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Services
and Events
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About
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Quick Links: Regular Services • Monthly Services • Dates for your Diary • Recent Events • Priest's Letter
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On Sunday 16th we welcome the Rev'd. Robert Breaden as our preacher and celebrant.
Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness elected Primus
The Revd. Chris Mayo has been appointed as the Priest-in-Charge for the Caithness charges. He was licensed by Bishop Mark on Sunday 2nd July at 3.30 pm in St Peter's in Thurso.
The appointment of Rev. Chris marks a new chapter in the life of St John's, and he is keen to meet the congregation and get to know us all. He says: Hello, good evening and welcome…. I've always wondered how one introduces oneself without it sounding like an audition - "You're up next dahhhling. Oh, on second thoughts, NEXT!". How about I start with the very simple… Hi. I'm Chris - it's good to meet you.
I'm saying 'hi' from my desk in my house in Brora. My own house, not a Church rectory. I live in the Highlands because I fell in love with this extraordinary and beautiful place and its people. From my very first visit to Moray and the Highlands on retreat in 1989, I knew that I wanted to live here. Like so many people, the geography and environment touch my soul and there's something magnetic about the history, myth and legend that defines Caithness and Sutherland. In this case you can most definitely take Essex out of the boy as well as the boy out of Essex! I never thought God would call me to parish ministry here. I had long moved out of stipendiary parish ministry and into teaching Religious Education (much of my second curacy was spent in primary and secondary schools) and chaplaincy before moving into technology and communications. God, however, laughs in the face of any plans we make and soon after my move to Brora, Bishop Mark asked me to assist in a non-stipendiary role before inviting me to take up the stipendiary role of Priest-in-Charge of East Sutherland and Tain. The rest, as they say is history. From the start of my return to stipendiary ministry my sense of calling has been to develop collaborative ministry where lay leaders and ordained clergy together lead the whole people of God. I have little time for the concept that 'real' ministry is what clergy do and lay leaders support. No, God calls his church to minister to the world and from within his church raises up people of different skills, loves, quirks, challenges and capabilities. Every child of God has a ministry only they can offer. As each works out their ministry, some may then enter ordained ministry, others licensed local ministry, to build up the whole people in their life of faith and witness. Yet all are called together. So it will be my privilege and joy to work with all of you to discern which ministries and callings God is raising up in Caithness. We are a people, together. This collaboration will be vital - having the parish priest living fifty miles away will mean some creativity in how we do things! My other calling, and one the Bishop has recognised and authorised in asking me to become the Diocesan Mission Officer, is to develop the discipleship of existing congregations - how do we grow in prayer, service and love - and the raising up of new congregations. In my few years in East Sutherland and Tain two missions have grown and a third is at the start of its journey on the eastern seaboard. These missions will continue to be under my oversight as mission officer, but I also look forward to seeing what God is asking us to join the Spirit in creating in Caithness. As Episcopalians with the local knowledge, you'll be amongst those guiding my hands and feet in this. I honestly have faith that our church in Caithness will grow - both in the existing worshipping communities and in new gatherings. That growth will be both numerical and in our life of discipleship.
It's going to take me a little while getting to know you all. Not having the opportunity to live full time with you as Wendy and previous parish priests have done will require some creativity and engagement on all sides but I do think that Wick and Thurso have proven time and again their capacity to rise to a challenge. There is a lot of giftedness in you - that is apparent to all of us who have ministered in the Northern Region. I look forward to seeing where that journey takes us. It should also be noted that Old Pulteney is, indeed a fine Single Malt. I sense some call to chaplaincy there….. Love
and blessings,
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A Continuing Mission…... Mission: over the past few years it has been ever-present. It is there in my sermons, in Bishop Mark's addresses, our Regional Synods, the General Synod. Everywhere. Yes, we use the word 'mission' a lot - I'm perhaps the most guilty of it. It's the major focus of my own sense of ministry. A mission priest is who I really am and why Bishop Mark has appointed me to the post of Diocesan Mission Officer, alongside being your new Priest in Charge. However, the more I think about it the more I wonder about using that word. We have our own preconceptions about it and the wider world certainly sees it negatively. Often the word is seen is imposing our ways upon others, a kind of crusading. For us who are part of the Body of Christ though, it simply refers to one thing: how do we as a particular gathering of disciples, learners of Christ's Way, go on the journey of following Jesus? Jesus, it is said, 'set his face towards Jerusalem' in the final days before the Cross , and towards there he outwardly journeyed: meeting, sharing, healing and teaching as he went. Both before and following the Resurrection, Christ's followers reflected on this and learned more of God in their own second and internal journey. This allowed them to come closer to the God Jesus shared with them. As their vocation was explored the apostles began their own physical journeys and gathered new disciples. Again, in turn and in their own times this new generation of followers discovered God on their internal journey. So it was that the journeys, outward and visible, inward and spiritual, continued on. Now, in our own time, we are called to 'set our faces' toward our own journey into our future. How do we journey outward into our communities and share the Church's life? How do we help people journey inward into understanding God and their relationship with the Creator? This is the cause to which we are pledged in Baptism, Confirmation and indeed at every Eucharist. It is the vocation of the Priesthood of the whole Church- to reveal Christ's love to the people and bear the people of our community on our hearts before God. If my ministry as a priest is, at least in part, about encouraging the ministry of Christ to happen, the ministry of Caithness' disciples is to then take that ministry of Christ to the Zacchaeus' of this world - the ones straining to hear his voice and see his passing by. The is the work of the Kingdom that is shared by me and thee. However, this throws questions back on me that must remain part of my own discernment as we move forward together. If I am asking us to think about the way we are going as a Church community, how then do I as your priest lead this church on a journey that helps it deliberate on this vocation? How can I be with everyone in such a way that encourages all of us to move forward in our own individual relationships with God? I think those questions - both congregational and my own - have to be answered as together and as one. It is important that we explore this journey together, rather than simply me spouting forth! Perhaps, then, instead, of 'mission', we simply talk about 'walking with Jesus'? What do you think? Blessings.
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