Over recent weeks the Ministry Team has been considering many aspects of how the interregnum is to be handled. Partly that’s been a matter of looking at all the things I have been responsible for as Vicar and making provision for their future. Partly it’s been a matter of making necessary changes, particularly as this interregnum will be the first in which there has been no curate in post.

The Ministry Team consider that the best pattern of Sunday services for the interregnum is:

• to continue 8m Holy Communion as now
• to continue a varied pattern of Evening Prayer as now, including Prayers for Healing, Iona Service, Reflections and FreeSpirit
• to continue 9.15 Sung Eucharist and 11.00am All-age Worship (a non-Eucharistic service) on First Sundays as now
• to combine 9.15 and 11.00 into a 10.00 service on other Sundays.

In the Church of England it is duty of the parish priest to decide on matters of worship.  At All Saints, however, the way ministry has developed means that in practice I seek a common mind from the Ministry Team before taking any such action, a common mind which does now exist.  I’m also - rightly - obliged to consult the PCC, which I did on October 5^th. At this meeting I asked each member present to give his or her response to the proposal, and also to list any advantages and problems they could foresee. That process was helpful. At the end of the meeting the proposal was passed unanimously:

The new pattern will therefore come into operation on Advent Sunday - November 30^th.

Combining 9.15 and 11.00 is something we already do for festivals, during the summer and immediately before and after Christmas and Easter, although these services do not normally have separate provision for children during the Ministry of the Word (i.e. AZTEC and Pre-School Praise) whereas in term-time these services will.

In coming to this decision we have considered a variety of issues, some practical, others more directly related to our values. Here are the most important:

• We will have no regular priest (even a priest-in-charge won’t be there all the time)
• The present pattern stretches resources of servers, musicians, sidespersons and readers / intercessors and those who provide after-service refreshments, especially at 9.15
• It is wasteful of energy to have different preachers for 9.15 and 11.00, but not easy to preach the same sermon twice.
• The two congregations do not know each other, and only meet at 10.00 joint services
• We now have two rooms conveniently available in church where the needs of two of our three children’s groups can be accommodated.

• Singers to lead worship at every service
• Adults and children being altar servers together
• learning a wider range of music
• the whole church family being more of a community by worshipping together and welcoming the newly baptised together

• one AZTEC group will still be meeting in the Church Hall
• deciding how to chose from our existing traditions, e.g. which settings of the Gloria, Sursum Corda and Agnus Dei, number of readings, pattern of ceremonial
• how to organise singers
• is 10.00am the right time?

The Ministry Team is committed to listening to the congregation and to bearing in mind the needs of the whole congregation. Please do feel free to speak to any of then – names and phone numbers are in the parish magazine. After six months they will lead a review, to which all will be invited to contribute.

These arrangements are for the interregnum and it will be for my successor to judge what is the best response to make to the pattern of worship, as to the rest of our common life, which he or she will inherit.