Right Rev. Bishop Christopher

Sunny Walker-Kier writes on the visit of the Bishop of Southwark, The Rt. Revd. Christopher Chessun on Sunday 16^th June 2019 to preside and preach at our Sunday Service.

When our beloved vicar Revd. Jim McKinney suddenly died on 18^th January 2019 I was aware that a lot of clergy in higher ranks were extremely upset about the death of Revd. Jim McKinney. So I received a notification that not only the Bishop of Kingston The Rt. Revd. Dr Richard Cheetham wanted to come to our church, but also the Bishop of Southwark The Rt. Revd. Christopher Chessun would like to visit Holy Trinity.

Now the Archdeacon, the two churchwardens and myself had to find a date, which would be suitable. Bishop Christopher is a very busy bishop and so we chose our patronal festival date, which this year was Sunday 16^th June 2019 Trinity Sunday. So a formal request via his chaplain Revd. Joshua Rey went to Bishop Christopher.

We were in luck that no other major diary entry was found for this Sunday and our service was put in his diary!  We had to mention to Bishop Christopher that our service would be half an hour later than usual as we would have our bring-and-share lunch after the service.

As Bishop Christopher’s normal chaplain wasn’t coming, we asked Rev. Dr. Daniel Eshun to be chaplain to Bishop Christopher.

My husband and I came as early as possible on the day as I had to do the intercessions – as usual we were beaten by Jean and Malcolm Vincett! I prepared the parking space and now we were waiting for Bishop Christopher to come. Bishop Christopher arrived in good time and was greeted by the servers, Jean and Malcolm Vincett and myself. As I had sent Bishop Christopher the service booklet and service sheet two weeks in advance, we just discussed the final tweaks of the service. His sermon was a great encouragement to Holy Trinity not only to look backwards at all the achievements, which our beloved late vicar had done, but gave us all encouragement to look forward and towards a new incumbent. We should think not only what we wanted now, but also what we would wish that this congregation became in the next five or ten years.

The service went without any further incident and I was very happy to receive Holy Communion from Bishop Christopher. I know him personally as a very compassionate person and so I was not surprised, when he talked to as many of the parishioners as people wanted to talk to him. He even managed to have a bite to eat from our brilliant spread, which was organised by Jean Vincett and Pam Harris.

Of course we had to do the usual pictures to remember his visit to our congregation. All the pictures were done with the camera of the Bishop, Tom Kemoh or Rev. Dr. Daniel Eshun.

Sunny Walker-Kier