Pledge Day – 2023 – for Children, Youth & Families Lay Worker
Back in the spring of 2020 we, in partnership with Crowthorne Methodist Church, employed a Children, Youth & Families Lay Worker: Deryn Stewart. Unfortunately, she had no sooner started than we went into lockdown and almost immediately we had to reduce her hours. She continued as best she could via online and written means, but it was not sustainable given how long Covid affected us and prevented groups from meeting again. Deryn and her husband then had to relocate due to his work and she resigned.
We were not, at that time, in a position to employ someone else but the dream and hope of having a Lay Worker shared between the two churches has never vanished.
A very broad outline of the role is that it would involve building on existing initiatives such as Babes and Tots / Messy Church and starting new ones e.g. a summer holiday club. The Lay Worker would establish relationships with the families connected to the two churches, coming alongside them and discovering what sort of activities or services might interest and benefit them. We have quite a number of families connected with our church through user groups (hall hire) and baptism families but we don’t often see the children or their families coming to church. The Lay Worker would seek to establish more lasting relationships with these people. They would assist with All Age Worship or Family services. It might also be possible to reach out to local schools by taking assemblies.
There is more to the role than I have indicated here and I can give anyone who is interested a job description but this hopefully gives you an idea.
The biggest constraint has been whether we could afford someone. The role would be for 37.5 hours per week during term time plus two weeks in the holidays (i.e. 41 weeks). A full-time equivalent salary of about £23,400 (the actual amount would depend somewhat on the applicant’s experience) works out at £12 per hour but there would also be employment costs to be covered e.g. pension contribution etc.
The expectation is that we would pay 25% of their salary, Crowthorne 25% and the Circuit 50%. For us that would mean finding approximately £5.3k per annum or £10.6k to know we could employ someone for a minimum of two years.
In recent months the stewards and I have been discussing how we might revisit this. We have brought it to Church Council for discussion. We know that, financially, we would struggle to pay this out of existing church funds, so it has been agreed that we should hold a Pledge Day (this might be a coffee morning or a Sunday service).
The idea is that we would ask people at church to consider pledging an amount of money (it doesn’t have to be a large amount!) either on a monthly basis or as a one-off in order to help fund this role. Pledging, rather than gifting, means that no one has parted with any money at this stage. Gifts given for a specific purpose cannot then be used in another way and we want to avoid complications. The results of the pledges would give us a clear indication whether this is something we are able to engage with.
Crowthorne are in a position to go ahead and are very keen to advertise the role in January with a view to having someone employed by March/April. I personally think it would be fantastic for this to be a shared role as was always envisaged.
Please think about this and consider if you might be in a position to make a pledge. Look out in the notices for details of a pledge coffee morning (or possibly a pledge service) coming up very soon.
Thank you.
Sharon o.b.o. stewards and Church Council