Moderator
THE REVD
SHEILA MAXEY
MODERATOR OF THE GENERAL
ASSEMBLY
2004-2005
Sheila Maxey (nee Fraser) was born in 1938 in Perth,
Scotland, of a long line of Church of Scotland ministers. In 1962 she
married Kees Maxey, a Congregationalist fenlander who was a fellow member
of the Student Christian Movement at St Andrew’s University. They moved
to Brentwood, in Essex, (where they still live) and joined the New Road
Congregational (now United Reformed) Church.
Sheila spent the first 18 years there bringing up
their three children and teaching English literature in a large local
comprehensive. She was committed then, as now, to the Church and to the
community – as Junior Church leader, Christian Aid organiser for the town,
active member of the Labour Party, and keeping an ever-open door for
extended family, people in need and endless meetings.
In 1980 Sheila candidated for the United Reformed
Church ministry, trained at King’s College, London and Mansfield College,
Oxford and in 1983 was ordained and inducted to the pastorate of Brentwood
and Ingatestone. She served there for 10 years, holding District and
Synod offices, but also chairing the Brentwood Gypsy Support Group and
being a founder member of a churches’ housing initiative for the single
homeless. During this period she trained as a spiritual director and led
quiet days. She was also a member of Westminster College Board of
Studies.
In 1993 Sheila was appointed to the new post of
Secretary for Ecumenical Relations. Through her network of synod and
district ecumenical officers and through regular visits to the synod
grass-roots she gained a good knowledge of the United Reformed Church in
all its variety. She was a well-respected representative of the United
Reformed Church, both on ecumenical bodies such as Churches Together in
England, and on church-to-church unity conversations such as those in
Scotland and those with the Church of England and the Methodist Church.
Her spiritual gifts were shown when she served as chaplain to the 1997
Forum of CTE and she has, since then, written and spoken on ecumenical
worship and led quiet days.
Another aspect of Sheila’s work was to help to bring
ministers and lay people from CWM churches beyond Europe to work as
mission partners in the United Reformed Church. That too took her to
local churches in order to discuss the possibility, and to Korea and Ghana
to meet with the sending churches.
Sheila retired as Secretary for Ecumenical Relations
in July 2003.
Sheila’s commitment, over all the years, to the open
door, whether at home, in the Church or in society, means that she expects
the unexpected. She is always looking for the new thing that God is doing
and trying to catch up with the ‘fast God’ to whom she has committed her
life.
Sheila and Kees have three children and six
grandchildren. She loves her garden, holidays and days out cycling and
walking with Kees, reading new novels and new theology, good food, and
talking with friends and family.
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