The Pastoral Plan that has emerged from the Synod, and that the archbishop is launching with a Pastoral Letter this weekend, spells it out plainly for us: “We cannot continue as we have been doing. The challenges that we face and the mission that Christ has given to his Church call for something new. This must be rooted in a profound gratitude for the past, in a care to be faithful custodians of what has been entrusted to us, but we must also be willing to heed the challenge to proclaim the Gospel in our age. This pastoral plan cannot be just a case of doing some things differently, of adding new types of activities or tinkering around the edges of our structures. Instead, we will need to leave behind a lot of things that are familiar. We need to learn the art of lamentation.”
We now have a graced opportunity in our parish to truly lead the way into a new future as on 12th December we will be letting go of the church building of St Aidan’s. This is no easy thing to do, and so we are called to lament, to feel our sorrow, not as a crushing wound but so that we may be open to what lies ahead. As one parish community we will move temporarily to the present church building of St Agnes, until that too we will be called to let go. From the rubble of two much loved church buildings a new parish church of “St Agnes & St Aidan” will arise as our spiritual home and powerhouse for us to better turn to Christ and the challenge of his mission to the world.