Meet the
HUTCHINGS
StAG
MAG
May 2017
Tom Hutchings will be joining us at StAG as our new Families Minister (along with Andria, Jemima and Amos) on Sunday
28th May. You are warmly invited to his licensing service which will be happening at the 5.00pm service that day.
Can you describe some of your favourite memories from your time as a curate in Sileby?
The happiest memories will be of people. The church family have really welcomed and loved us. There has been many
a joyful lunch and evening together. Andria and I, and Jemima and Amos, have been welcomed and treated as part of
people’s families. We have taken to speaking of the “Sileby wall of love” which hits you when you walk into our meetings.
Since the Rector left a year ago it has been a real encouragement to see the churches pull together to secure evangelical
ministry in the villages. They’ve looked after us practically and spiritually through a difficult year as well, not least when
Amos was born right at the busiest time imaginable! Most deeply, it’s been a great joy to see people come to trust in Jesus
and grow in trust in his word, even in the short time we’ve been here.
What have been some of the main lessons God has been teaching you from your time there?
Being in a new place has really helped us to see what the core of ministry is and to trust that it really is God at work and
not our culture or programmes. The churches and villages are very different to anywhere we have been before, but gospel
ministry is the same everywhere: making Jesus known through his word. As different as Sileby is to Cambridge, preaching,
personal evangelism and prayer bear the same fruit. It’s been an incredibly busy time as we’ve held the fort between
Rectors, but we’ve learnt that God can and will renew us day by day even as we come under real pressure.
How did you become a Christian?
I (Tom) became a Christian during my time at university in Cambridge. As a teenager, I was a very vocal and militant
atheist. In my first year, I was invited along to a Christian Union event; I wasn’t convinced, but it did show me that I
was hopelessly confused about what Christians actually believe. Quietly, I set about finding out what Christianity was
about by reading my Bible and going along to chapel at college. Having set out to find out information, I met with a
person as Jesus “walked off the pages” of the gospels. Andria became a Christian after a fellow trainee solicitor invited
her along to a Christianity Explored course. The session on grace was an eye-opener, having never heard it explained
before - that one evening made all the difference.
What are you most looking forward to about moving (back) to Cambridge?
We’re looking forward to getting to know the church family. It feels like we were in Cambridge and at StAG for a very
short time during our training and there’ll be lots of people to meet! It will be exciting (if slightly daunting) to be part of
a larger church and team again. We’ll enjoy being in a church the size of StAG because of the diversity of people that
brings in terms of ages, backgrounds and nationalities. We’ve both loved living in Cambridge and the city definitely feels
like home to us (we’ve lived in Cambridge longer than anywhere else in our adult lives). It’s also such an interesting place
to be in ministry – lots of healthy churches and a fantastic place for training up gospel workers to be sent out, but also
a very self-consciously secular city with a massive gospel need.
How can we best be supporting you as you move here?
Please pray. The coming weeks and months are going to be hectic as we move and settle in. We know that we’re going
to need God’s help to serve effectively at StAG. Do pray in particular for us to keep up our own godliness as a family as
routines change and we re-establish. Apart from anything else, it will take us a while to adapt to new work patterns. You
can also help us by getting to know us! Church family means a lot to us and we’d love to share food and time with lots
of you in the near future. And please do bear with us as we work out how things operate and just learn names!
What excites you about the families work here at StAG?
God loves families and it’s the best thing in the world to be involved in his work. We’ve been really impressed with the
clarity of vision for the work and the commitment to putting God’s word at the centre of it. We love seeing how Jesus
changes lives and in such a large and busy place as StAG, they’ll be plenty of opportunities to make him known and see
him do great things. We’ve been so well-loved and encouraged as a family over the years that we’d love, even if only in
part, to serve others in the same way. I love working with children and young people and I’m looking forward to learning
from an established and experienced team, who I hope I’ll be able to encourage too. We’re definitely looking forward to
being fed ourselves - we’re really excited about Jemima and Amos being involved in such a great children’s work and
we’re expecting to be built up as parents too!
- 4 -
[email protected] • www.stag.org/mag •
Alasdair
Paine
standrewthegreat •
@StAG_Cambridge
DEAR FRIENDS...
It was over a chicken and leek pie on 24th February 2016 that the Bishop of Ely asked me if we as a church would be
willing to plant a new church in Huntingdon. It was mainly this request that led to the encouraging plans Charlie
Newcombe outlines in this edition of StAG Mag. We had in fact been praying for some time about a possible plant, and
the bishop’s request helped to give our longing direction and shape. We want to play our part in sending gospel workers
to the world — even the nearby world!
Cambridgeshire is the fastest-growing county in England, and Huntingdon itself is no exception. In 1981 it had a
population of 14,000, and now it