Dear friends,

Many of you will have heard by now that our friend Jem Sewell died very suddenly and unexpectedly on Monday. We knew him from his time as pastor of Slough Baptist Church, where Matthew trained for ministry. He was far more than a colleague and mentor, quickly becoming the closest of friends. We loved him dearly and have found this week exceptionally difficult. Jem pastored Slough Baptist Church for twenty years, during which time he moderated for DGBC twice, and he preached at Matthew’s induction service here. In 2012 the family moved to London and the following tribute is on their current church’s website. We echo all their sentiments:

‘It is with overwhelming sadness that we announce the death of our friend and pastor, Jem Sewell. Jem passed away very suddenly on Monday 16th November at home. As there was no warning of this, shock and disbelief is the pervading emotion for his family and our church family. Jem has been the Pastor at Westbourne Park Baptist Church since 1st October 2012, when God led him and Hil and their family to us. Over this time he has been committed in care, support and spiritual leadership of the church here. He has been the God-given person that saw our new church building to completion, and has pastored us through the uncertainty of the pandemic with consistency and love.

Whilst Jem’s death has been so sudden, there are many things that comfort us. Jem always began to pray and consider his sermons on a Monday. His Bible is open on his desk at Matthew 6:19-21, the passage for this coming Sunday. The title of this section is ‘Treasures in Heaven’. Amongst our grief we know that Jem is now with God in heaven. He is receiving the reward of the years of his service to his Lord, and his ministry for His kingdom. Our hearts are broken and we don’t understand why. However, we do know that God is in control; That God holds the masterplan and we WILL trust Him.

The verse that Jem has chosen for our motto text for 2021 is Philippians 4:6-7

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

As a church leadership team we pray that we will all know God’s peace and comfort at this time. And we particularly pray this for Hil, Luke & Emily, Bryony, Ruby and Lydia and that they will know God’s everlasting arms holding them in their grief.’

Jem was an avid reader, and during lockdown he recorded himself reading three books from The Chronicles of Narnia, which can be heard on his church’s website. It felt right to us to recall here the final words of the final book in the series, as our own tribute to him. After their death Peter, Edmund and Lucy stand before the great lion Aslan, who reassures them that they will never leave him again:

…and as [Aslan] spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Jem is at the beginning of Chapter One and we know the best is yet to come.

With thanks for your love and prayers,
Matthew and Pauline