Faith

Faith has been a constant thread through Nicholas's life, woven through many traditions and expressions. Christened Baptist, baptised Methodist, confirmed Anglican, and having worshipped in charismatic, Anglo-Catholic, and ecumenical contexts, his faith is broad-rooted and generous in its outlook. He does not seek to enforce or define the faith of others, but to create spaces in which people can encounter the spiritual on their own terms.

Though formed in the Methodist tradition, Nicholas found his spiritual home in the Anglican church; drawn initially by the music at his university parish and his Saturday work at York Minster, and held there by the breadth and depth of its liturgical life. Anglicanism's broad church has proved a generous one, with room enough for a strong affection for Wesleyan hymnody and a deep commitment to ecumenical partnership.

From an early age Nicholas moved naturally from participant to leader in every church context he found himself in. At eighteen he became the youngest leader to run an age group at his town's Churches Together summer club; at university he founded AngSoc, the Anglican society, building partnerships across faith societies on campus and leading retreats at local monasteries and friaries. That same impulse now finds expression in church governance; currently serving as Lay Chair of Ivybridge Deanery Synod, Diocesan Representative, and Archidiaconal Representative on the Bishop's Diocesan Council across three subsidiary bodies. His focus throughout is on enabling the mission and fellowship of the church rather than the machinery of its administration. To that end, he has designed and built a full deanery management system; automating the administrative machinery so that the focus of the synod can remain where it belongs, on mission and fellowship. It is a project that brings the same rigour to church governance that he applies to his professional coding practice.

Music has always been his primary offering to the church; as organist, conductor, composer, and coordinator of Taizé services with Churches Together in Ivybridge. He also leads walks for his local church, bringing together his faith and his love of the natural world. Still only part way through a lifelong journey of faith, Nicholas has come to recognise that supporting worshipping communities; both his own and others, is the most important work he can do, and it is a duty he firmly enjoys.