Our Minister

November 2025 Circuit Link Letter
from Rev Deborah Kirk, Superintendent Minister

Remembering ... in November

November is an in-between sort of month ... the month which links the autumn days of 'mists and mellow fruitfulness' to grey days which grow dark by tea-time ... the month which reminds us to get ready for the crisp frosty mornings to come ... the month between the season of Harvest Festivals and the seasons of Advent and (dare I mention it yet?) Christmas.

But November isn't only an in-between month, for it brings its own special 'remembering' days into our church and our community calendar.

~ All Saints Day, celebrated on 1st November, invites people to remember the saints and martyrs who dedicated or sacrificed their lives to Christianity. According to some sources, the origins of All Saints' Day go back to the fourth century when the Greek Christians kept a festival on the first Sunday after Pentecost. It was moved to its present position in the calendar in 837AD, although the Eastern Church still keeps to the original date.

~ All Souls Day, marked on 2nd November, dates back to 993AD when the Abbot of Cluny monastery instituted the day for Christians to remember and pray for family members and friends who have died. Our own Circuit will hold a service on the evening of Sunday 26th October as a special time of remembering.

~ 'Remember, remember, the 5th of November' began in 1605 when, in those difficult days, an act of treachery against the government was foiled and parliament passed the Observance of 5th of November Act in thanksgiving for the life of King James I.

~ Remembrance Sunday, the nearest Sunday to the 11th day of the 11th month, calls us to remember all those who have given their lives in every war in the cause of peace and freedom. This year has particularly challenged us to reflect on issues of violence, reconciliation, and peace-making.

Remembering is important for any community, so that we know who we are and where we came from, and so that we take the lessons of the past into our future.

Remembering is a recurring Biblical theme too. Many times, God’s people are told to remember an event - not just to call it to mind, but to re-live it, literally to re-member it - 'to make real in the present that which was real in the past'. Time and again the psalmists recall and remember God's faithfulness in the past, in order that they are strengthened in their present trials and struggles. Remembering was the key to their faithfulness.

Probably the most important memory in our worship is within the sharing of Holy Communion. When we break bread and pour wine 'in remembrance', we are not only remembering a past event, but we are also re-membering that past event for the present, so that just as Jesus' friends at the Last Supper experienced his presence with them in their time and their place, so we are able to experience his presence with us in our time and our place.

So, perhaps November is not such an in-between month after all. Let's make the most of the opportunity to observe and to re-member its special days in our various churches, and be thankful for our shared memory and experience.

Peace for the journey, Deborah

Introducing Rev Joe Haward,  Queen’s College Taunton Chaplain

Hello! My name is Joe Haward, and I was recently called to become the new chaplain at Queen’s College, Taunton. The journey to Queen’s has been a few years in the making, and it feels as though it has happened at “just the right time,” a kairos moment. Jesus often spoke about kairos, of trusting God, and stepping into the will and purposes of God. Already it feels as though I am in the right place at the right time, and I am very thankful to God for that sense of peace.

About Me

Where do I start? I grew up in Essex with my identical twin brother on an island called Mersea, a place that would be cut off regularly by the tide flooding the only road onto the island. Born into an Indian family, my brother and I were put into foster care, and then adopted onto Mersea, into a family of oyster farmers, a trade the Haward’s have been involved with for nearly 300 years. I worked with my father as the eighth generation oyster farmer, cultivating and selling oysters around the UK and world.

Up until the age of 21 my life revolved around work, alcohol, drugs, and partying; I had no faith or concept of who God was. But then, much like the fishermen Jesus called, I encountered Christ and had a transforming spiritual experience and gave my life to God.

Ministry

Soon after I felt a deep sense of calling, and began working for a Baptist church as an evangelist. From there I studied theology at Spurgeon’s College, and was ordained in 2010. Since then I have been working in Devon, and much of my ministry has been exploring chaplaincy, about what it means to ‘incarnate’ yourself within a community, sharing the light and love of God. As such I developed how to share Jesus within my area, and what it might look like for faith to grow within the places where people already gathered. I did community work in schools, a disability charity, hosting weekly community meals, and working as an industrial chaplain for an accountancy firm. For the past 2 years I have worked for the NHS as a Senior Community Mental Health Chaplain, working with people in mental health crisis, visiting them in their homes, and walking with them towards recovery and hope. It has been a real privilege.

Queen’s College

I began at Queen’s at the start of term, and there is a deep sense of welcome. What chaplaincy will look like here is going to evolve as I gain an understanding of the school, and what my calling is to this community. It is an exciting journey ahead. I believe, at its heart, chaplaincy is a calling to hold hope for those who are unable to hold it for themselves, until such time they can hold it. I spend all day every day in the heart of a community of people, and seek to represent Christ to them, offering unconditionality, and the eternal truth that God is for us, not against us.

