Presbyterian Church in Ireland: Next moderator Rev Trevor Gribben says churches do hurt people, but urges people not to judge Jesus Christ as a result
The next moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has acknowledged that many people have been hurt by churches – but has asked them 'not to judge Jesus Christ by your experience of the institutional church'.
Tandragee man Rev Trevor Gribben, 63, will be officially installed as Moderator of the General Assembly when it meets in June, succeeding Rt Rev Dr Richard Murray.
He currently serves as the Clerk of the General Assembly and General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
He was elected on Tuesday night with 16 votes from presbyteries of Presbyteries of Armagh, Ballymena, North Belfast, East Belfast, Carrickfergus, Coleraine & Limavady, Derry & Donegal, Down, Dromore, Dublin & Munster, Iveagh, Monaghan, Newry, Omagh, Route, and Tyrone.
His rival, Rev Richard Kerr, got three votes from the Presbyteries of Ards, South Belfast and Templepatrick.
An avid Arsenal and Linfield fan, he is also a keen non-playing member of Waringstown Cricket Club.
He gained a BSc in Applied Maths and Computer Science at Queen’s University Belfast in 1983 and worked for a short while as a systems analyst and programmer before training for the ministry.
In 1990 he was called to Leckpatrick Presbyterian Church in County Tyrone, and then in 1996 moved to Whiteabbey Presbyterian Church in County Antrim. He remained there for 12 years, prior to being appointed the church's Deputy Clerk in 2008.
He went on to serve a further ten years as Clerk, which he likened yesterday to the senior civil servant, Sir Humphrey, in the BBC TV series ‘Yes Minister’.
Sir Humprey, he noted, was always keeping his minister Jim Hacker from falling into trouble - a role he felt he often played for moderators.
He told the News Letter: "As a new Jim Hacker, one of my colleagues phoned to congratulate me last night; he said the game keeper is about to turn poacher."
Realistically he acknowledged that church attendance has "largely" been declining across western Europe, though with significant exceptions in a church plant in Belfast city centre and many smaller congregations in the south.
"People are sometimes annoyed and angry with the institutional church. Churches make mistakes and in the past people have walked away, sometimes angry with local churches or with national churches of different denominations."
He told the News Letter: "The church has not always been what it should be. And sometimes the church, through our actions and even our words, hurt people and we get it wrong. But don't judge Jesus Christ by your experience of the institutional church.
"The New Life that we can have in Jesus, life in all its fullness, through simple faith in him, by the grace of God, is a life we were made to live.
"And I would encourage people to go and explore that with a Christianity Explored course, an Alpha Course, or to go to a church to listen and to see; is there something more to life than this world seems to get?"
Asked why the many people who have no interest in faith should have the slightest interest in what he is offering, he replied: "The Bible tells us we're made in the image of God, and I believe that deep down within every single one of us there's an emptiness until we come to know God in a real and living way.”
"There are times, no matter who we are, where we don't have any sense of hope and we don't know where we're going.
"I believe that Jesus Christ has reached down to do something about our broken humanity, to give us hope and a future."
Currently he is the most senior administrator in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, overseeing the denomination's 185,000 members in over 500-plus congregations.
His father was a regimental sergeant major stationed in Arsenal and as a result Trevor was also a supporter “from the womb”.
He hopes they might just win the Premiership in his year as moderator.
The Tandragee man watched Portadown as a boy, but he had drifted away from watching local football until a few years ago when he began to watch Linfield with some friends.
He now admits he has “become a Blue – and I really quite enjoy it".
“But my greatest love, perhaps of all, is Waringstown Cricket Club. I love sitting for seven hours watching cricket on a warm Saturday, far away from social media, my phone and even from journalists.”