Rector's Letter - February 2026 

The role of a priest means many different things to many different people, even amongst those who are licensed as priests. The Apostle Peter described the whole community of believers as a “royal priesthood”, and we are. Through our baptism we are incorporated into the body of Christ and become ministers of its good news, or “Gospel”. We do that in many different ways; through our work, our relationships, our activity and prayer. Some of us even do it with the “Colgate ring of confidence” around our necks, leading in those tasks the Church has come to understand as sacramental.

I am taking a sabbatical in the Summer (from 27th April to 26th July, inclusive). This will be the second I have taken during my 29 years of ordained ministry. I intend to reflect on those years and my own strengths and weaknesses and pray for wisdom as I enter the last decade of my licensed ministry. I have no plans for retirement yet, but I’m not likely to earn another sabbatical!

During the first I travelled in the Holy Land, both visiting many pilgrim sites associated with the story of Jesus, meeting indigenous Christians and trying to understand their plight in modern Israel, and revisiting places and projects where I worked in the mid 1980’s as a limnologist, helping in the creation of a national park and nature reserves.

This year I will return to the theme of pilgrimage, walking a good length of the Via di Francesco (Way of St Francis) in Italy, ending up at Assisi. I will return to my former Diocese (Exeter) and walk some of the pilgrim routes developed there since I left five years ago. I will also head North to Scotland and retrace a pilgrimage of another kind my six-times great grandfather made as a barefoot youth, walking twenty-five miles to buy a Bible. That journey changed him, and in turn, many others. I don’t know if my journeying is likely to have such a profound effect, but I am hoping to reflect on the theme of journey and pilgrimage that runs through the Bible and Christian history, and see what insights I can learn from a process that continually alters our perspective, as the scenery changes, and thus our understanding of faith and calling.

This Lent I will be offering a six-session course called “Travelling Well Together – Sustaining Ministry”. This is developed from Bishop Guli’s call to the Diocese to travel well together, and what that means, and looks especially at the ministry we share together in as God’s people, to pray for the world and one another and to live out the Gospel in our own way. Rev’d Hilary Walker will also be offering this course separately, which should allow opportunity for many to take part.

We begin our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday (18th February). Let us walk in one another’s company

Best Wishes
Jeremy