Meet Carrie our speaker…from Manchester.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I’ve recently moved to Manchester where I am the Pastoral Care Minister at Holy Trinity Platt Church. This means I seek to come alongside people in all walks of life, encouraging those who are seeking to support others, and training people who want to grow in their skills to walk alongside others. As well as being involved in the general pastoral care of the church I am also involved in biblical counselling having trained with Biblical Counselling UK. I also drink lots of tea!!

I’ve spent the previous 10 years working for churches in Scotland and prior to that worked for a couple of Christian charities.

What are some of the challenges and joys of being involved in gospel ministry?
One of the biggest joys of my job is the privilege of being able to walk alongside people in some ofthe hardest seasons of their life and point them to the hope we have in Jesus. I love being able to encourage people in their faith and see them grow in knowing and loving Jesus. It’s also a joy to see people grow in their desire to help care and support others and I really enjoy helping to train and equip people to do this.

Walking alongside people who are struggling can be really hard sometime. It’s easy to try and seek to support people in my own strength and then feel very unequipped to know how to help them. I’m very grateful for the regular reminder that it is Jesus who saves and changes people, not me!

What one thing has the Lord been teaching you about yourself and himself in recent times?
In the midst of a time of big transitions – house, city, job, church – the Lord has been teaching me to rest in his plans, not my own. I so often want to take control and make plans, and when I feel out of control I feel pretty overwhelmed. There has been a lot of feeling out of control in the past year but again and again the Lord has been reminding me that I can trust him, that he ‘holds my future’(Psalm 16:5, CSB), and that it’s a good thing that I am not in control. It’s definitely a truth I need to keep holding onto as I so easily slip back into old patterns of seeking to work it all out on my own.

Tickets can be purchased from Brushfire here