By Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter
The Rev. James Gibbs (left) and other members of his family at their Graham Heights home in. In the background are his daughter Monique, son Mark. In front row (from left) daughter Jaime, grandson Trae and wife Maxine. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
IN THE early 1990s James Gibbs, managing director of Protective Systems and Alarms Ltd., began theological studies as a part-time student at the United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI). He went largely to fulfil a thirst to know more about God, the Bible, and theology.
By 1996, three years after he began his theological pilgrimage, and by which time he had become a full-time student, Mr. Gibbs realised that God was calling him to pastoral ministry. At present, he lives out that call as minister at the Hellshire United Church - a member congregation of the United Church of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
DIVORCED
The Rev. Dr. James Gibbs, 55, is a fairly new convert to the United Church of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. For all of his life he has been a member of a church within the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU), the last being the Boulevard Baptist Church, where he held several leadership positions except deacon. He
could not have been a deacon at the time, as Boulevard Baptist's constitution did not allow divorced persons to hold that office. (Boulevard Baptist has since revised that policy.)
He was first married in 1973. He became a divorcee in 1986.
He remarried in 1988. When he approached the JBU to sponsor him to the UTCWI, they told him 'no' because of his status as a divorcee. So he entered the institution as an independent Baptist student. While there, he felt, at times, he said, a little estranged from the student body because of his divorced status.
DOCTORAL THESIS
Later, when he did his Doctor of Ministry degree, which is offered jointly through the UTCWI and Columbia University, in Decatur, Georgia, it was not hard for him to make up his mind on what he wanted to do his thesis. It was done on divorce and remarriage in the Jamaican church. His conclusion, to put it mildly he thinks the church is much too hard on divorced persons and that divorced persons should be allowed the fullest opportunities to be involved in Christian ministry.
To support himself at UTCWI, the Rev. Dr. Gibbs and his
family moved on to the campus of the theological school and rented their Graham Heights house. He also abandoned the day-to-day running of his business, which he started in 1980, and offered his knowledge as a fire prevention consultant. His business began to falter.
By 1996 he was in deep debt and at one point his house was on the auction block. But he stayed the course. He refused to back down from his studies for he felt God wanted him to be at UTCWI. Then, he said, God sent one of his friends who charted a way for him out of his debts resulting in his being able to keep his house.
When he was graduated from UTCWI, he resolved that he was not going to go back to the day-to-day running of his business as his focus was on Christian ministry. He is still chairman of Protective Systems and Alarms Ltd., which is now run by his wife, Maxine, and his son Mark. He focused on ministry that involved working with a number of Baptist pastors, helping them in their preaching ministry. While doing his doctoral studies at home, he was invited by the United Church of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands to be a pastor.
OFFER FROM UNITED CHURCH
Since the prospect of him becoming a minister in the JBU seemed bleak, he accepted the offer from the United Church which ordained him in 2002 and inducted him as Minister at the Hellshire United Church last February.
The fifth of seven children born to John and Lena Gibbs, this theological late bloomer spent his early years in Stewart Town, Trelawny. He professed faith in Jesus Christ at seven years old but was baptised in 1983.
According to him, "I was hiding from church." He has many tales of socio-economic hardship, especially in his teenage years spent between Trelawny and Kingston. In fact, he has effectively been on his own since he was 15. However, he was ambitious and he sent himself to the then College of Arts, Science and Technology (now known as the University of Technology) where he was graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering.
Hellshire United was begun about 10 years ago, largely through the work of foreign missionaries. The Rev. Dr. Gibbs is the church's first Jamaican pastor. He has 72 members and 30 adherents. About 80 per cent of the membership are young people - most under 20 years old. The Rev. Dr. Gibbs glows when he thinks about ministry to a congregation of predominantly adolescents. He sees much potential and has begun to see evidence of many of them being shaped for ministry.
ACQUAINTED WITH PAIN
He has known success. He is a former national darts champion, and in 1983 he placed 16th in the World Masters Championship in Darts. But he has also known pain - the pain of divorce, the pain of bereavement - such as when his brother, Errol was shot and killed at a wake, supposedly by members of a gang in 1989 in Seaview Gardens. Errol Gibbs was for many years an ace photographer at The Gleaner.
"Because of my exposure and experiences in the secular world and in corporate life - it helps when I minister to basic family struggles. It gives me an openness to talk about my own experiences of hardships and pain. Running a business, he said, has equipped him eminently with the administrative skills needed to lead a church. But he recognises that he can't afford to be too 'bossy' in church and the way he would be in corporate life. But he does not miss secular life. Living on the campus of the UTCWI taught him to live daily on little. After his first degree when he returned to his spacious house in Graham Heights, he felt awkward trying to live within the comforts of his home.
It was not a hard transition, he maintains, from being a businessman to being a pastor except as the change had an impact on his financial obligations to his family. His main culture shock in ministry has been "to see the level of need that exists among a wide cross-section of persons in his church. I found out I had to be careful how I used my time, how I related to people, how I managed myself, how much of what was happening that I internalised. Playing tennis has revived me.
He harbours no bitterness toward the JBU. He is focused on getting on with pastoral ministry. "I said to the United Church, I am coming to you knowing that I have something to offer. It is not that I am coming to build a life or build a family or worry about how my children will go to school. I am coming to offer to the church myself and to work without worrying whether I eat, drink or sleep. I come giving myself totally. I have no remorse, and no regrets about leaving secular life, for the cause of serving Christ."
