December 2024: Rev Everisto Musedza
Each month, the Church of Scotland's Talking Ministry series shares a personal story from those serving in Christian ministry, along with resources filled with questions, prayers and reflections to help encourage reflection on how God might be calling you at this time.
For December, Rev Everisto Musedza reflects on a spiritual journey which has taken him from Zimbabwe to Argyll's Cowal Peninsula.
My ministry: Rev Everisto Musedza, Minister
Rev Everisto Musedza was born in Zimbabwe where he studied for and was ordained into the ministry before transferring to the Church of Scotland in 2021.
Now the minister of Cowal Church, he lives in Argyll with his wife Emily and their children Natalie (11) and Nathan (7). His brother, Knowledge, is also a minister and will move to his own charge early in 2025.
What is your faith background?
Rev Everisto MusedzaI was brought up in a Christian family and my parents would take us to church. It was a very poor background so everything revolved around faith and something that would see us through.
I was baptised in 1994, but it was two years later that I asked myself what it meant. What was intriguing for me was the thought of Christ loving me as I am and as poor as I was. I felt it was very profound that Christ included me in His love and I didn't need to have anything to be saved. That's where my journey began as a profession of faith.
I felt it was very profound that Christ included me in His love and I didn't need to have anything to be saved.
When I finished high school, I wanted to serve God in some way and went to college to study church administration and management, but it was just not something I had a passion for and I enrolled to study theology. That's when I knew I wanted to go into full-time ministry. My first application was rejected by the General Assembly Ministry Committee in 2011 who said they did not sense the call of God in me. I was gutted! It was one of the most difficult years as I reflected on the next step because I really wanted to do this.
I then said to myself that I would try again, so I reapplied and was accepted as a ministry candidate in 2012. Since I had already studied theology 2005-2007, in 2014 I started my probation in a place called Eiffel Flats. After a year, I went back to the capital, Harare, and was ordained there in 2015.
What brought you to the Church of Scotland?
During my early ministry, I was known for saying that I would never serve in a different cultural context such as a white congregation because I always felt that God has to make sense in my own culture and place.
I went to serve in one of the poorest congregations in our denomination. While I was there, I was asked to consider going to a predominantly white congregation, St Columba's, where my brother was interim minister. I said "No way!", but then I found myself having a conversation with God and I said that if He did want me to go there, then I would need specifics. Then this friend of mine, who had been minister with one of the two predominantly white congregations in Zimbabwe, spoke to me at one of our Presbytery meetings and asked: "Have you considered applying to be the minister at St Columba's?" My response was: "That's a white congregation and I am a black minister."
He said: "So what? Would you like me to write to them?"
I also decided that my brother had to agree, because he was the interim minister, and his response was: "I'll send you the advert!"
So, I applied and became the first black minister at St Columba's in 2016, but in 2019 I was asking myself again what the next chapter would be like.
I had colleagues who had come to Scotland, so I went on the website to say I was exploring the Church of Scotland and they sent back all the forms. Part of the process was to come to Scotland for an interview. I had never been to Europe, but I prayed hard and I got my visa and was supposed to leave Zimbabwe on March 30 2020, and it was that week that the whole world shut down because of Covid, so I thought that way might not come to fruition.
Then the Church asked if I would do interview online. That led to an offer, but I would need to raise funds for flights and visas and we needed £19,000 for the four of us. But miracles were about to happen.
One day I was having a conversation online with someone I had met through work for our General Assembly, and told her there was a possibility that I could move to Scotland, but it was a very expensive process. The very next line, she offered to send me 100,000 Rand (£4500).
A few weeks later, I was in Harare speaking to my friend Harold, who was best man at my wedding. He said: "I know the journey you have been on" and offered me $10,000 USD.
I arrived in Scotland on September 1 2021 and did my 10 days quarantine. I had been linked up with Rev David Watson, the minister at Clark Memorial Church in Largs. I remember my first online meeting with him to see if we could work together. What he said, which I thought was very profound, was: "You are coming to a place where there are people and the people will love you." So, I came into the country and Julie, David's wife, picked us up and we drove to Largs, and Largs was our first encounter with Europe.
How did you end up in Cowal?
That's another interesting story! One day I was taking my wife to hospital for an appointment and was left waiting in the car park. In the next car was a lady with her granddaughter and we got talking. I told her that I had come to Scotland to be a minister. She told me that her parish in Cowal would at some point be looking for a minister and asked if I would be interested. So, in August, I came to Dunoon and she drove me around the entire parish, showed me everything, and then we left, but I told her I would keep an eye out for when it would be advertised.
But my supervisor's first charge was Oban and he knew that at some point they would also be looking for a minister, so he told me that I had to go and see Oban at some point.
