Welcome to Deep Roots, the podcast from Oak Hill
College, where we sit down and have conversations
about theology and ministry. My name is Johnny
Reid. I'm a director of engagement here at Oak
Hill. And it's my joy to welcome back to the
chairs, Andrew Nicholls, who's our director of
pastoral care. Andrew, it'd be great, just give
us a bit more background to you. It'd be great
to hear a bit more of your story from sort of
coming to trust in Jesus to sitting here now,
working here at Oak Hill. Sure. It's lovely to
be here. I was brought up in a Christian family,
went to church every week and went all through
school believing myself to be a Christian, calling
myself a Christian. And I think I was a pretty
Pharisaical one, if I can put it that way. I
would look down on people who had different views
of life. When I got to university, I'd noticed
people in the Christian Union who had a quite
different kind of Christianity from what I labelled
myself as because I vividly remember going to
a prayer meeting in the college. I'd been encouraged
to go. And it was a room full of people who were
talking to somebody they knew. And I didn't have
that relationship with God. I didn't feel that
I did. Back in my teens, I'd made some kind of
meaningful response to the cross. I was grateful
for Jesus. And I don't think that was inauthentic.
I think that was right. But there was a piece
missing still. That piece fitted into place just
before my second year at university when a speaker
with the Christian Union sort of went away for
a few days before the beginning of the university
year. And the speaker made really clear what
the Lordship of Jesus meant. And I think probably
the easiest way to summarize is that back in
my teens, I'd understood Christ as Savior. At
that point, I understood Christ as Lord. And
on that night of those few days away, I surrendered.
and said, my life must belong to you by the grace
of God. I remember vividly the song we were singing
and it felt like it's now or never. What was
the song? Shine, Jesus, shine. What a song. What
a song. From that moment, I felt that this was
a God that I also now knew and learned to pray
and so on. Well, not long after that, I had grown
up in a Methodist church background. I was still
at that stage going along to a Methodist church
and someone put it to the student Methodist group.
a visiting speaker, a Methodist minister from
up north somewhere, came and said, if you are
articulate and you are, you wouldn't be here
at university. And if you have a faith and you
are, you wouldn't be here in the student Methodist
group. That may be a call to preach. And that
really struck me. I remember that phrase. He
repeated it a number of times. It was great pedagogy.
But it really stayed with me, stayed in my soul,
actually. And actually, my father and his father
before him had been Methodist local preachers.
That was the route that I started training, and
I completed my training as a Methodist local
preacher. But as I grew a little bit more, I
was mainly in Bible teaching, Anglican churches,
and I was trying to think, who am I? Am I a Methodist?
Am I an Anglican? I eventually decided that I
was neither. I was a Christian, I was evangelical,
but I didn't then pursue training either through
Anglican ordination or Methodist church. So I
don't really know who I am. But as a Christian,
I have valued the chance to, I had to. At university,
I was studying medicine and I had 10 years as
a doctor. And during that time, I began to think
that the preaching I'd been doing as a lay preacher,
effectively as a hobby, you know, alongside a
career, that's how it works, obviously, in a
Methodist church, typically. But I began to think
that maybe I should be doing a bit more than
that, whether in fact I would be a doctor all
my life or whether I would change. Eventually,
the Lord was very kind. It took a period of 10
years. I made the switch from body to soul. I
had 15 years as a pastor in southwest London,
and during that time became increasingly convinced
that to be a good pastor, which I was not when
I started, I needed to understand both Scripture
and people, and I was able to set aside a day
a week to begin getting to grips really with
how to make that connection more richly. That
eventually is what led me here, and it's now
the guts of what I teach. Tell us a bit more
about that. Why are you really passionate about
that? Why do you think pastors really need to
make sure they know people, not just the gospel
in that sense? Yeah, I suppose there's a number
of ways of answering that. One is that the ministry
that God gives to his pastors is a pastoral ministry.
