Our Minister

Our minister is Reverend Deborah Kirk.


Deborah's contact details are:

Office Tel.: (01823) 275765, 

Home Tel.: (01823) 334854   

Email: deborah.m.kirk@googlemail.com

March 2024 Circuit Link Letter from Rev Deborah Kirk, Superintendent Minister

God who sets us on a journey

As write this, I can hear the incessant hooting of horns which is a typical feature of Indian life ... the sounds of people going about their business, each of them on a journey to somewhere or someone.

I am in Berhampur, a busy town with narrow streets and tightly packed shops, stalls and humble homes. The roads are shared by cars, auto rickshaws, motor bikes, pedestrians, cows and dogs. The traffic weaves in and out in an unwritten code of conduct; if you need to cross the road, you hesitate at your peril.

The title of this letter is taken from a hymn written by Joy Dine (1937- 2001) and on the Singing the Faith website, which came into my mind for several reasons over the last few days.

Firstly we are, each one of us, on a spiritual journey taking us through the 40 days of Lent, an annual reminder in the rhythms of our days to slow down, reflect and pray with a deeper intention, and many of us will be embracing a discipline of some kind, which will help us to make that inward journey to deepen our relationship with God.

Secondly, I, and the other 7 members of the District team, have been on a long physical journey of 5000+ miles to the Diocese of Cuttack, our partners in the Church of North India. While we've been travelling around, our journeys have intersected with others and we have travelled together for a short time, sharing our stories of the road.

I want to share one of those stories with you.

On my very first visit to this area in 2012, Alison and I stayed for a night or two at a retreat centre, used by students from the nearby Orissa Christian Theological College. One was the young lady in the picture, Rangeeta, whose father had died. The ladies of a nearby town church 2 were supporting through her training, each of them contributing 1 Indian rupee a day towards her costs. Alison gave her a Bible. After her training finished, she worked at the Christian Hospital in Berhampur offering spiritual comfort to the patients. Last Sunday she was ordained as a minister in the CNI church, and our paths met again as I and other ordained colleagues of our group were invited forward in the service to join the presbyters. I recognised her as the young lady we had met all those years before and was so glad that for a while our paths had connected .

There will be plenty more stories to share from our visit, and I can't wait to tell you about them. But for now, whether your walk today is along a familiar path or one you have never ventured before, may you be blessed by travelling companions who walk with you with care and respect. And may you always be conscious of the presence of our God of love beside you.

Peace for the journey, Deborah

Letter from Rev Annie Deche, Circuit Minister:

Lent this year starts on Wednesday, February 14th and ends on Thursday, March 28th with an evening Service on Maundy Thursday. The start of Lent is, in some Methodist church traditions, marked with Ash Wednesday and lasting for 40 days (not including Sundays), representing the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness. This 40-day period for Christians is a time to reflect, pray, fast if you are able and practise almsgiving, in preparation for the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. We all know the 14th of February as a day to celebrate love - and how lucky we are this year significantly to celebrate the love of God from the season of Epiphany, the gift of baby Jesus, and how through his birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection and outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a few months’ time to celebrate Pentecost. We are here because of the faith we have in Christ Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.

As we ponder on what we will be thinking of in all these things, I would invite us to get into the zeal of being A Justice-seeking Church as we continue to support many around us - some we don’t see or know - by heeding the call from the ‘Walking with Micah’ project which Rev Rachel Lampard has embraced. I have arrived back from the under 5s retreat where Rachel was the key facilitator, and she has asked us to look at, and possibly join, in the ‘Let’s End Poverty’ community of grassroots activists working together to create change. Sign up at letsendpoverty.co.uk, speak up and invite others to this diverse, growing movement of people who are united behind a vision for a UK where poverty can’t keep anyone down.

May we make this Lenten season one of a memorable encounter with God, join in where others are meeting, as one of the principles of a justice-seeking church says: God desires the flourishing of creation and human community within it…the search for justice does not diminish or limit the flourishing of others but seeks to enable it.

Charles Wesley's famous hymn ‘Love Divine, All Loves Excelling’ (Singing the Faith 503) talks about Jesus as ‘unbounded love’ – a kind of love that cannot be contained, that works in our lives and in our world to free us and heal us. ‘Unbounded Love’ is the theme of the Lent campaign of the Methodist Church in 2024 – holding together our commitments to be a justice-seeking church, and a people who experience and proclaim the good news of God’s uncontainable love. (Methodist website)

Lent themes from the Hymn Love Divine:

Week 1 - “Unbounded love”: Jesus’ baptism and wilderness experience – God’s love bursts the barriers of heaven, and then bursts into the realms of darkness.

Week 2 - “Visit us with thy salvation”: Losing our life (psyche) to find it – the ways we attempt to insulate ourselves from God’s love.

Week 3 - “Pure and spotless let us be”: Turning the tables in the Temple – corporate religious attempts to boundary God’s love.

Week 4 - “Finish then thy new creation”: God’s unbounded love for the cosmos.

Week 5 - “Changed from glory into glory”: Like a seed that has to die before it bears fruit, death is no barrier to God’s love.

Week 6 - “Till we cast our crowns before thee”: As Jesus entered Jerusalem the people responded by taking off their cloaks. What’s our equivalent?

Holy Week - “Lost in wonder, love, and praise!”: As Jesus becomes bound by his opponents, will God’s love stay bound?

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” 1 Peter 5:6

Annie