St. Stephen's had five members of Halton Presbytery this year. Rev. Deanna Wilson, as active clergy, Lynda Appleby, as retired diaconal minister and Jennifer Auty, as Staff Associate, are automatically members. Deanna served as co-chair of the Pastoral Relations Committee, and Lynda served on the Pastoral Oversight Committee. Rick Landers and I have served as lay representatives. Rick served on the Pastoral Relations Committee; I have served as web master, and as chair of the Mission Support Committee. In that role I have also served on the Presbytery Executive, and have attended meetings of the Hamilton Conference Mission Strategy and Support Committee.
This year, the dominant theme of Presbytery work was the issue of growth. We are particularly focussed on growth in the north end of Oakville, the south of Milton, and the Churchill Meadows area of Mississauga, areas for which major residential developments are planned or already under way. We received several reports about these developments, and are working on several responses to the challenges and opportunities that they offer.
For some time now, the presbytery has been considering a Capital Funds Campaign, as a way of gathering resources to fund growth, and other projects such as debt reduction in some of our congregations. A feasibility study was completed this year. The conclusion of the study was that such a campaign is not feasible at this time. Alternate approaches will be considered in the next few years.
As part of our response to the changes in our presbytery, we have decided to hire a full-time Mission Development Officer. Rev. John Ambrose has been working in this position on a half-time basis, and done some very valuable work. John has decided to retire in June. A Job Description has been developed for the position, and as I write this a Search Committee is looking to fill the position. In the next few years, our presbytery assessments may be increased to cover the cost of this position.
One of the components of John's work as been to form an informal group of members of the four south Mississauga churches - St. Stephen's, Christ Church, First and Sheridan - to see whether there are opportunities to support each other in our missions. Deanna Wilson, Susanne Sweatman and I have participated from St. Stephen's. This has been a very valuable experience, and we hope that the group will continue to meet in the fall, perhaps on a more formal basis.
Presbytery is involved in many other areas of church life - regeneration, support of candidates for ministry, etc. This year, we at St. Stephen's have been particularly aware of the work of the Pastoral Relations Committee, as we seek to call a new minister.
This year, I again served on Hamilton Conference's M ission Strategy and Support Committee. The main job of this committee is to distribute Mission Support grants from the Mission and Service Fund. This year, we distributed more than $440,000 to about 30 congregations and outreach projects throughout Hamilton Conference.
This year, the Mission and Service Fund reached its target of over thirty million dollars. Once again, St. Stephen's generously supported the Fund - thanks to everyone!
Thank you for the privilege of being one of your Presbytery representatives.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter Curran