As the clock ticks down and the end of my time at St Martin’s approaches, so also my list of final sermons and reflections has seemed to tick slowly down, until just this newsletter front cover remains. With few words left, every one seems somehow more precious. And yet, in the end I feel only one sentence is really needed. In some ways it’s nothing new – it’s one that I’ve found myself saying again and again to so many of you over the last few weeks: thank you for your ministry to me.
Clergy are often seen as people who minister to others; and after many years of discernment and then training at theological college it has been a great joy to exercise my ministry among you as a deacon and then also as a priest. But for me, to be a priest is fundamentally to gather and encourage and empower the ministries of the whole people of God, for the transformation of God’s world. I am in awe of the gifts and skills, the vocations and passions among you as the gloriously diverse congregations of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Your ministries have profoundly shaped mine time and time again, sometimes in ways that neither of us realise.
I know that I will draw upon much that I have learned from you all as I embark upon my next adventure as Anglican Tutor at The Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham after Easter. I pray that St Martin’s will continue to be a place that offers food for your journey, as it has nurtured me over these past years. I pray too that your journeys of ministry will enrich and challenge and transform not only St Martin’s, but also the world outside the doors of this beautiful church. May God bless us all this Holy Week, as we prepare to be renewed in our ministries once again by the glorious mysteries of Easter.
Revd Angela Sheard
