Ballybeen Parish welcomes Revd Jim Cheshire as rector
Ballybeen Parish has given a warm welcome to Revd Jim Cheshire who was instituted as rector on Friday evening, 26 January.
Family, friends and clergy joined parishioners and Bishop Harold for a joyful service in St Mary’s, a vibrant and growing church in the heart of Ballybeen estate on the edge of East Belfast.
Local MP, Gavin Robinson, brought greetings to the new rector as did the Mayor of Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council, Councillor Tim Morrow. The rector of Bangor Parish Church, Revd Nigel Parker, gave the address.
Jim is married to Diane and they have two children, Eva and Ethan. Following his ordination on Easter Sunday 2014, Jim served as curate in Bangor Parish, however, as he explains, his arrival there came by no ordinary route.
I grew up in Florida, where my Dad was the pastor of an Evangelical Free Church. After coming to faith in Christ as a young child, I first felt God’s call to full time ministry as a teen and having been encouraged to pursue this call, I went to Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary just north of Boston where I received a Master of Divinity degree. It was near the end of my time there that I married Diane, from Coleraine, and moved to Northern Ireland in 1999.
Since then, God has led me to minister in a variety of settings including West Presbyterian Church, Bangor, Strandtown Baptist Church, Belfast, and Holywood Parish Church. It was while I was in Holywood that, to my surprise, I found my heart ‘strangely warmed’ and opened to a future in the Church of Ireland in a way I had not expected but could not avoid. Following my time at CITI, it was to my surprise that I found my way back to Bangor, this time to work alongside the Rev’d Nigel Parker in the Parish Church.
My time in Bangor has been one of blessing and great joy as I have experienced our Heavenly Father’s ongoing sharpening and preparation for the future to which he has called me. Having lived in Ballybeen at the start of my ministry in Northern Ireland, it is once again with surprise and anticipation that I now return as Rector of St. Mary’s, looking forward to all that God has in store for us there.
View a photo gallery here (courtesy of David Manning)