It's a shepherding ministry. And there's lots
of places where that idea is filled out, whether
in the Old Testament you have the... God's condemnation
of the shepherds in Ezekiel. When Paul's talking
about the ministry that will really help the
church in Thessalonica, which is a brilliant
church doing so well, he says that they're to
warn the idle, encourage the disheartened, and
help the weak. Those are three distinct reasons
why people might not be joining in the work that
Paul says is good for everybody. There are people
who are idle who need warning. There are people
who... are disheartened and they need encouraging
and there are people who are weak and they need
help and those are three very different responses
to three very different people if you if you
warn someone who's disheartened you make the
problem worse if you help someone who's idle
you make the problem worse if you don't provide
the help that a weak person needs in order to
be able to do what you're asking them to do they
simply can't do it no matter how much you encourage
them that carries a very strong implication that
if you're to be an effective pastor, you need
to know whether you're talking to someone who's
effectively disheartened, someone who lacks the
ability without resource and help from outside,
or someone who's stuck in sin. And they can look
very similar. I take it in Thessalonica, those
were three groups of people, and none of them
were working. And rather than just give a blanket
instruction, come on, pull your socks up, which
might be what I would have done as a young pastor,
he says there's more to it than that. So those
are... Old Testament, New Testament, when we
encounter God as individuals in Scripture, we
find him to be capable of drawing very close
to us in our situation. There are so many beautiful
words given to us in the Psalms to experience
a deeply personal relationship with God. And
the way that he relates to his people in a very
personal way needs to be reflected in the way
that pastors relate to their flock. It's my privilege
here to help people put everything else that's
there in the curriculum to work. Tim spends a
lot of time on preaching, the construction of
sermons and Bible studies and what you might
call slightly more formal set piece word ministry.
And it's my privilege to help people think about
the one -to -one word ministry, the interpersonal
ministry. What are you going to do in a conversation
with people? So in the second year, we... get
people to sit down and have a conversation. They
actually spend nine hours in conversation in
little groups of three. And it's so encouraging
to read the reports of that. For many, it's the
first time they've had that kind of conversation
with people. But it's something that I very much
hope will be a big part of their ministry. And
it's not only because it's good in its own right.
It's because as you grow to know better the individuals
in that group that you're preaching to, your
sermon takes on a much more personal feel. You
know what... what proportion of the congregation
are unemployed. And if they're unemployed, how
long they've been unemployed. If they've been
unemployed for a long time, how they're responding
to that. And you know about the real health issues
that are affecting people's bodies and that will
be a source of considerable anxiety in the week
ahead. And so you're not just preaching about
the sovereignty of God, you're preaching about
God coming alongside us in all kinds of weakness.
And it just helps us choose our words. It helps
us make eye contact at the right time. It helps
us pick up conversations after the sermon. We
often want people to be talking meaningfully
about the sermon. It's part and parcel, really,
of a good all -round ministry. And so part of
your role of continuing to grow in that yourself,
you've had a bit of time of study leave? Yes.
You've been here a while at Oak Hill, which means
you get some study leave. Tell us about some
of the people listening here in ministry, different
roles, maybe pastors, may not be, but... maybe
in full -time ministry, what have been some of
the benefits you've seen looking back on sabbatical
study leaves? And I think you'd say you'd be
encouraging people to find some space for them.
Yeah. So I'm acutely conscious that lots of people
might have a provision for study leave in a contract
or that they suspect it would be possible if
they were to pursue it. But when they start getting
a little bit closer to the idea, they realise
there's a huge amount to do. to make it possible
for you not to be doing your job for a period.
And many ministers I know managed to carve out
a month in a summer period or something like
that. I suppose my encouragement from my own
experience would simply be to say I found it
so enriching to take time away from the norm.
It so enriches what I do when I come back to
the norm. And this was true of my sabbatical
in 2012. It's been true of my study leave here.
