Companions on the Way
Our Minister is Revd. Hilary Nabarro. From September 2019 Hilary is also serving as Minister of Trinity Church, Deal.
If you would like a wedding, baptism or funeral in the church, please contact Hilary on 01303 268621.
AGM Minister's Letter, March 2023
In the absence of a Church Secretary, it fell to me to produce a kind of Secretary’s – well, Minister’s – Report. I wasn’t sure how to do this, partly since I wasn’t even here for the whole year, and partly since we will in any case be hearing about various aspects of church life through the other reports. So, I thought maybe I might do something different… Here is a kind of Minister’s Reflection.
Recently I changed my car. While the new one is technically the same model as the last, it is a much newer version, and things have obviously changed in the intervening period. Some things look different. Some things feel different. Some things need adjusting. Some features I miss. Some things seem very complicated. Whereas before the car felt like an extension of my body, something very natural, now I have to think about what I want to do and how it might be done. To begin with, everything was a bit uneven and jerky. As I get used to it, I may find that some of the changes have advantages, or at least benefits: I’ve actually discovered one or two already. I do recognise that there are possibilities here to do things differently. Though I might need the manual…
What has this got to do with a report of the last year in the life of the church? Well, I’m wondering whether sometimes it has felt a bit like my experience with the new car. Some of this may be the ongoing impact of the pandemic, some of it more about the particularities of 2022. We may still be operating on roughly the same model of church, but it doesn’t look or feel quite the same. Some things have changed in the intervening period. Some things need adjusting. Some things feel unnecessarily complicated. Some things we miss. Some people are not there. Even the Minister wasn’t there for three months over the summer! Some are no longer able to do as much (actually, sometimes that includes the Minister, too!). Some people are becoming more involved, and we’re learning how to recognise and incorporate their gifts. And sometimes it might be good for us to be invited to think about what we want to do and how it might be done, rather than continuing to coast on auto-pilot. Even if for a while it feels a bit uneven and jerky.
In certain conditions, I can really enjoy driving, but most of the time when I get in the car I do so because I want to go somewhere. I don’t want to spend ages fiddling with the seat or listening to the engine, I want to get where I’m going. That also has resonance with church. Someone who works part time for the church and part time in secular work recently said that conversations in church tend to be about whether to pave the car park, whereas outside in the world conversations often tend towards questions of spirituality.
If the car is not causing anxiety and stress, then we are free to pay more attention to the landscape, the intended destination, and of course those who are fellow-travellers on our journey. I’d like to pause here to record particular thanks to all those who shared the driving or provided back-up in any way while I was away on sabbatical, especially the elders, and all those who led services over the summer months. While I don’t want to listen to the engine, I do enjoy the music in church, and I want to record our thanks to our team of musicians who so enhance our worship. I also want to recall that the journey of Joyce Edeki coincided with ours for the period of her placement with us in the first few months of the year, and to encourage you to pray for her as she continues on her journey and begins training for ministry.
The church is not a thing or a place, it is a community of people, a family, and the way we travel needs to fit who and how we are. As a roadmap, we might remind ourselves of the vision statement on our website:
Companions on the Way: following Jesus, sharing together, reaching out, giving hope.
And there’s always the Manual, with the Maker’s instructions, to inform our living…and the best Navigator we could wish for to guide our journey.