Ministry Team
Rev'd Simon Jones - Team Leader
Simon Jones grew up in Leicester, studied at Manchester University and worked for seven years as a financial journalist in London. After training at London Bible College, he pastored Peckham Park Road Baptist Church for seven years before launching and editing Christianity Magazine. In 1998 he joined BMS World Mission as its co-ordinator for London and the South East.
The author of many books, including Building a Better Body: The Good Church Guide, Discovering Galatians, and Discovering the New Testament, Simon listens to copious quantities of contemporary music, reads voraciously, watches films and enjoys cooking and body boarding.
Linda is Human Resources Manager at Pecan, an employment and regeneration charity established by Peckham churches at the end of the 1980s to respond to the desperately high levels of unemployment and poverty in the area. She and Simon met in Harrow when she was a dispensing optician. Linda enjoys taking Simon on long walks and round National Trust properties and gardens. They have two daughters, Charlie and Olivia.
Rev'd Brian Reed - Pastoral Care
Brian Reed has had
over thirty years of pastoral experience in independent evangelical churches
since training at London Bible College in the late 60’s. In more recent times he
and Kathy have established a community day centre, a town-wide evangelistic
mission in Tunbridge Wells and a counselling service. He came to us from his
post as Dr. R.T. Kendall’s assistant at Westminster Chapel where he served from
1994 until 2002 when Dr. Kendall retired.
Brian completed a 2 year course in pastoral ministry at Spurgeon’s College in 2004 and is presently undertaking a Master’s degree in Church History. During his time at Spurgeon's Bromley Baptist was his church placement and he became such a valued member of the pastoral team that he stayed on in a full-time capacity. His training in counselling with London University is used extensively in his pastoral work.
Kathy works as a counsellor and creative arts therapist, accredited with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and as a spiritual director. She has gained considerable experience in working in the voluntary sector and private practice and in teaching counselling skills in both counselling and pastoral care settings.
Brian and Kathy have three grown children and two grandchildren.
Rev'd Jonathan Somerville - Youth and young adults
Jonathan Somerville is minister for youth and young adults. His role
is to encourage younger generations, and to explore and create emerging patterns
of worship and community.
Jonathan is married to Susanna and they have two children, Nathanael and Hope. Jonathan became a Christian at the age of 15, an event described once as 'rather like God turning Saddam Hussein into Cliff Richard', although Jonathan is unsure about either of the similarities.
Now a Baptist minister, Jonathan has worked in a variety of Christian ministries and is passionate about seeing the local church fulfil its potential to be a life-saving and transforming power in local communities.
When time allows, Jonathan enjoys spending time with his family, watching movies, reading books, eating good food and playing with the family's golden retriever, Sally. He has contributed to the Baptist Times and is one of the co-founders of Geezers for Jesus, a ministry that seeking to define and express masculine spirituality.
Glenis Ruston - Christian Education
Glenis Ruston is the
church schools worker although that only covers part of what she does. She visits schools
on behalf of the church and in association with an organisation called Spinnaker Trust who
work in 80 primary schools across South London. The work involves visiting 2 schools
fortnightly to lead assembly and take RE lessons and another 3 schools a couple of times a
term to take assemblies. We sometimes have contact with other school groups who come to
visit the building or in one case hold their Christmas concert with us. She co-ordinates
the Spinnaker work in Bromley, looking after the team, finding new workers, linking with
schools and churches and also organises and runs training for the whole Spinnaker team.
Wearing another hat she's an associate educator with Hope UK a Christian drug education charity. This means that she's available to visit groups of adults or children and run drug education sessions using games, quizzes, activities and discussion as away of giving information and encouraging people to think about the subject. With young people in particular we want to work on the whole area of life skills so that they are able to make wise decisions about their lives. As far as church is concerned she helps organise and lead family times and services, runs the child protection policy and does anything else that seems to fit!
Contact Simon
Read Simon's blog here
Contact Brian
Contact Jonathan
Read Jonathan's blog
Contact Glenis