It helps me look at what I'm going to come back
to do with fresh hours. And I think that's been
really... really actually life -changing for
me and for ministry. So even though it seems
impossibly difficult to work out who on earth
is going to preach in all those weeks when I'm
not going to be there, how is the team going
to function? I think the reality is that many
churches do manage to survive when the pastor
eventually moves on and there's a gap, you know,
an interregnum as it's sometimes called. It is
possible. There are people who can step up and
it can be really good for them to do so. It is
a huge amount of effort. But I've never spoken
to a single minister and I've spoken to many
who've taken as a massacre. I've never spoken
to a single one who said it wasn't worth the
effort. They're so glad they did it. And yeah,
that's been my experience too. Sorry for interrupting
you as you listen in to Andrew, but we just want
to let you know about a couple of short courses
we've got coming up this summer, which you can
sign up for. In June, we've got two 26 -hour
language refresher retreats. They're held here
at Oak Hill with our language teachers, Hebrew
and Greek, and they aim to refresh your walk
with the Lord alongside your biblical languages.
So people who have maybe studied previously,
they want to come back and have a little bit
of a refresher and a top -up. Spend some time
with others. You'll go through some chapters
or a book of the Bible for that 26 -hour period.
Stay here at Oak Hill and our lovely grounds.
Eat together, pray together, walk together. They've
been great times of encouraging people. So we've
got those two language retreats in June. And
then in July, we've got two summer intensive
weeks. They're one week's modules. We'll meet
aspects of teaching, one on Islam and Christian
-Muslim engagement, another on growing faith
in children's youth and families' work. With
real expert practitioners, we've got Rob Scott,
teachers in Islam. We've got Dr. Robin Barfield
on growing faith. And again, you'll be mixing
and mingling with students here at college as
well as alumni. Alumni get one course free every
year or other people just wanting to come for
a bit of training, some top -ups, some CPD, some
ministerial development. We've known people who've
got paid for by their dioceses and their churches.
So do reach out to them. They're all good value
and great weeks. A bit like what we've been listening
to with Andrew, a little mini kind of study break,
study leave, time to reflect on maybe looking
at a topic that you wouldn't otherwise look at.
So all the information is on our website. As
I said, alumni, you get one free course each
year if you've not claimed one yet. But let's
go back now and listen to Andrew and hear a bit
more about what he's been up to. Most of your
time having chatted to you and read a bit about
you, reporting what you did, which we thought
would be really helpful for people listening
in to hear about, it seems like lots of them
are themed in that way of helping you. think
both how can I be listening better and understanding
better about people, but also then how can I
come back and help others do the same? Maybe
kind of give us the big picture kind of flavor.
What does that kind of few months or so look
like? What are you trying to do? What are you
learning? It was a huge privilege. I had five
months. That's longer than I had as a pastor.
I had one episode of one sabbatical as a pastor
that was three months long. It was wonderfully
enriching and helpful. huge privilege then to
have a five -month period. And I divided it up
into three opportunities to travel and learn
from people in different places. So first I went
to South Africa. I had some friends there from
years back. It was lovely to reconnect with them.
But I went there particularly with a focus on
trying to learn about how to have conversations
where there are significant cultural divides
between people. So one example that I learned
from in that setting was that this idea of of
counseling and deliberate conversations has particularly
grown up and i'd learned it in a in a white actually
a white american context but obviously south
africa has all kinds of challenges about crossing
very well known very difficult painful cultural
divides the people who have tried to grow in
their understanding of how it is to have a church
which crosses cultures have had to learn new
questions that wouldn't occur to a white american
to ask or certainly not as importantly and so
I learned I learned from that and then from a
period of time in Kenya on the way home much
more and I think I grew in a sense that I could
speak meaningfully across cultural divide I think
I'd felt very reticent to do that because I didn't
know enough about how to really connect with
people who are different from me in those respects
and just that time in Africa talking to people
who thought about it and then trying it out really
helped I guess one One of the things which I
learned was that, of course, as I already knew,
most of what you say is the same. It's the gospel.
It's the same God who reveals himself universally
to all people. So it's only in one sense, it's
only the details that are different. But those
details are vitally important. So, for example,
in a black African culture where people are growing
up, taught to listen first to parents and...
to ancestors, some of whom even may be dead,
that they have a huge responsibility to live
in a way that pleases the ancestors. If you are
completely unaware that those influences are
strong in someone's background, you don't take
the opportunity to discover them and to learn
about them, then the voice of God coming into
that context is going to land differently, if
it lands at all. So that's one small example.
