PCC Tonight is both a training evening for PCC members, and a resource to unpack this learning in greater detail.
One course participant fed back:
‘Our PCC meeting last week drew on the material you shared with us so brilliantly at the course.
‘The first little anecdote is that for years our PCC has met on a Thursday in a room above the local AmDram society rehearsal and so bursts of ‘West Side Story’ etc. interrupt serious discussions! I announced that if I, a 35 year old with all my own teeth and decent health, couldn’t hear a thing, I was sure they couldn’t, so we were changing the night. Cue approbation all round - “why haven’t we done this before?” etc - which just goes to show that change, even very basic, can be a great relief (rather than a problem) for people who’ve been on PCCs for years.
‘But the more serious thing: we did three very simple things I picked up on the course - began with evening prayer in church using a simple Iona liturgy; had a time chatting over drinks and nibbles; and instead of sitting round tables in a formal horseshoe sat in small groups talking about our church’s view of welcoming. I had hoped that this last one would really get them feeling ownership and genuinely involved in setting the vision for our parish, changing it away from a purely formal and stilted conversation, and it did.
'But the most important, and most powerful, moment came right at the end where I asked for any comments on the format of the meeting. Someone piped up about how helpful they had found sharing evening prayer - in terms of getting out of the busyness of the day, finding calm, settling down to what we were there for - and several people asked if we could do this at the start of every PCC meeting! I could have fallen off my chair, and felt really quite moved by this shift towards us prioritising prayer, which I think is good for both PCC, parish and indeed clergy.
‘So thank you for the course, which really made me think about how to run a PCC, and I hope similar events in future provide the same prompt to others.’
The Rev Philip Hobday, Vicar, Earley St Peter’s, Reading