RECTOR – ARCHDEACON REVEREND JOHN WEBSTER
“I have enjoyed the privilege of being Rector of Drouin, and thus part of the Gippsland diocesan family, for almost two years. Since coming to Australia in 2006 I have been the parish priest of Tallangatta and then Rutherglen in Wangaratta Diocese, followed by Surf coast and Croydon in Melbourne Diocese. Prior to that I was ordained as a non-stipendiary priest in Oxford, and served in a benefice of three, then six, parishes in Berkshire, UK. My journey to ordination started among suburban parishes in Cape Town, South Africa, as a server, youth group leader, chorister, and lay reader. I’m looking forward to bringing to my new role as Archdeacon not only my life-long experience in the church, but also my career experience as a business analyst. I hope to serve both the diocesan staff team and the parishes effectively, as together we help grow God’s kingdom in Gippsland.”
Parish’s new Intergenerational Ministry
Leader Joy Marshall from 22nd September 2024
Joy introduces herself and her vocational experience and vision as follows: n
Late in 2023 I packed up the last of my Family and Community Ministry resources at Canterbury Baptist Church and settled down in Drouin. I had spent ten years at Canterbury
and twelve years before that at Lilydale
Baptist church in pastoral ministry. I
expected that I had run the race to its
completion and would now pour myself
into my growing work as an Art and Play Therapist in Gippsland.
My next step was to look for a spiritual home in my new community. I first visited each local church’s website and was so encouraged by what I saw in Christ Church that I decided to go along and see for myself.
That first Sunday confirmed that this was the place for me even though I was a ‘stranger in a strange land’. God was at work bringing together many threads including my interest in contemplative prayer, Celtic Christianity, Godly Play, symbolic representation, and the
beginning of my faith journey in the old
Methodist church with its liturgy.
My ministry had begun many years before when as a child I put my faith in God. Dad was an ordained Methodist minister, and I spent many happy years as a ‘PK’ – Parson’s Kid. At around six years of age, I and my five siblings were being reprimanded for some misdeed.
When I felt I had not been listened to as I tried to explain the situation, then and there I decided that I would always listen to children. This decision became foundational to my ministry with children, parenting, and later as a
psychotherapist.
After training as a registered nurse in the late ’70s, marrying in 1980, moving to Far North Queensland, and welcoming five children, our family relocated to Melbourne in 1994 to study at the Bible College of Victoria to prepare for future work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. With God’s guidance my work did not take me overseas as I expected but included both graphic design at WBT and children’s ministry
at Lilydale.
Throughout my life God has been at work, weaving together my faith in him, my interest in art, love for children, and emotional wellbeing. He led me to further study at Tabor in Counselling and Community Development and later at La Trobe University in Art Therapy to bring me to where I am today beginning a new ministry as an Intergenerational Ministry Leader at Christ Church in Drouin.
Over the years the value I’ve placed on respecting children has moved me from doing ministry for or to children to ministry with children and finally developed into welcoming children to stay in church as fellow worshippers.
Intergenerational ministry respects and affirms generational needs and differences, allows for all of us to contribute together with real roles to
play, and fosters genuine relationships as we worship God together.
And so, it is with a sense of God’s humour (‘So you thought you were done’) and his ‘never ending, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love’ (The Jesus Storybook Bible
by Sally Lloyd Jones) that I join hands with my fellow worshippers of all ages and look forward to where God takes us next.’