St Mary's, Halewood

St Mary’s church is the result of early co-operation between Anglicans and Methodists, who in the 1960s together planted the church in the new estates growing around the original village of Halewood. The first St Mary's church, opened in 1967, was destroyed by fire, and was replaced by the current building in the mid 1970's. St Mary's (Photo courtesy of Jane Durham) works closely with the other church in the Halewood Team, St Nicholas’. Together, the two churches serve the whole of Halewood, which includes a large rural area, the original village, and the large outer estates of mixed housing close to the Jaguar car plant.

Like the TARDIS St Mary’s church is much larger than it suggests at first sight. The facilities inside are excellent and the church has spacious grounds and a garden. What began as a pensioners’ lunch club some years ago has developed over time into a thriving Day Care Centre for the elderly. In the last five or six years there has been additional investment and the result is a warm, welcoming and important aspect of the church's community ministry. The church is also home to a thriving Nursery for the under three's, open each school day during school hours. The Nursery also rents space from Roseheath primary school and provides wrap around care for older school children. In addition the church also has a Sunday School, a weekly JAM (Jesus and Me) club for children aged 4-11 yrs and JAM of a different flavour for older children, which meets fortnightly. There is also a youth fellowship, a fortnightly support group for those who have experienced a stroke, as well as Bible Study groups. The Halewood Team is staffed by an Ecumenical (Anglican and Methodist) Ministry Team, responsibility for St Mary’s being taken mainly by the Anglican Team Vicar and Methodist Lay Worker.

The Giving in Grace story at St Mary's really began way back in March 2004, when the PCC organised a church away day. Church members spent the day prayerfully reflecting on the life and ministry of St Mary's. At the end of the day the group had identified a number of ways in which they felt that the Lord was calling them to move forward. The work that was done on that day helped greatly when 18 months later the planning group sat down to prepare a Case Statement as part of the Giving in Grace programme. The away day work enabled the planning group to identify quite easily the three main strengths and three main weaknesses of St Mary's, and to identify the provisional plans for ministry for the next 2 - 3 years. This underlines the importance of plans for ministry and mission in the church shaping and informing the stewardship task. The ministry drives the money, not the other way round.

The planning group proposed to follow the preaching track on Matthew's gospel for five weeks in the autumn of 2005. They sent out the brochure with a different covering letter for core members, congregation, and fringe members, together with a response form. The leadership also encouraged the existing Bible Study groups to make use of the small group resources on the web site. In addition the Youth Fellowship made some use of the TeenTalk resources while the Sunday School adapted some of the all age material in the Preach Exodus! resource.

The leadership identified prayer as the most important element of the Giving in Grace programme which was encouraged as follows:

every member of the congregation was given a prayer card, and requested to pray for GiG at home.
at least one of the prayers in the liturgical resources for each Sunday service was used during the preaching programme.
all existing church groups meeting together were asked to to use the Giving in Grace prayer.
a display about Giving in Grace was mounted in the church to help encourage people in their prayers.
crucially the planning group covenanted to pray personally for Giving in Grace every day.
a 'theme song' (I will offer up my life) was adopted for the programme and was sung as part of our worship each Sunday during the preaching programme.

At the evaluation meeting after the programme had finished, the whole GiG group agreed that the process of GiG in itself had been extremely encouraging and beneficial to St Mary's. It had challenged people to think about their faith, and their commitment to the Lord. A second concrete result of Giving in Grace is that one of the established church Bible Study groups has grown in numbers. There were early indications that the financial outcome was going to be positive and this has since proved to be true. Around £150 additional weekly income has been pledged to support and develop the ministry and mission of the church. These pledges represent an increase in planned giving of 51% and the the Church has already seen concrete evidence of pledges translated into action. Ten planned givers decided to give through standing orders, while eight folks asked for planned giving envelopes and there was also an increase in the number signing Gift Aid declarations. The response from church members was most encouraging. This is an exciting time for St Mary's; the leadership feels that the Lord has worked powerfully through Giving in Grace and the work continues. This is best expressed in their own words: "Praise Him!"!