That was a great time. The middle part, I went
back to actually a place I'd been in my first
study, back to Philadelphia. where I first learned
all of this stuff about connecting the Bible
with people, the riches of Christ and the realities
of life, Christian Counseling Education Foundation.
Some wonderful people there I reconnected with,
had a month there. They lent me a study. I did
some writing there, of which more later, I hope.
But I'd spent a good length of time just sitting
in a room or on a Zoom call with people in a
conversation, trained, expert, professional,
biblical counselors in conversation with a whole
range of People with all kinds of different reasons
for coming for counselling, that was so enriching.
I learned so much from that. I had a real, real
privilege to be able to do that. The final chunk
was in Sydney, Australia, based at Moore College,
which it was lovely to feel how warmly they feel
towards us here at Oak Hill. They see themselves
as a sister college. I mean, they felt very much
like the bigger sister. It's a wonderful place
to be and hang out, and Australia's beautiful.
But particularly learning from some of the things
they've done in their curriculum there at college
and in the diocese. to develop ministers' ability
to minister reflectively, to be more aware of
the choices they're making, to be able to learn
more effectively from things that go well and
things that don't go well, to be able to have
good conversations with one another in peer groups
among students at the college, and in particular,
something that the diocese has started requiring
for new appointments, pastoral supervision, which
is the word they use for... people who are trained
to walk alongside ministers something like once
a month as a place to reflect on and think together
with how things are going particular problems
that are arising new directions that i want to
head out in and that's excited me for a couple
of reasons one is because i think it it it's
been really useful in helping ministries stay
healthy rather than Going, of course, and actually
becoming damaging in some ways. But secondly,
it helps ministries just keep going. We talk
quite a bit about resilience, about the self
-care of the minister, about how hard it is in
some respects to do ministry. And these conversations
do seem to have real proven value in helping
build resilience and helping ministries be sustained
in the long term. So I'll come back buzzing with
ideas and thoughts about what it might look like
to... to be part of some of the things happening
here. There are lots of people engaging with
the need to sustain ministry long -term, lots
of organisations, lots of people. So to try and
learn more about what they're doing and to think
whether Oak Hill has a part to play in that,
whether we can link our alumni into what's already
happening, whether to develop something in a
slightly different direction, all kinds of thinking
going on at the moment. So that's a little bit
then about the precise sense of how does it work
in Sydney? There's a different context in terms
of the, particularly in the Church of... The
Anglican Church House in Australia. Yes, that's
right. The Anglican Church House in Australia,
and particularly in Sydney, with its very strong
evangelical base. But it'd be great, yeah, people
listening in, paint a picture of what it looks
like. If you're training for ministry in Australia,
you've possibly been to more college, then what
happens next? And how is that different to what
happens here? You're right to say there are many
differences, of course. It was a wonderful feeling
to travel through Sydney, which is a large diocese,
and to reflect that almost certainly the Anglican
churches we were driving past or seeing on the
street corner were evangelical. You know, that's
the norm because of the wonderful history there.
And of course, you know, they've had an evangelical
archbishop for a number of years. And that has,
I'm sure, not always been an easy job for the
archbishop. It does mean that there has been
a very strong connection for many years between
the Evangelical Theological College and the diocese
as a whole. And that's tremendously enriching
for both the college and the diocese. And the
college is strong. It's a recognized resource
for the whole diocese, not just for the training
of ministers, but for the retraining and the
continuing education of ministers and for the
training of lay people. And so the archbishop
has said, won't license anybody in a new job
unless they have pastors who've been in place.
That's not been an entirely easy debate and it's
not been entirely straightforward. How's that
different to curacy? Is there a distinction to
it? Oh, yeah. So they still have curates there.
