So what's next?

May 19, 2023

So what's next for the McBays?

So what am I up to? Why a website? What's happening?


Stephen and I have been married almost ten years. We have two things that we share at the foundation of our relationship and our faith. (1) We'll go anywhere and do anything (God tells us to do), (2) the safest place to be is in God's will. Bold principles to live by but, I'd argue, also the best. That's the short answer of how we got here. Now for the longer one...


  • Almost 20 years ago, God made it very clear to me, while I was camping in the Australian outback with a group of young Christians, that He had called me to be a teacher. It was confirmed in completely unexpected ways, several times, from people I barely knew and with a caveat that it would not look as I might expect it to look…
  • A few years later, after some prayer, God made it very clear that He was calling me to ordination—something I categorically did NOT want to do and had strongly resisted the idea of for years.
  • A few years after that, while at seminary, God made it very clear to me that He was calling me to a PhD in biblical studies. I’d always loved biblical studies, but I had disqualified myself from even thinking about taking it further because I didn’t look like a traditional biblical scholar.


I have loved so much of what I have been able to do in and through my ministry at St. Martin's. It's been a huge privilege and I have been incredibly grateful to really get to do so much of what I love and to serve God's kingdom in and through the life of this particular parish. I never imagined for a minute I'd end up in Houston, Texas, at the largest Episcopal church in North America! But it has been a blessing in many different ways.


However, throughout my life and work thus far, I've always found myself somewhere in the overlap between education and the church. (Imagine a venn diagram with "church" in one circle and "theological education" in the other -- I've found myself where they crossover). I've taught high school, seminary, undergrad, overseas (the Far East) and adult Sunday School in sunny Texas. I've preached in a number of those places too. I love teaching. I love preaching. I love research. When I went forward for selection for ordination I was pegged as "potential theological educator" because of those two hats - the ministerial and the academic.

While there have been many strands of prayer and reflection that have gone into my decision to make a change, one core reason is that I really believe God has called me to serve both the church and the academy. Not only do seminaries need lecturers (aka professors) who care about Scripture and can help pastors and teachers who are well-trained and informed in biblical scholarship and interpretation, they also need a safe place to land when challenged by their academic learning. I have spent a lot of time in theological education and my faith was shaken, honed and (ultimately) refined. But this journey was encouraged along by faculty who were trained and educated with the best of them and also had a deep and Spirit-filled life of faith in Jesus. They listened to my questions. They gave me space to wrestle through the difficulties of having my naive faith confronted by biblical criticism. They helped me separate the theological wheat from the irrelevant chaff. And they helped me to still seek Jesus, even in all of that uncertainty. 

The church needs pastors who are well-trained and theologically informed -- and the academy needs tutorial staff who have a commitment to both the book-learning and the one about whom the books attempt to speak.


Serving at St. Martin's has given me a wonderful experience of ministry, from pastoral care and walking grieving families through the death of a loved one, to preaching to a nave full of people to launching Riverway as an fresh expression of our Anglican heritage. I want to take this experience, with my heart for teaching and the academy and use it best for God's service.


But in order to take a step forward, sometimes you gotta take a step back!


For various reasons, Stephen and I came to the conclusion God was calling for us to take the risk of creating space in our schedules (and a gap in my regular paycheck) to prepare for this transition. While the world says we should always be jumping from one thing to the next and never taking a breath, we're pretty sure that God calls us to live one day at a time, one moment at a time and to trust Him, even when the stakes seem high.


I am hopeful I will be able to take up an academic position by the end of the year. Wycliffe Hall is currently looking to expand their faculty with a lecturer (aka professor) who can help shape and equip clergy and other missionaries and ministers. Who can teach biblical studies, preaching, and help students apply their biblical learning to the reality of pastoral ministry. To find out more about Wycliffe Hall and help support them in this effort, click here. I believe this would be a really great fit for me and is where God is calling us next!

By Suse McBay July 29, 2025
A sermon given at an all-age service at the wonderful church of St Wilfrid's, Calverley, on June 29th. The reading was Matthew 16:13-20: it was fun to work the film Labyrinth into a sermon on a very well-known text!
By Suse McBay June 18, 2025
Treasures in Jars of Clay by Revd Will Donaldson  Good morning everyone and thank you so much, Michael, for asking me to preach on this wonderful occasion. It’s a real honour and privilege to do so! Some of you know that I was a tutor here for 6 years from 2007: it’s a joy to be back in my retirement on the chaplaincy team, alongside Jane and Bruce. What will be your abiding memory of Wycliffe Hall? It might b e lectures, whether at Wycliffe or in the Faculty, when your eyes were opened and your mind stretched to explore the heights and depths of academic theology It might be the Focus mornings or the Study Weeks, with their leaning towards practical preparation for ministry, underpinned by parish placements and missions It might be worship in chapel, when you experienced the presence of Christ in the singing, the preaching, the liturgy and the celebration of communion. It might be your fellowship group, where you got to know a group of fellow students really well and journeyed with them through the training process, and they were there for you when you needed support It might be the enjoyment of belonging to the wider community – the chats over coffee in the Common room, or the discussions over lunch, or the theological boxing matches in Fight Club (where no punches were pulled!), or the more refined formal occasions like Matriculation and formal halls, or our community notices on Tuesdays with the drum rolls and the gold awards and – not to forget - the Principal’s jokes (all under the pretext of needing to link things up!), or maybe your abiding memory will be the Hall Photo last month that ploughed on despite thunder, lightning and torrential rain! How hilarious was that! An d you could spot the people whom Jesus would have called ‘oh ye of little faith’ – they had brought their umbrellas! There’s one other memory that I hope you will take with you into your future ministries: it’s our text for this morning: 2 Cor. 4.7. - ‘ But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us’ . Let me explain why I would love you to embed this in your heart as we send you out… 1. We have been entrusted with Treasure

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