Another New Vicar!

On the 4th February 2021 The Reverend Marc-Ashton was licenced as the new Vicar in charge of Christ Church. It was an unusual service and the first time Christ church has ever seen a vicar appointed over zoom, but then these are unusual times. It was a fantastic service with over 100 participants, including our Bishop, both Archdeacons and friends from Marc’s previous parishes.

So here is an introduction into Marc-Ashton;

I’m going to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you all so that when we do finally encounter each other I won’t be a complete stranger to you!

My home town is Barry and I lived there for the first 19 years of my life before going off to university in Aberystwyth. At university I did a degree in Space Science and Robotics and it was during my time there that I got into my favourite hobby of fencing (the sport, and not the type you paint) and it was there that I met my wonderful wife Patrycja.

Following university I stuck around in Aberystwyth for two years while I went through selection for the church and while I waited for Patrycja to finish university. During this time I got a job as a care worker for adults with learning disabilities, a job I absolutely loved. In 2013 we got married (the day after Patrycja’s graduation), packed our bags and moved off to Oxford where I trained for ministry. While in Oxford I did a degree in theology at Wycliffe Hall. I was Ordained in 2016 in the diocese of St Davids where I served as an Assistant Curate in the Grouped Parish of Burton & Rosemarket & Llanstadwell & Neyland. From there we moved to St Brides Major where I finished my curacy while taking responsibility for Ewenny Priory, All Saints Southerndown, and St Bridgets Church in St Brides Major, with regular appearances in the other churches in the Glamorgan Heritage Coast Ministry Area. After 8 months of that I upgraded to become a team vicar and took on additional responsibilities in the diocese as the Year of Pilgrimage Officer working under Mark Prevett. We are now very excited to be joining you all in Merthyr Tydfil!

When Patrycja and I met it wasn’t quite love at first sight, she thought I was weird and I thought she talked too much and that was it for about a year apart from the occasional polite conversation….somehow we ended up together and have been married now for over 7.5 years.

 Patrycja is currently studying to become a counsellor and is two and a half years into a 4 year course. with the rest of her time she enjoys crafts, sewing (she is fantastic at it), and works as a supply in special needs schools.

So this tells you a little bit about us, but to really understand who we are you need to understand what our faith means to us because it is our faith which I hope is shaping every part of our lives.

Now my wife’s journey to faith is an amazing story but I’m not going to spoil it here as she tells it far better than I and telling her story has become a part of her ministry, she often gets invited by all sorts of groups to come and share it, so you will have to listen out for that!

But I will tell you a little about my story. Growing up my family were in and out of churches a lot. But I grew up confident in God’s existence, I had seen him working in various ways from a young age. Yet trying to live as one of God’s people was a huge struggle. I knew God was holy and perfect and I knew I wasn’t. I wanted to go to heaven when I died but I thought surly that meant I had to live perfectly as God wanted. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t meet his perfect standard and life was getting harder and harder as I strived to do just that. By the time I was a teenager I had had enough. I hated my life, and no matter how hard I tried I just kept failing, what was the point? I started to resent God for his unrealistic expectations of me, I thought him cruel and unfair. So I decided to go my own way, and live the way I wanted to. At first it was great but life over the next few years took me down a dark road and I became someone I had never wanted to be and started doing things I was utterly ashamed off. 

It wasn’t until university that I became aware again of God tugging on my heart calling me back to himself.

Now on a slight tangent; what I find interesting is that lecturers at universities who are atheists always seem allowed to attack Christianity, while those who were Christian always have to remain absolutely silent on anything beyond the strict bound of their subject lest their jobs be put on the line. This was certainly true in Aberystwyth. The former saw it as a core part of our education to convince us that you can’t believe in God and be a physicist (ironically a number of their seniors were devout people of faith). Yet the more they tried to convince us the more I realised just how hollow and their arguments were and unscientific they were being in their own conclusions. The harder they tried the more certain of God I became and I started to I realise that I couldn’t ignore him anymore.

Every now and then I would make an attempt to live for God but it wouldn’t last long before I crashed again. I was stuck in a state of ‘spiritual schizophrenia’ sort of trying to live my life for God yet still trying to live for myself: and neither was going well. 

I started meeting up with the student pastor and he told me about God’s grace for the first time in my life. I discovered that Jesus wasn’t just God’s son, he was so much more. Jesus was the one to whom the whole of scripture was pointing towards, God’s solution to our problem, even to my problem.  Jesus came to take upon himself the price of all we had ever done wrong, to cover over all the times we have failed and fallen short, all the times we have gone our own way, all the times we have failed to do what we knew to be right. This was the key.

Yes God calls us to live for him and that means living lives pleasing to him, but he also knows we can’t do it alone and that’s ok because he has made provision for us! If we place our faith in Jesus then we need not fear a God who is strict, cruel, and unrealistic, but can gladly serve a God who knows us, loves us and provides for us all we need to come back to him, to have a personal relationship with him, and receive life for eternity. I don’t need to do anything to earn my way into heaven, I no longer need to be good enough, if I place my trust in Jesus, than he has taken all my sin and I am free, free to come to God spotless and without any guilt.

When this finally clicked in my head it was like a spark that triggered and explosion, it all made sense. Suddenly it became easy to live for him and it was all I wanted to do because he is an awesome God who is full of goodness and wants all people to come to him and receive the good things he has for us, made possible through Jesus. I know he has changed my life for the better.

But this isn’t just for me, God’s will is for all people to come to him, for us to trust in Jesus the solution to our problem. But God will not force himself on anyone. You have the choice, you can reject him and try to do it by yourself, but I for one have never met a perfect person. Alternatively you can come to God trusting in Jesus’ work on your behalf. It is your choice.

But I can’t imagine, I don’t want to imagine, my life without him. I know that with him my life is so much fuller, so much better than it could ever have been without him. I have the best friend in the world, a constant companion, a guide, a counsellor, and I will have life for eternity where there will be no pain or sorrow but perfect contentment, joy everlasting, where all will be as it should be.

So now I choose to live my life for him. To server him with all I have so that others may come to know the life he offers to them, and to see God glorified as he rightly deserves!   

This is what makes me tick!