Incoming Presbyterian moderator Rev Trevor Gribben 'humbled' by his election
Newly apppinted Irish Presbyterian moderator the Rev Trevor Gribben says he is honoured and privileged to enjoy the support of his church ministerial and elder colleagues and, with God's blessing and his best efforts, he will seek to fulfil their confidence when his one-year term of office begins in June.
Rev Gribben, 63, who will succeed present moderator the Rev Dr Richard Murray, has been clerk of the Presbyterian General Assembly since 2014 and was elected on Tuesday night with the support of 16 of the church's 19 presbyteries from across Ireland, representing close on 200,000 members and 500-plus congregations.
Following his election, he said: “Having served as an ordained Presbyterian minister for the last 37 years, it is a great honour, and a very humbling experience, to be nominated as moderator-designate.
"I am looking forward to this opportunity to serve in a different way, but with a fair degree of trepidation. As clerk of General Assembly, I have worked very closely with the various moderators.
“I look forward to the year ahead with a strange mixture of emotions, including both a degree of both nervousness and excitement.
"Nervousness, because it will be something new, involving setting aside much of what I currently do, yet exciting, because of the new opportunities for service and ministry that will open up.”
Reflecting on his roots, Rev Trevor said that he was “an ordinary person from the small town of Tandragee privileged at being brought up in a loving and caring home, by parents who sacrificed much to give me the opportunities in life and education that they themselves never had. For this I will be eternally thankful.”
It will be a busy and different year for Mr Gribben. He says: “One of the things that I am most looking forward to is getting out from behind my desk and visiting our congregations across Ireland.
"Chief amongst these opportunities are the four presbytery tours moderators make. They are intensive weeks, but opportunities to visit different congregations and communities.”
He is also looking forward to working with Ireland’s other church leaders. “One of the privileges of my current role as clerk of Assembly, is to act as joint secretary of the Church Leaders’ Group (Ireland) with my friend, Rev Dr Heather Morris, Methodist general secretary.
"It has been encouraging to work with various moderators over the past 10 years, as they have sought to co-operate, without theological compromise, with leaders of the other churches in the work of God’s Kingdom."
Apart from following Arsenal and Linfield football clubs (he is a season ticket holder at Windsor Park), he attends Waringstown cricket club games in the summer,
Also in the summer, Rev Gribben holidays in the eastern Mediterranean.
"For 25 years now, I have been going on what some might call ‘a busman’s holiday’ each summer, leading a week’s Bible teaching for a Christian holiday company."
In the moderator vote, Rev Trevor Gribben received votes from Armagh, Ballymena, North Belfast, East Belfast, Carrickfergus, Coleraine/Limavady, Derry/Donegal, Down, Dromore, Dublin/Munster, Iveagh, Monaghan, Newry, Omagh, Route, and Tyrone presbyteries. The Rev Richard Kerr, minister of Templepatrick church, received three votes - Ards, South Belfast and Templepatrick presbyteries.
Educated at Queen's University, Rev Gribben was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry in 1987 and was assistant minister of Duncairn and St Enoch’s church in North Belfast. In 1990, he was called to Leckpatrick church, Co Tyrone as minister. Serving there until 1996, he moved to Whiteabbey church, Co Antrim, where he spent 12 years, prior to being appointed Presbyterian deputy clerk in 2008.