March 2024: Ruth Kennedy
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 March, Ruth Kennedy talks about taking faith into the digital sphere with the Church of Scotland's online worshipping community, Sanctuary First.
My ministry: Rev Ruth Kennedy, Minister of Sanctuary First and Digital Ministries Advisor
Originally from Dalkeith in Midlothian, Rev Ruth Kennedy comes from a family with a heritage of Christian ministry that stretches back five generations.
After a 20-year career in the charity sector, Ruth was ordained as a pioneer minister at Dunblane Cathedral in 2022 and was appointed to lead the Sanctuary First team in October 2023.
Married to Stuart, the couple have three sons, Benjamin (18), Joshua (17) and Noah (15), and live in Aberfoyle.
A keen cyclist, she is co-founder of the Bike Trossachs Cycling Club and sports chaplain with the Scottish Cycling Mountain Bike Cross Country Race Series.
You come from a long line of ministers, so was it inevitable that you would follow them into ministry one day?
Have you ever gazed at stained glass windows in churches and read the blurb at the bottom?
Usually, it's the pictures that catch our attention but there is one in Dalkeith where I grew up which has words about my family. This captivating window is there to commemorate 50 years of ministry my great-grandfather gave there – he was the third of now five generations of ministers. It is beautiful and although I never met him, I hope his life and faithful serving reflect the beauty of the window.
I found that being there weekly, encountering and surrendering all to Jesus at a young age, and being faithfully discipled as a child of the manse, all grew a deep appreciation and awe in me about how God brings lots of different types of people together across the generations.
But we haven't to stay in history, the future is ahead of us, and growth is change. So, no, following the same calling was the last God-plan I expected!
Ah, how I was wonderfully wrong!
See, I am doing a new thing in the Church of Scotland. And if you want to be in it, you need to be in it to be in it
I love to forge a new path, going on the untouched snow and I'm not particularly sentimental nor am I wired to maintain the ‘norm', so my heels were dug in against the juggernaut of generational ministers in my family.
But my love for Jesus won out, and the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit undid my ties of refusal; ‘See, I am doing a new thing in the Church of Scotland. And if you want to be in it, you need to be in it to be in it.'
Suddenly, I was not following the generations before me, I was following Jesus before me. And how I love to follow Jesus!
All my wonderings and doubts, hesitations didn't matter because if that is what God is up to, then I just want to partner with what He is doing.
I don't see it as a decision to train for the ministry, rather, the next faith-adventure step in following Jesus.
Prior to this new adventure, I was usually involved in starting new projects or charities in some way or another, gathering and leading teams, disrupting the normal procedures to make support and care better for people or groups in lots of different ways and in various places. Looking back, I can see how God was preparing me for ministry all along. Nothing was nor is wasted – not pieces of bread when Jesus fed the crowds, and not our experiences nor previous training.
I had the opportunity to explore part of this ‘new thing' God is doing at the end of my training, being ordained as the pioneer minister with the under-40s in Dunblane. My family, friends, supervisors too, often wondered with me how I was going to fit in with parish ministry as I had a pull to something different, but I learned they can grow beautifully together.
I have such a passion for those who haven't met Jesus yet, especially those who have never heard or seen anything about Him and pioneering ministry fits so well with this. It meant most of my time was out in the community, not in church on a Sunday morning, but exploring how we can lovingly respond with the Gospel where people are at now and remain there with them.
I guess this is a pretty good reflection of my approach to faith in that I see Jesus being wildly unconventional, relevant and relatable to people whom He gets out to meet and yet compassionate and nurturing towards His established followers.
What were the highpoints and biggest lessons from your experience in pioneering ministry?
A highpoint so far was the support and encouragement from the training team, supervisors and Stirling Presbytery to try an alternative type of ministry. Whether that was creating a new type of training placement with Sports Chaplaincy UK or the pioneering ministry with the under-40s, there were people who just said ‘yes'. It is still daunting stepping into the unknown, but this is faith isn't it!
And that's been one of the biggest lessons – faith is stepping out and starting, even when you are not entirely sure of how it will end up! We are to faithfully follow Jesus to the best of our ability
What is your current role?
