| Description | The Church of the Messiah House Mission (later known as the Home Mission) was appointed by the Vestry Committee in 1872. Its meetings were chaired by the Reverend H.W. Crosskey. A scheme was agreed at the Home Mission's first meeting on 18 October 1872 (see UC 2/12/10/1) as regards the duties of the Missionary to be appointed. The first Missionary appointed was a Mr J. Moden on a salary of £120.
His duties were to visit every family in the church's Sunday Schools at least once every quarter, recording the date of the visit and any particulars; to assist under the Superintendent in the Sunday Schools (as ex-officio member of the committee) mornings and afternoons and address the children; to be available three nights a week if required; to investigate cases of distress to which their attention may be called by members of the congregation; to report to the Chairman and Secretary once a week and also to the bi-monthly meeting of the Committee of the Home Mission.
The visitation work was similar to the kind of social welfare work increasingly undertaken by Public Health and Welfare officials working for the Corporation of Birmingham (see BCC), many of the borough's Councillors having been involved in the church during the second half of the nineteenth century. By January 1873 the Missionary was to devote one evening a week to the Mutual Improvement Society and one to the Night Schools. The Home Mission's work mirrored that undertaken by the Fazeley Street Mission (see catalogue record UC 2/4/2 for further information about this Mission and the church's missionary work more generally), but applied to the Church of the Messiah's own Sunday Schools rather than those affiliated to the sister chapel.
The Mission was to be funded using money allocated from the Poor Fund as well as the result of money raised through appeals made from the pulpit. There are details of payments to the Poor Fund contained in the Vestry records and minutes (see UC 2/3/3), the Treasurers accounts (see UC 2/3/4) and the Seat Rental Account Books (see UC 2/6/3). The Home Mission was eventually amalgamated with the Sunday School Committee in 1878, and the two subscription lists united into one. The later minutes of the Home Mission were bound with the minutes of the Sunday School Committee (see UC 2/12/2/1).
The reports in the minutes included observations on the prevalence of illness and disease in the districts that came under their care, the funding and organisation of Adult Classes and grants made to other projects and institutions (i.e. local hospitals and dispensaries that cared for the poor). |