Churches

St. Mark’s

Associate Priest AGM Report 2025

By Rev Gav

As you are no doubt aware, Helen and I have handed in our notice as the Associate Priest at St. Mark’s Church. I say Helen and I, because from the very start we have both been fully involved in the mission and ministry of the church. We have given St. Mark’s everything we had to give in terms of our times and talents, our remit to turn the fortunes of the church around, to attract a younger membership, and introduce modern, contemporary music and liturgy.

We arrived two weeks before the first Covid lockdown in April 2020, during which we were in quarantine at The Rectory. This meant we were unable to meet members of the congregation and went immediately into delivering online worship. During this first lockdown we recorded the St. Mark’s organ and Peter and Angie recorded some hymns. I used covers of worship songs that I had produced and our online worship was a great success. Highlights for me was one member forgetting she was ‘turned on’ and swearing into her microphone, and Canon John giving a blessing and sending lit candles flying across his office! During this first lockdown we also produced seven full episodes of BLAST!, a video magazine show for our children and young people.

During the Covid years we produced creative church worship and video sermons filmed in different locations. Alongside this I produced 75 Bible study videos and other special videos to keep us encouraged. It wasn’t until July 2020 that the first lockdown eventually opened up and we were allowed in-person worship. We also recorded our first music video — the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy (to a backing beat of course). At the time of writing we have published 392 videos on YouTube and some of our current congregation members found us through our music videos posted on social media! Some of the highlights include Remembrance Sunday where on one occasion I transported myself from the Bermuda cenotaph to the one in London, and on another I transported myself from a magic portal in the vestry to the cathedral with one of our children, after worship, desperate for me to show them how the portal worked! I have also loved creativity in worship, such as cooking fish on a BBQ on the church steps to retell the story of Peter meeting the risen Christ, tossing chocolate during our Easter Worship to celebrate the abundance of God, or spraying the congregation with holy water at baptisms to remind us of our own baptism.

Talking of worship, we have produced 43 backing tracks (67 if you count the variations) and written our own worship songs including Angie’s wonderful ‘Rainbow Voices’. Early on in our tenure, our vestry voted unanimously to be an inclusive church where members of the LGBTQ+ community would find welcome and acceptance, and I am proud that St. Mark’s has become a safe place for those that had previously been rejected from worshipping their Lord.

Covid gave us an excuse to move from hymn books to projected worship. We introduced a simpler, accessible liturgy, and we also moved the time of our worship to 9.30am to better fit with families with young children, and to enable us to share ministry across the East End churches. We ensured that every Sunday there would be something for children and fell into the pattern of worship we now enjoy. At this year’s Easter Sunday worship, falling outside of school holidays, we had fifty children in attendance and only one of them was not ‘one of ours’. How amazing is that!? Helen took to baking fresh bread for our Sunday worship (a tradition that goes back centuries at St. Mark’s) and it has been wonderful to break open a warm loaf on a Sunday morning — a real treat for our senses that invokes the warmth and abundance of God.

In terms of church financials, we find ourselves again struggling, due to lack of tenants in the hall and one of the cottages, and the soaring cost of specialist repairs and maintenance, however, during our tenure, we did manage to renegotiate the rate of interest on our loan and significantly down our debt.

Covid saw us providing care packages and grocery cards, along with Christmas hampers, which soon developed into the Lord’s Larder grocery bag scheme, which then, due to a lack of demand, reduced to a frozen meal delivery service, which is still operating today.

In terms of heritage highlights, under the guidance of Colin Campbell and Geoff Rothwell, we are blessed to have one of the original 17th century tables lovingly restored and returned to the church. They also restored the rood screen back to its crenelated state and widened the aperture. These two improvements have enabled the priest(s) to celebrate much closer to the congregation and also be more visible. Our small choir has grown from 5 to 16 members, and we have installed a sound system and a rear TV screen to enhance our delivery of worship.

Between November 2021 and December 2024, every Saturday, I wrote a column for the Royal gazette producing over 150 articles over a three year period — including every vacation time we were off or away. I built and maintained a website and social media channels for St. Mark’s including utilising WhatsApp groups to help us stay connected. Talking of staying connected, our weekly bulletin, produced by Peter Nash, morphed into Stay Connected, which gets emailed every week, and paper copies still get hand-delivered to 11 parishioners. Over several months in 2023 and 2024 I designed and built the diocesan website and we moved our St. Mark’s website over to this platform.

In terms of ministry to children, for Junior Church, we now have three separate groups with a staffing rota. Helen, and her team has organised light parties and tour-and-treats at Halloween, kids takeovers of Sunday worship, Christmas discos, and a fundraiser for charity.

On Thursday evenings we started a Supper Club for people that find themselves on their own or at a loose end. It started with Peter Nash joining us for supper after a choir practice and now has 24 members. As I type this we have 16 coming for Supper Club this evening. We also instigated a monthly Bereavement Support Tea, and it has proved important to hold to hold this space open for those that need it.

This is all on top of seeing the church start our first life-group, senior Christmas lunches, Lent courses, occasional offices such as funerals and weddings, and covering worship at other churches and events. The past five years have been full and exciting!

So what’s next for St. Mark’s? It’s probably not for me to say, save that I think it will involve St. Mark’s gathering around some kind of community purpose or mission. A new kind of leadership will be required for this to happen, someone or a couple that can help St. Mark’s be outward looking, be an enabler and supporter of gifts and talents, and who listens to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Helen and I have loved every moment of serving this church, and it is, without a doubt, the most wonderful church community of which we have been a part. We count many of you, not as just members of the congregation, but as our dear friends. We will miss you very much, and we thank you all, from the bottom of our hearts, for helping make our stay here so memorable. Although we move on to the next chapter of our lives, we will, of course, stay in touch, and we will no doubt be back for regular visits if you will give us a couch on which to sleep.

We are excited about the future of St. Mark’s because of who you are in Christ and because ‘we are not just a church, but a family’.

Rev Gav, May 2025