Our leadership team for Dickens Heath Village Church (DHVC) meets on the first Wednesday of each month. Our very first leadership team, established before we publicly launched in 2002, was made up of four couples. Tam and I stepped down from the leadership team in 2006 after we made our contribution to leading the start of the church family with our friends and colleagues Aaron and Diane. After six years, we came back on the leadership team at the beginning of 2013 to help navigate challenges and opportunities for the future.
What do we do for two to three hours? We pray. We plan. We discuss together the pastoral needs of the church family. We consider the future of the church and how we live out our love and gratitude for God in the community. We think together about our relationship to community groups, the school in which we meet, our neighbours and networks internal and external to the village. We lead the church family in serving the community and living out the values of the Kingdom of God which Jesus demonstrated and empowers us to do by the Holy Spirit.
Who makes up the current leadership team? Well, there’s Adrian who wasn’t present last night because he was attending his first meeting as a governor for Dickens Heath Community Primary School. Adrian is a lecturer, teaching teachers how to teach science and maths; he’s also a musician and leads worship in our church gatherings. We also have Olwen, who retired a year or two ago from a career with children’s nurseries. Chris is an actuary, one of the more exciting career choices known to humanity. He chairs our leadership team meetings. Chris was one of our first leaders in the church, and has been on the leadership team over the years more than he hasn’t. Most of his break came during a three year battle with cancer and treatment-related heart attack. He chronicles his story in Hitting the Rock and reviewed here. Priscilla is a stay-at-home mum with a degree in social work, from South Africa.
Each of these friends has their own unique and outstanding qualities for which there is no space here to elaborate. We share together a passion to follow Jesus. We share a responsibility to lead our church family to similarly follow Jesus. And we set the pace to encourage others in our community to consider Jesus: his sacrificial love, his ability to speak the truth to us in a way we are glad to hear, and his forgiving spirit. I am grateful for my friends with whom we lead the family known as Dickens Heath Village Church.