Prelimimary (1 page): Introduces Sawston as a rural parish covering a large area. Total mass attendance at 4 church centres is 360. The booklet "A Time for Building" was taken by 110 parishioners. Parishioners met 4 times prior to a general fifth meeting. 40 people attended the smaller groups, 29 of whom were at the final meeting. A lay reader chaired the small groups and the Chairman of the Parish Advisory Committee chaired the final meeting - the parish priest was present for this. Each group submitted its own report.
Report 1 (3 pages): Sawston Group - 4 sessions described; Findings: approve of discussion groups; how to contact those who had not attended this group; each group must have clear purpose, be open and ready to adapt.
Report 2 (2 pages): Great Shelford Group - overall impression of "A Time for Building" is that it is a difficult read, not a positive basis for discussion, had little mention of Christ in His Church. Summary of discussion follow. Final paragraph says "We did not finish discussing the rest of the report but the general feeling ... was that if we were all better Christians the report would not have been necessary". Interesting that there was a call for greater understanding of the Bible - should be Bible study groups.
Report 3 (3 pages): Little Shelford Group - 10 points followed by ".. the Laity could do more in the administration of the Parish .." but this was qualified by the need to take care to chose the right workers otherwise harm may emerge. A page of minority comments is followed by a half page addition which identifies Ecuminism as generally a good thing, but depored a decline in the recognition of authority, and the failure to stress authority and discipline was a serious omission in "A Time for Building".
Report 4 (8 pages): Haslingfield and Harston Group - Could not obtain "The Church in the Year 2000" which was mentioned several times in "A Time for Building". The latter was "difficult to follow because it contained too many long and diffuse sentences, much jargon and a number of deliberate ambiguities. It was generally badly written and contained an apparent political bias". They looked at the membership of the committee which produced the booklet and consider that the absence of lay members from the shop floor or professions instead of the preponderence of social workers was reflected in the content and harmed the booklet. This group then examined in detail each section of the booklet: Preface & Introduction / The Church in England and Wales since Vatican II / Human and Material Sources / Mission of the Church / Development of the Right Attitudes / Formation, Structure and Worship / The Christian Mission in Different Life Situations / Mission for Caring Concern / Conclusions. This is followed by 3 pages of comments on the report.
Sawston Parish Advisory Committee