I mean, very much so. Curacy is where you're
learning from an incumbent minister. Your responsibilities
are intentionally limited. And over the years
of your curacy, you're becoming the kind of...
a person developing the kinds of experience and
hopefully wisdom which enable you to start out
as a vicar. The pastor's supervision, and that
may not prove to be the best title for it in
the UK, it's a particular model that they use,
but the principle is that there's someone outside
the church who's not part of the ministry of
the church. They should know what ministry involves
and know what a minister needs to be and to do,
but there's someone who's trained to be a good
companion, meeting with you. once every month
or a couple of months. And each time the minister
brings a question or an issue or something that's
come up in the life of the church or in their
own thinking. And the pastor supervisor is someone
with a trained professional framework to talk
it through with, bounce things through. And that's
invaluable, for example, where you've got a difficult
issue, which is you're not sure what to do. You're
not even sure who to talk to in the life of the
church because so many people are involved in
it in some way. maybe even involves one of your
leadership team. And it's really hard to talk
about those things with other people on the leadership
team. Well, this is a ready -made, you know you're
going to be seeing your supervisor in a couple
of weeks. I'll bounce it around with them. So
it is quite different from accuracy, but it struck
me as immensely valuable. And of the ministers
we spoke to who've enjoyed, who've engaged in
pastoral supervision already before it became
a requirement, they found it hugely enriching,
hugely helpful. As you've kind of been chewing
on it, Talking to other people around it, have
you got any ideas of what this could look like
in the UK? Not yet. I'm in a number of conversations
with a number of different people. There's a
lot of enthusiasm for it. There are a lot of
things a little bit like it that are already
happening, which is wonderful. A lot of need.
I know when I shared the idea with students here
as I was... still fresh with enthusiasm for what
I'd learned, it was obvious that a fair proportion
of our graduates would like to see something
like this in place. And as I talked to other
people who were involved in supporting ministers,
none of them think they're doing all that's needed.
They can all see that the particularities of
this, which is it's not responding to a particular
problem. So you're going to a consultant to solve
a problem. It's there all the time as a kind
of... permanent feature of ministry. I'd love
in some way it to be the kind of thing that becomes
normal in a package that a church will offer
to a minister. We'll give you this amount of
money as a stipend, this provision for accommodation
and there'll be, say, a thousand pounds in the
budget for supervision because we think it'll
help you minister to us in a good way and we
think we'll get you in post for longer. It's
a kind of... It's a kind of benefit that I think
should repay the church and the pastor. It's
taking some of the requirement to organise that
off the... I can speak in some ways in my own
context. I've been pastoring a church for eight
years long, so four others, but that's been often
a question we've kind of had of where can we
go to for a bit more of that mentoring, that
help, that kind of conversation around the broader
assets of ministry. It feels a lot of the incumbency,
as in we're an FIC context. There's definitely
people out there who we can speak to and we do
speak to, but probably more in the kind of less
in the regular sense, more in the I've got a
particular question or issue, so I'll go to them.
Otherwise, I do feel like what I've found is
I'm trying to go, right, who do I know? Who can
I speak to? Who can I find? And it seems like
there could be some wisdom in the kind of the
training of it, of people who can do it and in
slightly in the opening up of access to it. So
it's not just kind of who you know who is 20
years on from your ministry. That's right. And
of course, one of the issues people recognize,
I think, and have written about, that pastoring
can feel quite lonely, particularly if it's done
in certain models where you don't quite feel
comfortable building deep friendships with people
who you're also trying to pastor. And I think
there's some good questions to ask about that,
but it's a reality that many pastors feel. And
when things are starting to go wrong, of course,
it's then more effort to go and find somebody.
You've got to set aside time to do that research
and build a relationship from scratch with somebody
who'll be helpful. And a lot of people who could
benefit from help and have got to a point where
they know they could benefit from help actually
don't quite get to the point of being able to
find help that is actually helpful. And so to
have it more as a norm that it's just there because
you've got a contract that you know they're going
to be there at a particular time. It's no extra
work. And you've already built a relationship
of trust and confidence and understanding about
how to get the most out of the time together.
