Over the coming months we are going to take a look at who the Trustees of NECN are, their passions, their skills and what they get up to in and out of NECN.

If you would like to get more involved, feel you have passion or skills which could be useful please do get in touch. We have work streams as well as trustee opportunities.

Introducing Robb Sutherland – Trustee

Vicar of Mixenden and Illingworth in North Halifax.

I spent my first three years as the first-time vicar of an estates church feeling quite isolated.  I was surrounded by ministers who were having completely different experiences to mine.  My colleagues are wonderfully supportive but my experience doesn’t easily correlate to that of The Minster.  I was introduced to NECN by a chance encounter a few years ago.  Discovering this network of people who share a similar life and growing a local network of practitioners, lay and  ordained has been an empowering experience.

I grew up in a mining family and married the vicar’s daughter of an estates church in Leeds.  That church community taught me the Christian faith and the love and generosity that truly comes from people who have little but give everything.  In hindsight it was probably inevitable that once ordained I would follow the call to a similarly wonderful estates church parish with all of our ups and downs.  It is my hope that in the coming years that NECN will grow as a supportive community, as well as a becoming a national voice for people on the margins.
Robb is a trustee of NECN and a member of the Estates Evangelism Task Group as part of Renewal and Reform.  He blogs at www.changingworship.com