Russell’s Monthly Newsletter

June 2022

‘Our Sabbatical’ (a rest or beak from work)

Dear Friends,

As I hope you are all aware, from 6 June through to 12 September Nicola and I are on sabbatical.  URC Ministers are entitled to a three-month sabbatical every 10 years. (We were due to go on sabbatical last year, but it became clear very early on that the pandemic was going to cause a delay of 12 months).  If you are thinking that our dates add up to more than 3 months, you are correct, because we are beginning with a week’s holiday!

Nicola and I have a number of different aims for the next three month.

Firstly, to seek refreshment and renewal after the most intensive period of my 33 year ministry due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Secondly, to explore together the implications of Sam Wells’s assertion (in his trilogy The Nazareth Manifesto, Incarnational Ministry and Incarnational Mission) that ‘with’ is the most important word in the Biblical narrative.

Thirdly, in particular, to reflect on ‘the ministry of presence’ in light of the perceived deployment crisis for stipendiary ministry in the URC and to offer a ‘way forward’;

Fourthly, to reflect on the ‘ministry of presence’ (‘with’) in light of the pandemic when so much of ministry was done ‘remotely’.

Fifthly, to spend some time doing this reflection in an Orthodox setting where a place of ‘pilgrimage’ has developed with little or no ‘professional clergy’ support.

At the moment that list looks quite ambitious, but my hope is that I come back in September refreshed and renewed for the final few years of my ministry.

Meanwhile I hope you understand that, although Nicola and I may be at home for some of the duration of our sabbatical, I am not available for church duties. I know that you will support those who will carry an extra load in my absence.  I am very grateful to the Church Secretary, Elders, Pastoral Assistant those who will chair meetings and all those leading worship in my absence for ensuring that life in the church will go on as usual.  I hope you will all enjoy, support and benefit from the variety of worship leaders that our pulpit supply secretary has been able to book during my absence.  

You, as always, will remain in my thoughts and prayers.  Although I will not be ‘with’ you in person, we remain ‘with’ one another in the Spirit of God.

With love and prayers

Russell

Posted – 6 February 2022