Emerging safely from Covid pandemic tops list for new Buckie Methodist minister
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THE challenges of emerging from the Covid pandemic are top of the list for Buckie’s newest minister.
Rev Jon Garde has not long taken over the reins at Moray Coast Methodist Church, which comprises the chapels at Buckie, Portessie, Findochty and Cullen.
The role marks his first step in the ministry having just completed three years of training at the Queen’s College in Birmingham and he is now undertaking a two-year probationary period.
Looking ahead to his five-year stint in Buckie, Rev Garde identified helping the congregations at the local chapels emerge from the pandemic as one of his top priorities.
“The big priority has been and is the Covid pandemic; churches have had to change drastically in terms of how they do things,” he said.
“How we worship has changed, with more services online and the use of Zoom, which a lot of people hadn’t heard of two years ago.
“I think it’s important for us to get back together. We opened again for Sunday worship last month and we’ve started to see people coming back, but we’re still only at around two thirds of where we were previously. There’s many reasons for this; a lot of people are self-isolating while others are concerned about coming out.
“However, I hope we’ll be able to work towards getting back to where we were before. A lot of the activities that churches would normally do but haven’t been able to are beginning to come back – for example, our church guild has just restarted.
“While I believe it’s really important we get back to normal or as near as we can, it’s also vital we don’t lose what we’ve gained through the use of technology. For instance, thanks to Zoom we’ve been able to tune into various North East of Scotland Mission Circuit-based events – the Circuit is something which is very important in Methodism.
“Another short-term priority is to create our own identity as the Moray Coast Methodist Church. Previously there were four independent chapels so we now need to look at changing things like noticeboards and websites to reflect the fact we’re now one church. These are the easy tasks in bringing together the churches as one community, but the good thing is there is a lot of support across all four congregations for the new unified identity.
“There’re a lot of things which have to be done here.
“Longer term, we have to take a look at how we use these four local chapels. At the moment only two of these – Buckie and Portessie – are open for worship and I want to be able to use all of the buildings fully, perhaps in alternative ways, not just for worship. We have to look at extending what we have on offer, to offer more variety and to reach out and connect with a wide variety of people.
“At the moment we’re just starting to experiment and see what works.
“I want to work ecumenically with all the local churches in the area.”
The ministry marks a profound change in career for Rev Garde, who originally hails from Melbourne in Australia, later spending 20 years in Canberra. An IT specialist, he and his family moved to the UK in 2004 when his employers were setting up operations near Maidenhead. He had previously visited the country to see his brother-in-law, who at the time was studying for a post doc, in 1995.
Rev Garde continued: “I reached a point where I just felt that I’d done everything I could do in IT.
“I’ve always been a committed Christian and done lay preaching, and I decided that I wanted to spend the last part of my working life doing something for God.
“New ministers like myself submit their profiles which are then matched to a Circuit. The North of Scotland Mission Circuit have a tradition of taking in probationers.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here, this area is a wonderful place to live and work. It’s both coastal and rural with lots of beautiful little villages. Family and traditions are still very strong and everyone knows everyone else.
“Methodism has a very special place in the north-east and indeed across Scotland. Many were originally attracted to the church by the evangelism of the Wesleys. One of the things I want to do is make sure we preserve this tradition and extend it. This Methodist identity is very important to me.
“The fishing communities across the north-east helped spread Methodism, there’re 250 years of tradition here and that’s unique and special.”
Rev Garde added that many of the local chapels were built by the local communities themselves, utilising the the skills and talents people relied on in the everyday lives and work.
