Kim Mason has worked here at St G’s since 2007 as part of our admin team; she is moving on to Sheffield with her family as she begins ordination training with St Barnabas Theological Centre.
“Lots of things are changing for us right now, we have been living in Leeds and worshipping here at St George’s for 7 years but we are about to move on.”
Kim shares with us her story of Gods calling on her life and encouragements.
“I became a Christian when I was 16; while I was visiting a large church in Sheffield I heard a sermon on debt; at that point I realised that God wasn’t some historical event that happened 2000 years ago but that Jesus was relevant to today and that the church had the power to be able to transform people’s lives. A few weeks later it was Easter Sunday and I heard the Easter message for the first time; God filled me with the Holy Spirit and I wept all evening!”
“Within a year of becoming a Christian I knew that I wanted to work full time in Christian ministry. I had no idea what that looked like and certainly didn’t expect that to look like becoming a vicar. The last 16 years have been working out what that calling means, and with Chris, also working out what that means as a family. Sheffield has always been my spiritual home, and I’ve always felt a connection to it as a city so I’m really very happy to be moving back.”
“When we moved to Leeds in 2007 and I started working at St G’s we really felt called to be, and to minister, in the city in the North of the country. The thing I love about Leeds is that it is full of life and being at St G’s over the last seven years has been a real blessing to us. We have learnt and grown so much, and we have especially valued seeing how the churches in Leeds work together, and how St G’s is really trying to work out how to love Leeds – to be a blessing to the city it is in.”
“I’m passionate about enabling every Christian sat in church on a Sunday to be able to minister to their full potential…in equipping and releasing everyone in the church to extend the Kingdom in their everyday contexts. That is how we will see real
transformation.”
“I’m passionate about enabling every Christian sat in church on a Sunday to be able to minister to their full potential, for some women that will be as Bishops and I’m really pleased that the church has a found a way to make that possible, but I think the real
challenge is at the other end of the spectrum; in equipping and releasing everyone in the church to extend the Kingdom in their everyday contexts. That is how we will see real
transformation.”
“In May this year I was approved to train for ordained ministry in the Church of England, which means a lot of change for us. In September I will be leaving the staff team at St G’s as I start maternity leave and as a family we will be moving to Sheffield to start worshipping at All Saints Ecclesall, which is where I will be working once I start ordination training with St Barnabas in September 2015.”
“God has been incredibly gracious to us this year, blessing us with peace and preparing a way before us: providing a church and placement for my training, a new job for Chris in Sheffield and a pre-school place for Evelyn in the first school we applied for. We just need accommodation to fall into place but we are really excited about the move.”
“We are so thankful to God for all that he has blessed us with this year.”
“Right now we are really praying that we can sell our house so that we can buy a new home in Sheffield. Longer term we will be facing new challenges as we work out how to balance both of us working full time whilst raising two incredible little girls. We strongly
believe that having our whole family at the centre of ministry is the best thing for all of us, but how that works out in practice, particularly for the girls, will take a lot of wisdom!”
We pray for the Mason family as they move on.
The new PCC have been busily drafting a mission action plan for St George’s.This will state accurately what our mission is so that we can use our resources in the best way for what God wants us to do in the future; we believe that God is calling us to share our resources more widely. We are working on a 3yr plan for 2013-16 with an overall ‘to share the life of Jesus Christ and to love the city where God has placed us’. The big new thing is to take responsibility with others for the renewal and growth of the Church in Leeds. The plan states that we will aim to ‘multiply missional churches across Leeds (and the North)’. This will mean strategic consultations with the diocese and other churches in Leeds.
St George's LIFE 