Come October 2022, Cowal Kirk advertised and I asked if I could go for an informal visit and I did the same tour and on October 31 I put in my application. They acknowledged my application and that was it. November, December, I did not hear a thing. By January 2023, Oban had advertised, so I cleared my decks to go and see Oban.
That same week, I got an email from Cowal asking about my availability and saying they would like to take things further.
We went to see Oban and I loved it, but I did tell the nominating committee that I had something in the pipeline.
I then went to the interviews with Cowal Kirk. I honestly thought I did a great job in putting them off! I said to my wife that there was no way they would take me, to which she responded: "This is the place you are going to."
Thirteen days later I received an email from Cowal saying that the committee unanimously agreed to make me sole nominee.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Everything is very different – the culture, the language and I have to work twice as hard because English is not my first language.
But we have settled in well and the people have been lovely. The response has been brilliant, even in terms of the numbers – our average attendance is over 100 every Sunday – and we are challenging ourselves to try new things.
I think the biggest challenge in terms of ministry, just like other parts of the church, is how do we move from past glories to do ministry in the present and in a different future?
That is the challenge, to say: Let's take a different route. And I must say, people have responded well in what we are trying to do.
We have launched what we call the Pizza Church that meets on the last Friday of every month. It's been a tremendous success and last month we had over 98 people come along. Because we have dared to take a different direction in reaching out to young people, we are seeing that response, which is something to celebrate.
I think my own experience has helped in the sense that I am saying the church can embrace something new in the same way that I have embraced something new in coming to a different country.
What do you think the Church in Scotland can learn from Africa?
Too many lessons! I think the greatest lesson is that in the Church in Africa, we are very expressive. I find sometimes that the Church here seems to have been conditioned in a certain way. People will say that is just is how Scottish people are, which I don't think is quite right. Music and dance are part of the Scottish people, but when you come into a church, that's not there.
Ministry also seems to be very minister-centred here whereas in Africa, everybody is involved. There are also not many places here which have intergenerational worship, where back home we thrive on having the different generations worshipping together. Sometimes it seems as if we are telling young people to go and be entertained somewhere else while we are doing important things here. If they sit with us and interact with us, I think there could be benefits for all.
December Discernment Resources: Are we listening?
If you're reading this, maybe you've already felt that God might be calling you into some kind of service in the church and you're looking further. If so, you're already listening – but what is God actually asking? Sometimes that call can be a bit hard to fathom, and sometimes it's not what you had in mind in the plan for your life! Call can be such an imprecise and unpredictable thing. On the other hand, maybe you have a very definite sense of call, but have you considered all the options? Are you still listening? It's possible that in your certainty, you've closed down other possibilities.
Mary, the mother of Jesus was likely on course for a good, but not particularly noteworthy life, until she received an angelic visitor who foretold her destiny to bear God's son:
38 Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her. 39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
Luke 1: 38-40
I doubt that she was just as serene as that in her response. I imagine her running to her cousin Elizabeth's home and bursting through the door and pouring her heart out. "What am I going to do with this situation that will totally change my life?"
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Sometimes ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.Robert Frost
Exploring vocation does that to you. It turns you upside down and inside out, and it's hard to do on your own. So be brave enough to share your exploration with others. Bring it before God in prayer, and take the time to see what others who know you well in your church community think. I bet that Elizabeth took Mary in her arms and told her to calm down, then did the equivalent of putting the kettle on for a cuppa to help them talk it all over. Mary's song, the Magnificat, is an affirmation that God does incredible things through unlikely people. Those who thought that they were of no particular consequence turn out to have rich gifts to share. From a poor young woman, to weary fishermen on the shore, the call goes out to those with a heart and mind open to taking the risk of walking off the beaten track of life.
To contemplate/discuss
What could it be that God sees in you? Take some time to pray this out.
Have you taken the time to chat to others about your sense of call?
What do others say about your gifts?
What if you're called off the beaten track? Will you be open to the invitation?
What will you say in response?
"God is looking for those with whom He can do the impossible — what a pity that we plan only the things that we can do by ourselves."
AW Tozer
Prayer
Lord, your summons echoes true
when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
and never be the same.
In your company I'll go
where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow
in you and you in me.John L. Bell and Graham Maule
God, you can work through my life in incredible ways. May my heart be tuned to your heart, so that I can discern what you are calling me to. Give me the courage to risk sharing what I hear, and to live out that call as it comes. Amen
More information
If you would like to consider how God might be calling you to serve at this time, you may want to discuss further with your minister or be in touch with your Presbytery to explore local opportunities.
If you are interested in exploring a call to the recognised ministries of the Church, you can find more information on our vocations page and can contact ministry@churchofscotland.org.uk for a Discernment Conversation with one of the Recruitment Team.