It has been announced on Sunday that St John’s, Clarendon Park and St Peters, Oadby will be collaborating in an exciting new partnership. St Johns is one of the diocese’s six designated Resourcing Churches and the vision for the partnership is a revitalisation of St. Peter’s, with a particular focus on growing mission among children and young families, young people and young adults (including students), and to work towards St. Peter’s itself becoming a planting church from which new worshipping communities in Oadby can be established. This would run alongside further development of the well established and respected civic role of St. Peter’s and its links to the local community. This follows a period of exploration between the two PCCs and the clergy of the Oadby Team and St John’s which resulted in agreement of the partnership aims, the resources that would be deployed to achieve them, and consultation within the wider Team Ministry and patrons.
Jon Tearne, currently curate at St John’s, will move to St Peter’s, together with a team from St John’s. Sami Lindsey, Priest-in-charge of St John’s, will also be licensed as interim Team Vicar for St. Peter’s Oadby within the Oadby-Great Glen Team Ministry, alongside the transfer of Jon Tearne’s curacy licence to St. Peter’s Oadby. Jon will exercise day to day leadership under the oversight of Sami and with the support of the Oadby Team Ministry. The licensing date for both Sami and Jon has been set for Sunday 24th January 2021. Steve Bailey remains the Team Rector of the Oadby-Great Glen Team Ministry, with its parishes of St Paul’s Oadby, St Peter’s Oadby and of Great Glen, Burton Overy and Carlton Curlieu.
“It has been so encouraging to see the appetite at St Peters for what God would do in and through His Church, as we honour what has gone before, nurture what we see in the present, and open up space for new life in the future” Jon explains.
“The congregation at St. Peter’s is excited about this opportunity. We have enormous enthusiasm to learn new ways to use our glorious, historic church and centre to declare anew the love of Jesus in our community” said Don Smith, one of the churchwardens at St Peter’s, while Martin Ward (also a churchwarden at St Peter’s) added “we’re looking forward to unlocking the missional potential that there is in Oadby and sharing the love of Jesus with our neighbours.”
The six Resourcing Churches in the diocese are funded by money from the Church of England’s Strategic Development Fund, and are charged with the responsibility of planting new churches and fresh expressions of church and revitalising existing congregations, with the aim that these will go on, in turn, to themselves plant new Christian communities.