A chat with the new chair
Get to know Jeremy Moodey, our new chair of trustees in this exclusive interview.
Photo: Jeremy Moodey took up the role of chair of trustees at CMS in April
Naomi Rose Steinberg, head of communications at CMS, finds out more about our new chair of trustees Jeremy Moodey.
Growing up in faith
Naomi: Can you tell me something about your faith story?
Jeremy: I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, and was baptised and confirmed. When I went to university I got involved in the Christian Union and I started going to a Church of England church and found that was probably much more my kind of happy space, so I could say I became an Anglican at university. There was no Damascus road experience – I was brought up in the faith and can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a faith.
Naomi: Do you have any favourite passages of Scripture?
Jeremy: There is a verse in John’s Gospel (John 12:24) about how a kernel of wheat, when it falls to the ground and dies, begins to produce growth. That has been quite a powerful verse in my life, as there have been moments of loss and death, but then there has been growth that follows. I think that sometimes needs to be a word for all of us. What is it in us, in our lives, that needs to die before God can do something new?
Naomi: Do you think that’s true for organisations as well?
Jeremy: It might be, yes. I took organisations like BibleLands as it was [now Embrace the Middle East] and then Sons and Friends of the Clergy [now Clergy Support Trust], where there were certain things that did need to die before there could be new growth and new flourishing. That was part of my role as CEO in those organisations.
Growing in experience
Naomi: Before you were a charity CEO, you worked as a diplomat. I would think diplomacy would be pretty good preparation for being a board chair?
Jeremy: Coming back to that verse from John’s Gospel, that something has to die before there’s new growth, we also take things from each stage of life.
Taking the experience of working in the Foreign Office, the interpersonal skills, which were helpful. In the City at Rothschild I had financial skills, which is good for any board. From my 12 years as a charity CEO, there are charity governance skills, management skills and HR skills. So I’m taking those collectively on to this next challenge.
Called to mission
Naomi: Why CMS? Being board chair is a big deal and big responsibility.
Jeremy: I’ve been on the other side of the table, as it were, as a charity CEO. I’ve worked with really good chairs and I’ve seen what works.
“I felt the Lord was calling me to a chair role, but I could only ever be a chair of an organisation I felt really passionate about.”
CMS is as good as it gets in terms of an opportunity. So I was really excited when the opportunity came, and delighted and honoured to be appointed.
Naomi: You’ve been a part of Anglican church circles, and now you are an ordained minister. What’s your perception of how big a priority mission seems to be, or what might be some misconceptions you think people might have about mission?
Jeremy: The church has to be about mission. We all have our marching orders with the Great Commission, whichever form it comes, whether in Matthew 28 or different versions in the other Gospels and in Acts.
I think the Church of England is particularly preoccupied at the moment with declining numbers, and how it can reverse that. To become a church that’s growing, that’s bolder, that is younger, in that sense it needs to reflect on how it goes about its mission, the different ways of doing it. But mission is also about just responding to the needs on our doorstep and I think social action, which of course is part of what CMS does, is also part of that. I think there needs to be a broad, holistic definition of mission that as much meets people’s needs as it talks about Jesus.
Naomi: And do you think a person sitting in church thinks about mission in that way, or do you think they think about mission at all?
Jeremy: I think a lot of churchgoers do think about mission, but it’s likely that they will have a fairly traditional view of mission and particularly of mission as sending people abroad.
“I think one of the challenges that CMS faces is encouraging people to think of mission in a different way.”
It does include sending, but it also includes receiving, it includes working on our own doorstep, it includes empowering local Christians. That is all part of CMS’s strategy, but trying to encourage people to think about mission afresh is a big challenge.
Naomi: One of the things that we’ve been talking about more lately is what migration means for mission. Are there any other big global trends that you feel will be impactful on or overlap with our work?
Jeremy: Well, and this is linked to migration and population movements, one is political instability. We’re seeing that in DRC right now and the impact that’s having on our work. I think the world is becoming increasingly unstable. The post-war certainties that I grew up with and relied on are now disappearing rapidly. So how can we, as a mission-focused organisation, respond to instability, violence, war?
I think one of the great merits of the new strategy of CMS is that there’s a sense of going to the edges and seeing what we can encourage and catalyse with what’s happening now, rather than imposing solutions from outside.I think that’s very powerful and especially given the increasing post-Christian identity of Britain, what can we be learning from the edges to bring back into our own context? I think that’s another dynamic of global mission that we’re seeing, that it’s not just a one-way street. It needs to be two ways.
Challenges to come
Naomi: What do you sense are some of our biggest challenges right now?
Jeremy: Obviously we need to find a new CEO, so that’s a key challenge for me.
The board isn’t as diverse as it could be and so bringing diversity in, however you define that, I think is important. Ethnic diversity is a key challenge.
Engaging a new generation of supporters in the new CMS is a big challenge especially in the context of people who have a traditional kind of sending model of mission in their mind.
Working out how CMS as a mission organisation from the Anglican tradition navigates changes in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, I think that’s something we will have to address as an organisation in the coming months and years.
For any organisation, it’s striking a balance between focus, prioritisation of resources, which are limited, and also being flexible and able to respond to where the needs are. My impression is that CMS is doing that very well for now.
Naomi: How can the CMS family pray for you?
Jeremy: Charles Clayton is a very tough act to follow. I’ve known Charles for many years and so it was a real privilege to know that I was sort of taking over from him. He is a very godly man, very experienced. So please pray for me as I begin this role.
Pray that as a board we take all these challenges prayerfully, that we’re able to strengthen the board, especially in particular areas of skill that we need, and that that we find the right person to succeed Alastair.
