InterviewBlog | In conversation with Jarel Robinson-Brown
In conversation with Jarel Robinson-Brown
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 16.06.21
Jarel is an Associate Chaplain at King’s College London and an ordinand in the Diocese of London. He is a guest lecturer at Sarum College and is also studying for a Masters. Previously, he was a Methodist minister for seven years, serving churches in Cardiff and southeast London. He is vice chair of the OneBodyOneFaith charity. Twitter @JarelRB.
LL How have you been spending your days during the lockdowns?
As I’m a university chaplain and the university site is shut, I do everything from my room! I meet students on Microsoft Teams, I lead services from here, on Mondays I study for a Masters, I give lectures at Sarum College on Zoom, and I might also be giving talks or having meetings for OneBodyOneFaith – but apart from that, I’m just reading and writing at home. Currently I’m writing out the gospels by hand.
LL You are also an ordinand in the Anglican church?
Technically I’m an ordinand in the Diocese of London for one year – it is to bring you up to speed with the practical things, not so much doctrine or how to preach or biblical studies because you’ve got that, but what it means to be a priest in the Church of England as opposed to being in Methodism. It’s learning the culture.
LL And what led to that change from Methodism to the Church of England?
I think two major things came together. The first was that my own personal life was falling apart – my grandmother, who was my mother figure, died suddenly and my partner and I split up, so there was destabilising of foundations generally which I think for most people pushes you to think really carefully about why you’re doing what you’re doing when you’re doing it. A bit like the pandemic which has made people think and question more.
Secondly, I served for five years with two churches in Wales (Rumney and Birchgrove) and left in August 2018 to take up two churches in southeast London. They were black majority churches, mainly West African with a few people from the Caribbean, some there were deeply homophobic and it was a big deal for them to have someone like me rock up. All you have to do is Google me and the fact that I’m not straight comes up, because I speak at Pride and I’ve written articles, it’s not hidden. They made it a massive issue and the congregations just went down each Sunday, and suddenly baptisms were being cancelled and funerals were being taken by someone else without even telling me. I’d gone in as the minister for both churches and I tried to make it work, and it just couldn’t. I had hate mail, death threats, petitions to get me moved on, people wouldn’t receive communion from me – it’s a very long story. You can think about it theoretically but to have that deep personal impact on you on a daily basis from a large number of people whom you’re there to pastor – it’s the thing that I’ve struggled with most and ultimately why I left Methodism.
