New Senior Minister Appointment
During the last 16 months Upton Vale have been searching for a new Senior Minister. During this pastoral vacancy we have been supported by a Moderator, Rev Carl Smethurst of South West Baptist Association. We wish to express our deep gratitude to Carl and to local churches and their leaders for supporting us through this time.
Our church family has been involved in discerning who our next Senior Minister should be. We are delighted to share with you that Simon Clay has accepted the call to take up that role.
Alex Kittow, Chair of Elders says “Simon brings a wealth of church leadership experience and will be an excellent part of the leadership team and church family at UV. We are praying that alongside our friends at other churches in Torbay we will see many more in our community come to know the joy of worshipping Jesus Christ and we will all be increasingly equipped to be disciples who make disciples”.
Introducing the Clay family
“I’m Simon and I have been married to Katie for coming up to 13 years. We have three children: Amelia (10), Lucie (7) and Toby (4). I was born in Leeds, and I am proud Yorkshireman (despite losing my accent over the years living in the south!). I moved to Leicester when I was six and it was here that, whilst at Whetstone Baptist Church, that I came to faith and was baptised as a believer. I moved further south to Canterbury to study English Literature at the University of Kent and stayed there for the next fifteen years. Whilst in Canterbury I met my wife Katie, I started my career in education, and we had two of our three children. As a member of Canterbury Baptist Church, it was both a delight and a challenge to serve as one of the elders during a period of renovating the building and being in interregnum. We moved, as a family, back to Leicester in 2019 just before Toby arrived. I received the call to pastoral ministry in 2020 at the church in which I found faith and was baptised which was one of those lovely gifts from God. I have served as Minister in Training at Whetstone Baptist Church since then and we are thrilled, daunted, excited and full of wonder to be called back ‘down south’ to serve UV as Senior Minister.
I have worked as a classroom teacher and senior leader in schools across Kent and Leicester and my heart has been particularly to support children (and their families) with additional educational needs, those in poverty and those with significant behavioural challenges. It was a privilege to serve as acting head of a behaviour school providing education to 80 of the most challenging young people in Kent and to advocate for those who didn’t have a voice in complexities of the education system. Over a decade in leadership and education, particularly in areas of great poverty, has been a wonderful training ground for my eventual call into pastoral ministry.
I enjoy watching any kind of competitive sport and am a big fan of Leeds United and Leicester Tigers. I look forward to sharing in the pain of following Torquay United in the years ahead!
The journey to receiving the call to serve Upton Vale Baptist Church is one littered with those unexplainable ‘Holy Spirit’ moments. The congregation and leadership have really shone with the love and compassion Jesus expects of His followers and we, as a family, have felt wonderfully supported throughout the process. The adventure ahead is going to be full of joys, sorrows, ups and downs but I am so expectant that God is going to do wonderful things at UV over the coming years and it is a privilege beyond words to partner in that gospel work with Him".
Simon’s Ordination service will take place on the afternoon of Saturday, 6 July at Whetstone Baptist Church. The church extends a welcome to anyone who would like to attend.
The Clay family will be moving to Torquay during July and Simon will start with us in August. Simon’s Induction service will take place on Saturday, 14 September at Upton Vale and the celebration is open to all.