I think it's got a lot to offer. And yet slightly
removed from your, I can say again, I can only
speak to our model where plurality of elders,
four of us serve together. And yet when we're
dealing and wrestling with complex pastoral situations,
you're all inside it in different ways. And you
know your people in certain ways, which add complexities.
So actually I can see the benefit of having somebody
who knows you and knows of your church, but doesn't
necessarily intimately, as in they care about
it, but not in the same way you do as being a
benefit. You can get some good. not quite independent
advice, but wise, slightly removed advice, feels
like it's just the sort of thing which people
need to be able to keep going and keep going
on in ministry. I think that's exactly right.
And in a context where you've got a group of
elders, you can have a similar kind of thing
that can work for the group as a group. It can
be done individually, and that's the model I've
seen most of and learned most about. But it can
work in a group context too. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
You mentioned briefly being in Philadelphia,
doing some writing. I'm hopeful if you're a regular
listener to Eat Roots, we'll have you back on
to talk about this particularly. But give us
a little bit of flavor of the sort of, you did
a bit of writing, but you still leave as well.
Yeah. For a long time, I've been hoping to find
time to write a course for church small groups
to give them an experience of deepening their
conversations. We wrote a course with Helen Thorne.
a few years ago called Real Change, which was
about understanding some of the dynamics of how
God changes me in the ordinary things of life.
And as a course of small groups, we're talking
about that, but we're talking about ourselves
with other people, which many people have found
really helpful. This is about then, oh, how do
I have a conversation that's about you and what's
going on for you? And the starting point is,
I need help so that we can approach this whole
process with humility. and a sense of our own
neediness and that this is brothers and sisters
walking together through life, isn't it? It's
not about an expert. It's not about all becoming
counsellors for each other in any sort of professional
sense at all. It's about deepening our Christian
friendship so that our conversations can talk
about what's really going on inside. And there's
a lot in the New Testament about encouraging
one another, praying for one another, loving
one another. I think it's probably true to say
that in a number of British churches, deprioritized
the one another aspects of ministry and replaced
it with an expectation that the minister or the
ministry team will do the ministry. This is about
pretty much a grassroots level kind of ministry
to try and get Christians talking a little bit
more depth with each other about what's really
going on so we're all the ministers for one another.
Now I know that already happens in every time
a small group meets there's encouragement and
help and prayer and so on. It's a resource if
groups want to use it to try and help them. get
that conversation a little bit deeper, a little
bit more into spiritual things, even to feel
comfortable, a little bit more normal talking
about issues of sin as well as suffering and
so on. Correct. And that's out next year? God
willing, some point in 27. Some point in 27.
Great. Well, we'll get you back on definitely
to talk about that. But Andrew, thanks for joining
us. One last kind of question. Obviously, we're
sitting here to podcast with Eric Hill. People
may be listening with lots of experience with
Eric Hill or not. Thinking about study, it's
not unique, our kind of integration of pastoral
study and learning alongside theology. But what
kind of you elevate a pitch of why having them
both taught alongside each other is really important
in kind of the people who want theology but need
more than just kind of the church history and
the systematics and the biblical studies? Why
do we say it really matters to do it alongside
as well? All of the other stuff is vitally important,
but God gives it to us. for people. His great
solution for the universe is not to fill libraries
and not even to fill heads with knowledge. It
is to call people into relationship with himself.
So unless we're putting all of that knowledge
into the business of growing our relationship
with God, and as we grow our relationship with
God, we're growing our relationships with each
other. We're kind of missing what all of that
other stuff is really about. There you go. So
if you want to find out more about any of our
programs and courses, there's a whole range of
them. Short courses all the way through too.
A relatively new Masters in Christian Leadership,
which is doing some of this, kind of reflecting
on how we lead people, how we pass to people
in whatever context that might be. You've got
a whole range of people doing that. So thanks
for joining us on Deep Roots. Thanks for being
with us. Andrew, if you've got any questions
for Andrew, any topics you want us to cover,
do get in touch with us. You can reach out to
us on social media or email communications at
oakhill .ac .uk. But we'll see you again soon
for another episode of Deep Roots.