Vicar and Pioneer, St. John The Evangelist, Caterham Valley

Overview

Come and help us to grow our Church to be a positive and tangible presence in the heart of Caterham Valley.

Caterham has an increasingly diverse community of about 9,000 people. It is a town centre single church parish in Tandridge, East Surrey blessed with easy access to beautiful surrounding country side, good local amenities and transport links into London.

Introduction

Our aim as a church is to flourish as an aspirational, inclusive and sustainable Christian community. We continue to seek ways in which we can do so by working alongside our community, our church school, local business as well as other churches in our local Group Ministry.

Main Responsibilities

We are therefore looking for a priest who has the ability to nurture and galvanise the energy, passion and strengths of our membership.In particular:

• The ability to challenge us to look and reach outwards, stretching our horizons and capacity – taking the mission beyond our church buildings.
• The ability to bring people with them during times of change; being adaptable in their ministry and able to relate to, nurture and galvanise the energy of our membership to be the best they can be.
• The confidence to connect with the marginalised and an ability to work collaboratively with other organisations, responding to social injustice including climate change.
• The ability to strengthen discipleship and lay ministry in all its forms both within the church and the wider community.
• The passion and skills to strengthen the links between the school and the church, developing opportunities for worship and spiritual growth for all.

The Ideal Candidate

Pioneering Focus

This is a fulltime post in the parish of St. John the Evangelist, Caterham Valley, which has been a fairly conventional local parish church with eucharistic-based worship. However, we are aware that many people in our parish don’t come to church and don’t really know us.

We therefore want a priest who will spend half their time in ‘pioneering’, seeking to meet with people where they are and developing new forms of church that are culturally appropriate.We expect our Church of England Primary School to be the initial focus of this ministry.

We particularly pray for someone who:

• Notices and responds to God and the world around us.
• Looks for opportunities to co-create with others both within and beyond the church.
• Experiments and take risks and in doing so is able to persist when things are difficult.
• Can hold different expressions of church in relationship with each other and in doing so, seek new ways to expand the growth and reach of our Church.

About us

We are a parish with a Liberal Anglo-Catholic tradition however we remain open to fresh ideas, particularly those which can support us in our mission.

We continue to manage a number of challenges in terms of our finances, our buildings as well as in our leadership capacity. As a step towards responding to these challenges we have signed up to be part of and learn from those organisations within HeartEdge. This network of churches seeks to transform church and society through commerce, culture, compassion and congregational life all of which we are reflecting on within our mission plan.

The themes within our mission plan focus on finding ways in which we can:

• work in constructive partnership with others so we can deepen relationships as we seek to advance local projects for our community.
• exercise our collective strength to influence areas of social injustice and work with compassion with those on the edge of society.
• minimise our individual congregational and organisations ecological footprint and adopt sustainable lifestyles
• expand the opportunity for the church setting as an outlet for creativity.

In achieving these goals, we welcome the support we receive from our various church members and affiliated organisations.We are blessed with an active Mothers’ Union, Bellringing team and a growing Youth Ministry as well as strengthening alliances with local schools, community groups and those with a passion for music and the arts.

We do hope that this role excites you and you feel that God is calling you to work with us to share God’s love and grace to all.For more information about the post, our traditions and our community please see the Parish Profile and the Role description.

For an informal conversation with the Archdeacon, please contact Kathleen.bailey@southwark.anglican.org for an appointment.

Closing Date: Wednesday 12 April 2023, midnight

Parish Visit: Saturday 29^th April 2023

Interviews: Tuesday 2 May 2023

We have a policy in Southwark Diocese that to be appointed to an incumbent status post, a priest must have served a title post in an Anglican church in the British Isles. We aim to be a diverse and truly representative Diocese, and particularly welcome applications from women and people of UKME heritage.

This post is subject to DBS enhanced disclosure.