Vicar St Mark's, Harrogate

Overview

St Mark's Church resides in the town of Harrogate and the nearby Yorkshire Dales are among the most attractive areas in the north of England. Harrogate is famous for its Stray (a 200 acre area of common land immediately surrounding the town centre), Betty’s Café & Tea Rooms, the Great Yorkshire Show and Harlow Carr Gardens. Nearby, the cities of Leeds and York also offer first class cultural, retail and civic facilities. The town possesses a fine Conference Centre and many hotels and restaurants, which together provide excellent facilities for the business and tourist trades. Harrogate also has some of
the best secondary schools in the North of England. It is a great place in which to live, learn and work.
Our parish is largely middle class, white British and professional with low unemployment and a high proportion of owner occupied properties. There are many families, empty nesters and retired but there are proportionately fewer pre-family adults. Whilst we are one of the least deprived parishes in the Diocese of Leeds, research carried out by St Mark’s in 2014 (Minding the Gaps) revealed loneliness and isolation, along with the mental health of young people, as significant issues in our parish.

Introduction

St Mark’s is looking for a Vicar to fulfil the vision by leading, equipping and releasing the clergy and staff team and other leaders across the church so that the whole church family lives as Jesus’ Family of Servants on Mission.

St Mark’s has a strong tradition of preaching and teaching which is valued by many in the
congregation - both long standing members of the church family and newcomers alike.
The church currently has strength and depth in preaching and teaching across the clergy
team, readers and lay members of our church family. We are seeking a new vicar who would lead and nurture this rich teaching and preaching resource.

Main Responsibilities

To meet the church where it is now in all its diversity of age and style,
valuing what has grown and developed over many years and using this as
the starting point for taking forward the vision of St Mark’s into this new
chapter in its life.

• To refine, develop and bring our vision to life, helping us to focus on the things which are consistent with the vision, pruning those which are not and helping us make wise decisions about future opportunities.
• To shape the roles and responsibilities of the staff team to do this.
• To work with the church to ensure there are the necessary resources, including financial provision, to enable this.

General

• To share with the Bishop both in the cure of souls and in responsibility under God, for growing churches, changing communities and for transforming lives.
• To have regard to the calling and responsibilities of the clergy as described in the Canons, the Ordinal, the Code of Professional Conduct for the Clergy and other relevant legislation.
• To collaborate within the deanery in mission and ministry and to seek opportunities for sharing resources with other local benefices.
• To develop the ministry of the laity, through training, delegation, encouragement and support so that they have greater involvement in the mission and ministry of the parish.
• To ensure that a high standard of worship, preaching and pastoral care is provided so that people are more able to live and grow as disciples of Christ.
• To seek ecumenical cooperation wherever possible.
• To gain a good working understanding of the Diocese and the support it provides.
• To encourage Christian stewardship of people's time, money and abilities so that the ministry of the church is strengthened and enabled.

The Ideal Candidate

• Loves Jesus and declares Him Lord over all of their life (Philippians 2:9-11)
  Your identity is firmly rooted as a child of God (Galatians4: 4-7).
  You are Spirit led; prayerful, reflective, listening and responding to God’s voice (Mark1:15).
   
• Is servant-hearted (John 13:1-17)
  You are authentic, humble and prepared to share your vulnerability.
  You value everyone as being made in the image of God, and love people in all their diversity.
   
• Is a leader (Exodus 18:13-26)
  You have had a significant position of leadership in a large and complex organisation, in or outside of the church.
  You have experience of change management and of maintaining positive relationships despite challenging circumstances.
  You recognise your own need to continually grow and have a regular, prayerful connection with other
  leaders who provide challenge and accountability.
  You have developed leaders, whether lay or clergy.
   
• Leads within the 5-fold ministry (Ephesians 4:11-13)
  You are aware of your own relative strengths across the five giftings.
  You have strength in a least one of the following Apostolic, Prophetic, Evangelistic.
  You understand and embrace the importance of strength across all five giftings in building and leading teams.
   
• Is a disciple-maker (Matthew 28:18-20)
  You believe that we are commissioned to make disciples who make disciples.
  You have experience of enabling this to happen in smaller communities which are missional.
  You recognise that our congregation is on a journey of engaging with missional discipleship and will minister to people where they are at.
   
• Is missionally-minded (Romans 12:1-8)
  You are passionate to work as one church across Harrogate to establish missional communities in unreached parts of the town.
  You model and lead a culture of sentness and of giving yourself away.

About us

CPAS is an evangelical patron with patronage of nearly 700 churches.

https://www.cpas.org.uk/

The closing date for this post is 29th of January 2020.

Interviews and visits are both on the 24th of February.

If you have queries about this post please contact Kathy Burch kburch@cpas.org.uk or Graham Archer garcher@cpas.org.uk  

The Diocese of Leeds comprises five Episcopal Areas, each coterminous with an Archdeaconry. This is now one of the largest dioceses in the country and its creation is unprecedented in the history of the Church of England. It covers an area of around 2,425 square miles, and a population of around 2,642,400 people.

The three former dioceses were created in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to cater for massive population changes brought about by industrialisation and, later, mass immigration. The diocese comprises major cities (Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield), large industrial and post-industrial towns (Halifax, Huddersfield, Dewsbury), a spa town (Harrogate), market towns (Skipton, Ripon, Richmond and Wetherby), and deeply rural areas (the Dales). The whole of life is here, along with all the richness, diversity and complexities of a changing world.

The Diocesan Bishop (The Rt Rev’d Nick Baines) is assisted by five Area Bishops (Bradford, Huddersfield, Kirkstall, Wakefield and Ripon) and five archdeacons (Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Pontefract, Richmond & Craven).  The Bishop of Ripon is the Rt Rev’d Dr Helen-Ann Hartley.

Our vision as the Diocese is about confident clergy equipping confident Christians to live and tell the good news of Jesus Christ.  For all of our appointments we are seeking clergy who have a joyful and confident faith which has inspired a track record of church growth, both numerically and spiritually.