Hi, I’m Rev Rhona Cathcart

I came to the West church in 2017. That means that as I write this, I’ve been here eight years! Those years have flown by, while at the same time, I kind of feel as if I have aye been here.

I was drawn here by the strong commitment to hospitality; the clear teamwork; the willingness to take risks and to continue to grow and change; and the feeling that this was a place that really sat at the heart of its local community.

Being locally rooted but having an outward facing attitude is important to me. As a first generation Scottish Canadian (or these days more of a Canadian Scot), I have always felt part of more than one world at once. I arrived in ministry via a circuitous route including working in theatre, gaining a few degrees, being at home as a single parent, teaching drama classes, and working in corporate communications.

In all those years I never once imagined I would find myself as a parish minister in the North East of Scotland, but from the moment I first came here, Inverurie and the West church have felt like home.

I was particularly attracted to the way that the building, with its busy cafe, small town setting, welcoming atmosphere, and central location, has allowed me to further develop a ministry of presence. By this I mean being able to simply ‘be ’around people on a regular basis - whether members, volunteers, staff, customers - available to minister as and when needed, rather than by appointment, picking up on the small day to day things.

And what a lot of things there are! Ministry is a brilliant, if often tiring and challenging vocation. You never know what the day, or even hour will bring. One minute you’re in a school with a few hundred excited children, the next you are comforting someone who is grieving, or chairing a meeting, or blessing a river, or leading a bible study; or chatting to some teenagers; or moving some chairs; or finding out who knows the answer to questions like "where do we keep the spare lightbulbs?"

These day-to-day relationships matter. One of the wise voices I often turn to in ministry is American pastor and writer Eugene Peterson. I love his description of ministry as being about ‘growing the local topsoil ’e.g. being involved with your people as they are and where they are, working organically to help them recognise what God is doing in their lives, rather than trying to impose from on top a particular vision or way of ‘doing ministry’.

Being adaptable matters, especially in a world of rapidly evolving technology and increasingly dramatic climate events. But stability matters too. The global pandemic, along with so many destabilising global events, and the amplification of aggressive and hostile voices, have reminded us all how precarious the systems and structures we take for granted can be. It’s important to know what, or more importantly who we believe in and trust, and to remember, always, that the only power we are interested in is God’s power.

And so we continue to learn and to grow and to try to fulfil God’s calling to us in a changing world

I’m still doing my best to be ‘present ’for my people as we grow and learn together. I fail sometimes of course, as we all do, but folks here are gracious and kind and really do work as a team. I remain deeply grateful to God and to the congregation of Inverurie West for calling me here to serve.

I can be contacted by email (click here) or by phone on 01467 620285. I try to spend part of most working days in and around the Acorn Centre where I’m always happy to chat.

Every blessing
Rhona

Click here for Rhona’s occasional blog