within the Great Chesham Team and Diocese of Oxford

Our vision for God's purpose for us as a church:

Going with God's good news to Chesham and beyond

Growing as disciples of Jesus our King

Serving together, all for God's glory

The 'About us' sections of our website - www.stmaryschesham.org give more background on

this.

These values are held equally by the St. Mary’s DCC and wider staff team.

7. What is the likely role of the Associate in future plans?

Our next Associate will play a pivotal role, overseeing the week-to-week ministry at St Mary's and overseeing and resourcing many of our key teams. We continue to embrace the

possibilities of our new services and to build excellent relationships with Chiltern Hills Academy, now a Diocese of Oxford sponsored Academy.

8. Don't just take our word for it!

And if you've read lots of these profiles, and can't tell if this is all hot air, well let Tom Watts tell you how it really is.

"The last five years at St Mary’s have been fantastic for both me and my family. The Associate Vicar role has allowed me to consolidate and build on the experiences of my curacy, and I have had particular opportunities to develop preaching and leadership gifts. This has been great preparation for moving to a team leader role as a senior minister in my next church.

Leading the small groups and overseeing a wide variety of teams in the church has given me considerable scope to shape things independently, while remaining under the overall leadership of the Rector. Simon is a great team leader and maintains an excellent balance between leaving you to get on with things while also remaining supportive and interested in what you are doing. The role of chaplain at Chiltern Hills Academy has been extremely rewarding as well; there are endless opportunities here for evangelism and pastoral care.

My wife Sue has combined part-time work with being involved in various women’s and children’s groups at St Mary’s. The children (now aged 8 and 6) have flourished in the Sunday School work and at Chartridge School, which is a sought-after local school whose catchment area contains 230 Chartridge Lane. I have also been a governor there and in any remaining spare time have played the trombone in a local orchestra." Tom

9. AccommodationThe house has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a downstairs study, sitting room, dining room, garage and small garden (by local standards).

10. Employer, stipend and pension

The Great Chesham PCC is the employer for this post, with the successful candidate then duly authorised by the Bishop of Buckingham.

Salary is as for Incumbent/Team Vicar in the Diocese of Oxford.

This post is pensionable under the terms of the Church of England Funded Pension Scheme.Full and generous working expenses are provided.

11. Any additional information?Our website, www.stmaryschesham.org should give you an up to date feel of what we’re about.

12. Who should be contacted in the first instance?Please contact Simon Cansdale, on 01494 783629 or rector@cheshamchurch.co.uk