A good example of saying goodbye to a minister

Last month Caroline away along with other members of Chelmsford Cathedral, which where since retirement I worship, we said goodbye to the ‘Interim Dean’, Paul Kennington, who for almost two years had been leading the Cathedral. In Baptist churches we often have a minister from another church serving on a very part-basis as a ‘moderator’, who normally will preach occasionally and chair deacons meetings and church meetings. However, Paul Kennington left his own parish in the case of a curate and instead served the Cathedral on a full-time basis.

As I wrote to Paul Kennington just before he left: I thanked him

for the wonderful way in which you have served as interim dean …. Under your leadership the Cathedral has been transformed post Covid. You have put together a strong team ready to work with Jessica Martin when she is installed as dean next January. In particular, I would like to thank you for your preaching, which to my delight has always been rooted in Scripture and then applied to current issues we face. Although there have been times when I have not always agreed with your exposition, there has never been occasion when God has not spoken to me as, often with your help, I have seen from which you are preaching in a new light. You will be a very hard act to follow!

It is in this context that I a many others gathered to say farewell to Paul Kennington at a service of choral evensong, at which the Bishop of Chelmsford, Guli Francis-Dehqani, preached the sermon and then ‘decommissioned’ him in what for me was a fascinating and most unusual way of saying farewell.

After the sermon the Bishop led a series of prayers. She began by praying:

God of our beginnings and endings, we celebrate all we have shared with Paul and ask your blessing as he continues on his journey. May the love that is in our hearts be a bond that unites us forever, wherever we may be. May the power of your presence bless this moment of your leaving-taking; that we ask for the sake of Jesus Christ, our redeemer.

Later Paul Kennington declared:

As I leave, I give thanks for those with whom I have worked, worshipped and shared common life in my ministry here. I ask forgiveness where I have failed in thought, word and deed, where I have let others down, lacked wisdom and understanding and have cared too much about my own reputation and concerns. I now lay down my ministry in this place to begin a new stage of life and discipleship.

I confess that I was not aware of any way in which the interim dean had failed his Lord or indeed us. But inevitably none of us is without sin, and I thought that this was a great way of ending his ministry at Chelmsford Cathedral.

During the service I discovered that Paul Kennington had specially commissioned a friend of his to compose new tunes to two new choral pieces. The first was a thought-provoking form of words written by Mary Clare (1906-1988) who was the Mother of the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God, a religious community based in Oxford. The words of this first piece were as follows:

We must set up the loom
On which coming generations may weave new cloth
According to the pattern God provides.

What a wonderful metaphor for any church! It reminds us that we are just contributing to a piece of cloth which our spiritual forebears began and which those who later succeed us continue to weave. Furthermore, we have a responsibility to ensure that we follow the pattern that God provides. How do we follow that pattern? Surely, by taking time to sit in God’s presence and discern what He wishes us to do.

The second choral piece was a new setting to some words of Saint Ambrose who was the Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. The hymn which Ambrose wrote was a hymn celebrating the birth of Christ, whose opening line was Come, Thou Redeemer of the earth, and ended with the verse:

Thy cradle here shall glitter bright
And darkness glow with new born light.
No more shall night extinguish day
Where love’s bright beams their power display.

At a time when there is so much darkness in our world in places like Palestine, Southern Sudan, Syria, the Ukraine, and many homes in the UK, it was a great reminder that ultimately the light of Jesus will triumph.

Naturally, at the end of this special evensong, there were opportunities for people to express their thanks for Paul Kennington’s ministry at Chelmsford. But the main focus of the service was on God’s love for us in Jesus. Here indeed was a good example of saying goodbye to a minister, which many other churches would do well to emulate.