Proclaimer Blog
A Cornhiller remembered
Today is the thanksgiving service for Phil Nicolls, a Cornhiller from 2007 to 2009. This young father and husband was taken home to glory by our Sovereign Lord just recently, after being diagnosed with bowel cancer. He had been serving at Banstead Baptist Church and was due to take up a position with CWR shortly. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Josie and their daughters, Sophie, Faith & Isabel. We praise God for a loving church which will support them and care for them in this terribly difficult time. Paul Adams, the senior pastor at Banstead, writes "His ministry, supported and shared by Josia, has touched so many lives and we thank God for the life and service of our dear brother."
But it's also a reminder that we are mortal. Pastors often have a tendency to a Messiah-complex and part of that is to see this great trajectory of ministry laid out before us where countless people are saved under our ministry and many others built up. In fact we are no more or less than God makes us and that includes, soberingly, for how long we may minister in this life. Who knows for how long the Lord will graciously spare us? But it does bring Paul's pastoral words into focus. He knows his time is nearing an end (2 Tim 4.6). Yet he links this clear sense of demise to his charge to Timothy to 'Preach the word.' Verse 6 begins with a 'for….'
And who knows the effect that even a short faithful ministry might have had? What if, even in those few short years, the word that was sown through Phil's work and life reaped a harvest 30, 60 or even 100 times that which was sown? What a harvest that would be!
So brothers, give yourself to this exacting and God-glorifying task. We long to help you to do this well and keep going – that is our raison d'etre. And surely the untimely death of a brother servant is a reminder that we must make the most of the opportunities that God graciously gives us.