Joy for all seasons: Happy Christmas from Crosslands!

Jennifer Charteris, Executive Director Crosslands

The cycle of the seasons, year after year, is a magnificent gift from the Lord.  How gently yet profoundly the approach of a new season works on our minds and our moods and our patterns.  As we approach the turn of the longest night towards growing light here in the northern hemisphere, we also celebrate the revealing of the true Light who brings life. What beauty and grace!

During 2024 the Crosslands team (a fantastic team made even better with the addition of Dr Nathan Weston in July) has been deeply conscious of the Lord’s sustaining across every season of life amongst us. We have wept and celebrated, laughed and lamented, prayed and praised together as we have walked together through an extraordinary range of life stages and circumstances amongst our students, their churches, our tutors and the staff team.  What a kindness from the Lord to be able to navigate all these things in the certain knowledge of his love for us.

We’ve also been very thankful for the growing opportunities we’ve had in 2024, enabling us to serve more churches, leaders and learners than ever before. The year past has felt like a new season for Crosslands, bringing with it a weight of responsibility that we take seriously. Over the past year we’ve therefore spent time reviewing our strategy, planning how we intend to steward our resources and opportunities wisely and well into the future. (In case you’re interested, here’s a short article that frames our approach to strategy – we hope it might contain something helpful for you in your ministry).

As we approach 2025 we are now starting to put things in place to support the implementation of those plans, praying that we will do so humbly and wisely and well. Those plans mean we have a new vacancy on the team. We want to appoint a new Seminary Programme Manager to allow Catherine Carvel, who has been running that programme brilliantly, to step into a more senior Crosslands-wide role, overseeing the operational delivery of all our programmes.

So our hope and prayer leading into 2025 is that we’ll continue to serve churches and their leaders really well in the year ahead with theological training and resources that help to nurture fruitful and faithful ministries. That’s what we’re here for. If you’d like a conversation to help you think about going further with training in your local church in 2025, book a call with us – we’d love to chat.

And finally, thank you for your partnership with us in 2024.  May the Lord sustain you and prosper the work of your hands in the year ahead.  Happy Christmas!