Church plans some 'R+R' and cancels PCC meetings

One church has taken on board the message from Bishop Stephen Cottrell’s latest book to ‘do nothing to change your life’ and cancelled all PCC and other meetings for six months.

ALL  Saints church in Wokingham has agreed to ask all PCC committees to have a six month sabbatical to allow for a period of rest and reflection.

The plan was inspired by the new book by the Bishop of Reading, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, which calls on people to stop their busy lives just for a few minutes and pause to reflect  to allow them to reconnect with God. One PCC member had also experienced something similar at her former church in London, and the whole parish had benefited as a result.

Rector of All  Saints, the Revd David Hodgson said:  ‘We wanted to be pro-active about achieving our vision for the Church that has now been agreed and planned for, and we thought that a ‘sabbatical’ of the organising groups for six months would give us space and stillness to reflect and pray about how we are going be the church we want to be; how we deliver the vision we have agreed on, look at what needs to change and even what we should stop doing.’

All Saints is a busy church, he said, and people needed encouraging some times to stop their daily activities and meetings and be still.

He said: ‘It is easy to get carried away and lose yourself in the minutiae of daily life, and lose the drive to achieve bigger goals.’

But though the committee-meeting side of church life may  be taking a break, the prayer and fellowship groups will not.

‘We are not asking the church to go to sleep for six months!’ he said.

The main strategy group of the church will continue to pray and discuss what the church needs to focus on. They will report back in January.

The planning of weekly services will continue as normal too – and because of the planned sabbatical, they are even ahead of themselves, for example Christmas was fully planned out in May!

Bishop Stephen’s book Do Nothing to Change Your Life was sent out to all MPs this summer as part of an initiative by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu.

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