Lindisfarne Sept 2024
Hello, I am Revd. Kay Blackwell, the new URC Special Category minister connected with the St. Cuthbert’s URC Centre on the Holy Island. I moved to the island with my husband Andrew and our sausage dog ‘Olive’ at the start of August 2024. We have three grown-up children. We are excited to be here and keen to see how God may use my ministry in this amazing and ‘thin’ place!
For the last three years I have been working as a full-time chaplain in a large state secondary school in Oxford, The Oxford Academy school (Littlemore, Blackbird Leys, Cowley being the catchment areas). I was the first full-time chaplain in the school, so it was quite a pioneering role in some ways. As chaplain I had done a lot of inter-faith work, set up a school chapel, built community links between the school and local charities and churches, had run Christian Union groups and various creative and gardening clubs. I also provided mentoring and one to one pastoral support to both staff and students and helped the school to strategically build its Christian ethos and vision.
My first role as Church minister was for Basingstoke and Tadley URC churches where I served for eight years. There I did a lot of ecumenical work with other church leaders in the area, coordinated a night shelter for the street homeless, became a street pastor, helped run a youth café, toddler groups, a children’s summer holiday club, a food distribution project during lockdown, an arts festival, set up a dementia café and developed various other ‘churches together’ projects for the seasonal celebrations. Before this I had trained for ministry at Westminster College.
My first degree was in three-dimensional design in Brighton; largely various crafts in ceramics and metal. I worked as a freelance artist for a couple of years then became an interior designer/ draughtsperson in London for commercial offices and then office restaurants. I took a short career break once we started a family; did some teacher training and then started up a small business running pre-school music classes in Brighton which ended up being a full-time job for fourteen or more years whilst our family grew. At the age of thirty I became a Christian. Around five years later we moved to Petersfield in Hampshire where I became a member of Petersfield URC. It was here that I became their children’s and family worker under the ‘Going for Gold’ URC funding, and I continued in this role whilst continuing to run my newly established children’s music group classes in Hampshire. It was from there I was called into URC ministry and so commuted to Westminster College in Cambridge every week in order to complete my theological degree and ministerial training whilst my family remained in Petersfield.
As you can probably see, I have had quite a breadth of experience (or, as I would say, I’m a Jack of all trades and a master of none!). I enjoy working ecumenically, working with many age groups and working in and for community. I love getting to know people and finding ways of working together. I guess chaplaincy fits me well in that mixing with many different people in different ways from many different walks of life. I have been growing into a more contemplative style of prayer and worship in the last ten years and I am interested in more deeply exploring Celtic spirituality. I seek to incorporate art into my ministerial practice, and this is something I hope to expand during my ministry on the island which is such a stunningly beautiful location. I very much see my role here as one of chaplaincy, offering hospitality and welcome to all and using creativity and nature as a way in which I can help others to explore faith and journeying with God in this place.
