OUR FRAMEWORK

Wantage and Grove Church Partnership

1. The aim of the Partnership is to further the mission of the church in the area by encouraging good relationships between Christian congregations and united action in witness, outreach and service to the community.   

2.  Member churches are autonomous and their various characters are respected and valued.  It may be that not every member church participates in every activity which is promoted by the Partnership. 

3.   The current participating churches are: 

  • Grove Methodist Church
  • S. John the Baptist Church Grove (Church of England)
  • S. John Vianney Catholic Church
  • Ss. Peter and Paul with Holy Trinity (Church of England)
  • The Community of S. Mary the Virgin  
  • Vale Elim Church
  • Wantage Christian Fellowship
  • Wantage Community Church
  • Wantage Methodist Church 

4.  Leaders’ meeting:

This group will provide opportunity to continue to deepen relationships at leadership level and develop a unified vision of ways in which the churches can serve God by working together in the area, sometimes all the churches, sometimes a subset. This group will determine their “Chair”, who will also chair the Action Group.

5.  Action Group:

A joint “clergy – lay” team which will work out the detail of the joint activities of the Partnership and delegate to other teams and sub groups as appropriate. Each participating church will have a maximum of one lay and one clergy member, and a minimum of one member. These members to be selected by each church according to their internal processes. This group will meet as and when necessary, with the fewest number of meetings in order to ensure that joint activities are well co-ordinated.

6. The Officers of the Partnership will be Chair (appointed by the Leaders’ Meeting), Secretary and Treasurer (appointed by the AGM and thereby becoming members of the Action group if not already).

7. The Partnership will maintain a bank account and will appoint a minimum of three signatories to this account any two of which shall form a valid authority.

8.  If any further church in Wantage or Grove seeks to join the Partnership they are welcome to do so subject to the agreement of all the existing member churches.

9.  The Annual General Meeting will be open to all members of participating churches.  It will be held in September of each year for the reception of annual reports and independently examined statements of account. It will agree the budget and level of churches’ contributions for the year which will be proposed by the Treasurer. It will appoint the Secretary and Treasurer and conduct any other business the Chair may permit. 

12-2-2015