I am now the minister at Sanctuary First and the digital ministries advisor. Sanctuary First is a fantastic online worshipping community and digital ministry. We offer not a window for the world into faith, but a doorway where you can enter into the presence of God in a whole host of creative ways, encounter the Living Jesus and engage with others who are doing likewise.
It is a global community with a unique ability and opportunity to take the gospel into places and lives who have never yet heard or seen it or who would not come to our physical gatherings for worship.
My digital ministries advisor role is to support and equip the local churches, presbyteries and our national presence to develop and grow digital ministries relevant to their context.
What lessons do you think Sanctuary First has for the wider church?
Sanctuary First is a pioneering ministry birthed from the local church with creative people determined to work with what they see God doing, and this is in the realm of digital ministry. I do think there is in this a blueprint for the Church, but it was and is always there. That core of our truth, notice what God is doing and partner with Him. To do this we must keep our hearts open and soft to the new, the different, the creative and the curve ball. To be comfortable in taking fearless, faithful risks for Jesus. This is the culture of Sanctuary First and if we can help anyone else with this, we most certainly will try!
What keeps you enthused and excited about ministry?
Jesus is utterly captivating and the Holy Spirit is entirely, overwhelmingly wonderful. And the love of the Father? Awe-inspiring! With God as my source for life I find there are new adventures, almost on a daily basis to keep me enthused about ministry.
I love mountain biking and running in the mountains with my family in God's great creation where I see God's handiwork and power in the big and the small, in the entire Body of Christ and in me. I've experienced the supernatural power of God in the big and the small and I can't help but want to share that wonder of Jesus with people.
Do you have any advice for anyone thinking of ministry?
Yes! You are a person of faith and that means stepping out into the new adventures with Jesus even when you don't fully know where you are going, so just step! That's not being foolish, that's being wise in submitting to God's ways; God's loving, gentle and powerful ways.
March Discernment Resources: What is God's plan for me?
Called according to God's purpose
The idea of ‘calling' is one the most recurrent and evocative themes in the New Testament. The almighty, loving Creator is the one who calls (e.g 1 Peter:1:5) and those who respond inherit the esteemed honour of being ‘called according to God's purpose' (e.g. Hebrews 9:15).
Our principal calling is to be formed into ever greater Christlikeness. Just like everyone who is privileged to be adopted as a son or daughter of God, we are not suddenly cloned into conformity, but rather invited to be formed progressively into a unique expression of the fullness of the character of Jesus, an inimitable manifestation of the Spirit's fruit (love, joy, peace and much, much more) expressed and revealed in and through a unique personality.
God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
Romans 8:29-30, MSG
Along this way of faith there are many things that are true for all of us – and there are tasks and trials, wonders and opportunities that unique to us. In the providence and grace of God our particular set of life experiences, skills and aptitudes, gifts and passions, and, not least our wounds and weaknesses, limitations and vulnerabilities, are both a snapshot of a work in progress and preparation for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
If, as Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus, we are God's workmanship, formed anew in Christ for ‘good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life' (Ephesians 1:10, NRSV), then what could be more vital than to discern what those ‘good works' are? However, we do well to remember that we discern and encounter the ‘good works' that constitute part of the adventure of faith for us in the context of that wider, ultimate journey into Christian formation. If our obedience to God is to be more than ‘an annoying noise' (1 Corinthians 13:1), it needs to be rooted in the love he is cultivating in us.
But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what God is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously.
Micah 6:8, MSG
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.
Jeremiah 29:11, NRSV
To contemplate/discuss
What might a map of my ‘adventure of faith' to this point look like?
How do I perceive ‘God's workmanship' in progress in this particular season of my life?
What attitude or posture might best facilitate God's priority for the formation of ‘ever greater Christlikeness' in me?
How might I regularly remind myself that I am ‘called according to God's purpose'?
Who is best able to help me discern the unique blend of experiences and gifts, wounds and weaknesses that characterise me at this point in life?
What inklings of the ‘good works' God has prepared for me might be stirring in me today?
Prayer
Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to thee;
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of thy love;
Take my feet, and let them be
Swift and beautiful for thee.
Amen.
(Frances Ridley Havergal)
An obsession merely with doing all God commands may be the very thing that rules out being the kind of person that he calls us to be
Dallas Willard
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.