After a journey of just over two years, the legal change to create the larger parish of ‘Church St Helens’ came into effect on 1st May.
This change marks the completion of a legal pastoral reorganisation scheme supported by the Church Commissioners, which unites 11 churches from across St Helens into a larger parish; enabling closer collaboration, increasing clergy support, and centralising administration services, to free up more time to focus on mission and ministry.
While the 11 churches will join together under the new larger parish of St Helens, each church will still retain their own unique identity, traditions and worship styles, while also working towards creating new worshipping communities across the parish. The larger parish has one team rector, Rev Canon Dr Chris Daniels, and 9 team vicars; 6 full time, 3 part time, and 4 curates – each of whom will remain at their existing churches, but work more closely together to support wider mission and ministry.
The deanery of St Helens, along with West Derby has been the first cohort of deaneries in the Diocese of Liverpool to embark on this journey, as part of the Diocese’s Fit for Mission programme, which is rooted in introducing more people to Jesus, and working for more justice in the world.
The Fit for Mission programme involves an exploration period in which interested churches work closely together to make local decisions about what would work best for their parish and area. Following a vote in 2022, in which 11 churches from the St Helens Deanery decided to begin this process to work more closely together, there has been continuous work to establish the best path forward, which has included amalgamating governance and finance procedures, reviewing buildings, and developing a range of teams including those with focus on areas such as wardens, navigation and buildings.
Each church now has its own local leadership team that will focus on mission and ministry, while a new PCC, representing all eleven churches in the new parish, will act as trustees to the larger parish and handle governance matters. Increased administration efficiency will also be supported by the Support Services Team, an employed team of 4 part time roles, who’ll support buildings, finances, administration, alongside the booking of life events such as weddings and funerals.
This change and increased support will allow clergy and lay leaders to focus more on mission and ministry. Some projects already completed; including the developing of central vision – ‘renewing hope’ and two shared preaching schedules, in which clergy have ‘pulpit swapped’ to build relationships and learn more about each church in the larger parish.
There has also been work to establish new lay leaders and build new worshipping communities, with a total of 146 people attending ‘Cultivate’ a missional development programme, from which 16 new worshipping communities have been established and 15 existing communities have been supported.
Rachel Shuttleworth, Team Vicar of St Helens Parish Church says: “We’re excited to finally become church St Helens -it’s a journey that we have been on for just over two years, and we’re so thankful for everyone; clergy, lay people, and the Fit for Mission team, who has worked incredibly hard, and often unnoticed behind the scenes to help us reach this point. It has been a real team effort, and we couldn’t have done it without everyone who has played their part.
This team effort and building of relationships has been a key highlight of this process for me, particularly the wonderful depth of relationship within the clergy leadership team, who now meet together weekly. This has been transformational, and now we feel not just colleagues, but friends too”
Rev Canon Dr Chris Daniel, Rector of Church St Helens, says: “Just over two years ago, eleven churches from across the deanery of St Helens committed to journeying together to explore what it would mean to become a larger parish. This journey, which has at times been complex and challenging, has empowered us to make our own decisions about the future of life in our parish. Through prayer and practical action, local people have established the foundations of our wider parish of Church St Helens. We believe this legal change will continue to foster strong working relationships and collegiality between all of us, and strength our wider mission, which is to renew hope.”
The first official meeting of Church St Helens will be on 21st May, for their Special Parochial Church Meeting, when representations can be made for Warden’s and PCC members.
The wider deanery of St Helens, which is made of the 11 churches in Church St Helens, and 8 other churches, who chose not to join the Fit for Mission programme, still meet as chapter regularly, and continue working together for the wider deanery.