Prayers

I value your prayers. Moving to a new home on-site, settling into a brand new role, and trying to listen well to the voice of the Spirit, are all things I would appreciate your prayers into.

One of my favourite thinkers of the Church is Gregory of Nyssa (4th Century), so I will leave you with one of his reflections:

“Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees. As no darkness can be seen by anyone surrounded by light, so no trivialities can capture the attention of anyone who has their eyes on Christ.”

Introducing Rev Andrew Longshaw

Hello, my name is Andrew, and I am the Methodist minister for Crewkerne, Chard, Ilminster and Broadway Hill, Netherhay, and Kingsbury Episcopi Methodist Churches, and Superintendent Minister for the South Petherton and Crewkerne Circuit.

I have been a Presbyteral Minister for twenty-four years and I have worked in: Birmingham, Newcastle-under-Lyme, North Liverpool, North Cumbria (Carlisle), and Wakefield, in West Yorkshire. So, as you can see, I and my wife Lizzy have moved around the country serving God.

However, that is not all of me; Previously my profession was as a senior lawyer, in the Civil Service. I studied law and sociology at Warwick University, after studying politics and philosophy at Ruskin College, Oxford. I mainly worked in the area of Constitutional and Administrative law and undertook appeals procedures, regarding cases to do with social welfare, equal rights and equal opportunities law. Then, everything changed when God called me to the ministry. After feeling all secure and settled, in a well-paid job, where career and financial progress were the standard expectation, I was cast upon the ocean of God’s will. While Lizzy continued to work as a Senior Library Assistant at Oxford Brookes, I studied theology at Queen’s, in Birmingham. That was a great time in an ecumenical setting, which prepared me for much of my ecumenical work around the country, particularly in Liverpool and Cumbria, where I also served as the District Ecumenical Officer.

Much of the time I have spent in the North and especially the North-West of England because of my mum’s health and needing to be close to her. Mum died during the first Lockdown, from vascular dementia, which she had for over fourteen years. The last twelve of those were in care or nursing homes, in the place she had lived for much of her life, near Warrington. This time, we needed to be nearer to Lizzy’s mother, who had Parkinson’s and dementia and who lived in Oxfordshire. Lizzy’s mother died in August 2022.

People have said that I am a kind and caring minister and therefore I place a great deal of importance on pastoral care. I also like to be actively involved in the communities I serve, and so try to get out and about to meet people. Lizzy and I love music and the arts. I like reading but realise that I need to be taking more exercise (don’t we all). We have been very blessed in that our other great love is travelling and to that end we have been to wondrous places around the world. More recently we have seen the Northern Lights in Finland, travelled around the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, been on an adventure cruise to the high Arctic, and my recent Sabbatical was spent in Canada.

I believe that I am a person who doesn’t like to continually look back at what I have done, or where I have worked but to let that inform and contribute to the work I do now and in preparing for the future of the Circuits and churches I currently serve and will serve in the future.

Blessings, Rev Andrew Longshaw

CIRCUIT PARTNERING – TAUNTON DEANE & SOUTH SEDGEMOOR AND SOUTH PETHERTON & CREWKERNE

Last month I wrote about the conversations which have been ongoing for several years, and which are now becoming more intentional, working towards the joining of our Circuit with our neighbours to the south, with a view to being together by September 2026.

To help us understand the similarities in size and make-up of the two areas, I have marked the positions of the 7 churches in the TDSS Circuit, and the 5 in SP&C. The Circuits also have similarities in their mix of towns and villages, and the opportunities for work and mission.

The two Circuit Leadership Teams met together for conversation, visioning, and relationship building, facilitated by Sharon Rowe, from the Learning Network, to begin to think through the resources we shall need, and the steps we shall need to take. We shall keep you informed as we go.

One ‘relationship building’ idea was to divide the 12 churches into 4 groups of 3, which are reasonably close geographically, and hold a quarterly ‘safari supper’ (i.e. 3 churches coordinate to host one part of a meal each – starter, main and sweet) to encourage us to move around and meet different groups of people.

There are other opportunities of course for people to visit a church in our neighbouring Circuit for worship or events, and a list of forthcoming events will be published in future Circuit Link magazines.

Meanwhile some of our Local Preachers are already swapping pulpits, and meeting over the monthly Fellowship Zoom Meeting which David Clitheroe coordinates.

Any of the Leadership Team will be pleased to talk to you about the plans, there will be regular updates in the Circuit Link, and Circuit Steward representative will update your Church Councils as the year unfolds.

Deborah