Leaders
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Ian and Linda Cameron
Pastor and Women's worker
1) Please tell us about you and your family.
We met at Bible college in London and have recently married and moved down to Paignton.Ian comes from New Zealand, but has made it to Devon via 3 years living and working in Argentina and 4 1/2 years in London. Linda (with rather less mileage) grew up in York but has lived for the last 7 years in London.
2) How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ?
Ian grew up in a Christian family on a farm in the Waikato province of New Zealand. He remembers hearing the gospel faithfully preached from a young age, especially at Easter camps, and made a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus at the age of 11. Linda came to faith much later, in her early 20's, after walking into an east London church and really hearing the gospel for the first time. And a few months later, joyfully, made her own personal confession of faith in the Lord Jesus.
3) How do you relax? We both love walking and feel very blessed to have come to such a beautiful part of the world. We are both really looking forward to exploring Devon in our free time. We both read a lot and love puzzles of all descriptions. Ian would be happy spending most of his days off riding up and down on the Paignton and Dartmouth steam railway, and Linda, who used to work in the arts, loves being in galleries.
4) What led you to Great Parks Chapel?
Ian was doing a placement at Belmont Chapel, Exeter, in the summer of 2005 and met a former leader of GPC, who knowing GPC was looking for a new pastor passed his details on to one of the other leaders. After a couple of visits, both of us, felt that the Lord's hand was firmly leading us down to serve Him and His people here. And we feel so privileged and delighted to be part of such a faithful and loving church as Great Parks is.
5) How do you visualize the future of Great Parks?
Our prayer is that the congregation at GPC will be strengthened and grow in their faith and by grace understand more and more the joy of living under the Lordship of Christ. We pray that many in Paignton will come into the church and into a saving knowledge of Christ. We pray that the bonds uniting us as brothers and sisters in Christ will deepen amongst the whole family at Great Parks. And most of all we pray that glory will be brought to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in all we do at Great Parks.
Horace and Patricia Pile
1) Please tell us about you and your family.
We are an ancient couple with 3 children, two sons and a daughter, and four grand-daughters, one recently married. We both lived abroad before meeting as students in one of the London Teaching Hospitals. We came to Brixham in 1955 where Horace was a GP for thirty years.
2) How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ?
Horace who, as a child, had absorbed some of his parents' Christian faith, made a firm personal commitment to Christ during a Christian Summer Camp for Boys, when aged 15. Pat came to faith through the University Christian Union.
3) How do you relax?
The days of exciting sporting and DIY activities, shared in many ways, are a thing of the past. Now, it is gentle gardening, walking, reading and spells of comfortable travel to places of interest. However, we still enjoy the fun, freedom and basic facilities of a yearly camping holiday, looking out for flora and fauna and getting through loads of books, ancient and modern. Horace reads a lot of History.
4) What led you to Great Parks Chapel?
We were part of the original 1996 group which set out to establish the kind of church GP has become - a truly welcoming church, firmly based on the core beliefs and values of the Gospel, open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and, although independent, seeing itself as part of the wider community of local churches.
5) What about the future?
We trust that Great Parks will continue to both, proclaim the Christian message with boldness, sensitivity and imagination, and, increasingly, to ‘model’ the message through its welcoming, caring and serving attitude towards the community.
Kevin & Kath Bartlett
1) Please tell us about you and your family.
We were married in 1989 and have two young children. Tom (born 1994) and Chloe (born 1998).
2) How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ?
Kathryn: I was brought up in Christian home, but realised the need of a personal commitment when I was a young teenager.
Kevin: My parents were Christians too, but I became one at a youth camp when I was twelve years old.
3) How do you relax?
Kathryn: I enjoy music and playing the piano. I also enjoy entertaining and socialising with family and friends.
Kevin: I love being outdoors: field sports and boating, in particular.
4) What led you to Great Parks Chapel?
Like Horace and Pat Pile, we were among the group who re-launched Great Parks Chapel in 1996. It was an exciting and challenging time which, we know, was planned by the Lord long before any of us anticipated the move. Original members and new members alike have benefited from the friendship and fellowship at Great Parks.
5) What is the best and worst thing about your most recent employment?
Kevin: I have run my own business since 1999, supplying London restaurants with live shellfish. As always, with self-employment there are advantages (like being able to be fairly flexible with my time) and disadvantages (like not always being able to ‘switch off’ and leave work behind!
Kathryn: I work two days a week for a local firm of Chartered Accountants. The firm is small and friendly and has always allowed me excellent flexibility over the past ten years, especially where the children are concerned.
6) How do you visualise the future of the church, and Great Parks Chapel in particular?
GPC has grown and developed encouragingly over the past few years. We have seen many individuals, couples and families making the transition from ‘seekers’ to regular worshippers with us- we look forward to more of the same!
Lawson and Valerie Jury
1) Tell us about your family please.
Until 1995, I (Lawson) had been working in a Bank and my wife, Valerie had been a department head in a combined school. After retiring we spent some time in France and Zambia helping missionaries or as dormitory parents in a mission school. We have two sons who are both married with one living in Torbay and the other to the north of London, who has just given us our first grandchild.
2) How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ?
It was as teenagers that we both lived in Slough, attended the same church and that we gave our hearts and lives to the Lord Jesus. Engagement, marriage and family followed and the Lord has blessed us in very many ways.
3) How do you relax?
We enjoy walking and gardening, but much of our time is spent in activities associated with Great Parks Chapel, especially now that I have the privilege to help on the Leadership Team.
4) What events led to you becoming a part of Great Parks Chapel?
Valerie and I had been visiting Devon for many years and it was during these visits that we first became involved with Great Parks Chapel. In 2002 we felt the Lord was wanting us to move to Torbay. He made this possible and we have settled in Paignton.
5) How do you visualise the future of the church, and Great Parks Chapel, in particular?
It is our prayer that many people living in the area will find help and encouragement at GPC as well as coming into a personal relationship with the living God.
Tony & Mollie Green
1) Please tell us about you and your family.
We have been married for 25 years. Mollie trained and qualified as a nurse and health visitor. Tony worked as a machine minder in a printer's factory and then went to Bible College for three years after which he has been in full time Christian service for 40 years. We have two boys in their early twenties.
2) How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Mollie was brought up in an Evangelical Church of England and and came to faith in Jesus as her Saviour in her early teens. Tony was not brought up with a church background but came to faith in the Lord Jesus through a Methodist Youth club. Both have had fellowship in Christian Brethren Assemblies.
3) How do you relax?
We enjoy walking and exploring the wonderful county of Devon. We also enjoy reading.
4) What led you to Great Parks Chapel?
Mollie first began attending Great Parks Chapel in 1979 when she moved to Paignton and Tony also first attended in 1983 when after we married we came to live in Paignton. Our ministry then led us into preaching and pastoring three churches over a period of 17 years. We then had almost five years in an itinerant preaching ministry which we have felt it right to reduce about ten months ago. We then became free to attend Great Parks most Sundays and enter more into the life of the church meeting there; the chapel is just a short walk from our home.
5) What about the future?
We look forward to being a part of the next chapter in the testimony of the meeting in Great Parks Chapel, and spending more time together as the boys are now making their separate lives away more from the home.
You may contact any of the above leaders through
greatparkspastor@tiscali.co.uk
To contact us
Tel: 01803 520796
Email: greatparkspastor@tiscali.co.uk