TISCA is approaching its 30th anniversary in 2025. We are excited about the future – the work is growing and seems to be needed as much as ever. We shall be focusing on sharing more widely about TISCA and fundraising next year: might you become a personal supporter of our mission? Here some of our former General Secretaries share their memories of TISCA past…

Church House, Westminster where TISCA was launched in 1995

Wadhurst College, Sussex, where the fellowship originated that became TISCA

Ken Barnes (TISCA General Secretary 1995-1998):
I am sure that I will not be the only one who likes to spend a few moments at church before the service begins reviewing the words of the hymns, so I was recently very pleased to see one Sunday morning that we were to sing a hymn with an author’s name beneath that brought to my mind many good and thankful memories.

As we give thanks to God for the first thirty years of TISCA the name of Rev. John Eddison may not be well known among our current members and supporters, but he was the author not only of some good hymns but also the inspiration for the formation of TISCA. He planted the seed from which the organisation we have today has grown.

After ordination and a short curacy, John moved on to what was to be his life’s work as a staff worker with Scripture Union for independent schools – especially, but not exclusively, preparatory schools, where his gift for proclaiming a biblical message in an attractive and relevant way made him a welcome regular preacher in chapels and assemblies at schools throughout the country. His godly insight and biblical wisdom made him a great source of support and encouragement for many heads and staff seeking to live out their Christian faith in their schools. He was a governor of many independent schools and for many years a greatly respected chaplain to the Prep. Schools’ (IAPS) annual conference.

It was at John’s initiative that a group of Christian heads began to meet together two or three times a year for prayer, fellowship and discussion and to seek a Biblical perspective on the issues of the day we faced in our schools. John always brought his grace and wisdom to those meetings and it was a natural progression when he suggested that Christian staff and governors may benefit from similar fellowship and support. The rest, as they say, is history.

John would be thrilled to see how TISCA has grown and the way in which his vision is being fulfilled today in the face of many issues that are far more challenging and divisive that we could have imagined thirty years ago.

In the words of his hymn we sang that Sunday morning, John also left us the legacy of a prayer that you may find as relevant and helpful as I do, as we look back with thanksgiving and forward in faith and trust for the future:

Father, although I cannot see
the future you have planned,
and though the path is sometimes dark
and hard to understand,
yet give me faith, through joy and pain,
to trace your loving hand.
When I recall that in the past
your promises have stood
through each perplexing circumstance
and every changing mood,
I rest content that all things work
together for my good.
Whatever, then, the future brings
of good or seeming ill,
I ask for strength to follow you
and grace to trust you still;
and I would look for no reward,
except to do your will.
John Eddison (1916 – 2011)

Ken Barnes

Michael Hepworth (TISCA General Secretary 1998-2002):

The origins of TISCA are rooted in a group gathered together by Christopher Bacon, Head of Dean Close School. This was initially a London based group and it gave the opportunity to pray together as we shared news of what was happening in our schools. Discussions widened when Michael Coates (then HM of Monkton Junior School) began to guide us to think in a more holistic fashion and further strengthened when the group was joined by David Prior. He was Secretary of the Centre for Marketplace Theology and aimed at Christians who worked in the London financial Marketplace – “The City” – to live as authentic disciples of Christ. He quotes Ephesians 2:8ff. God who made us alive to show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus “for we are God’s workmanship … created in Christ Jesus to do the good works which God prepared in advance for us to do”. This theological insight is important – as in Colossians 3:17: “Whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him”. It’s not what we say that matters, Jesus said, it’s how we live that counts.

I was appointed as General Secretary following Ken Barnes and I was helped and influenced by Ann Holt, who was working with CARE for Education. She worked with me in running courses for all manner of subjects throughout the UK. They were all holistic in nature. For example, we wrote to all 400 school listed in the ISC list, inviting them to apply for a place in “Leading Values in School Management” and were well supported. I suppose “Guidance in Christian schools on Safeguarding” would be on offer in our current environment.

(Michael Hepworth was HM of Birkdale School prior to retirement from teaching.)


Mark Greenstock (TISCA General Secretary 2002-2006):
Having retired from classics and housemastering at Harrow and hoping for an easy life, in March 2002 I received the daunting invitation to take over from Michael Hepworth. With his impressive range of contacts Michael had built up the membership to just under 300 including many Heads and Chaplains. However, the diplomatic skills of Michael Coates and Tim Hastie Smith prevailed and on meeting the Trustees I was reassured by their saintly wisdom and generous support.

We set up the TISCA website and added ‘Views’ to the ‘News’ to attract an increased stream of comments and articles from members. I threw in a series of ‘Slow Food’ Bible studies in the fond hope that we could build a huge bank of resources to help busy teachers, which never quite materialised. But the greatest joy of the job was visiting schools, meeting members at first hand and hearing their stories.

We had one tense Trustees’ meeting when we had to cancel one of the two annual London meetings owing to lack of applications. I proposed we should drop to one a year which caused some dismay. But to my relief they accepted the situation, so we began a school membership scheme and held regional meetings twice or more a term. One such meeting in 2005 took place at Durham High School for Girls where Ann Templeman invited Bishop Tom Wright to speak on ‘Resurrection Thinking’ (reproduced in TNV 36). After nearly an hour of a splendid lecture delivered without any notes he disappeared to the dentist with raging toothache.

I could never have survived without my assistant secretary, Essex girl Lesley Molyneux. Her prayerful common sense and unquenchable sense of humour kept me sane amidst the welter of phone calls, emails, correspondence, newsletters and meetings. I had a wonderful four years in the job until it was time to hand on to a more talented successor.

Hugh Bradby (TISCA General Secretary 2006-2019):
Ruth and I look back on our time running TISCA with almost unalloyed pleasure. The greatest sense of accomplishment probably came each year in early September when we prepared and mailed out the large envelopes containing the latest edition of TISCA News and Views, together with other information about activities planned for the coming year. Casting an eye over the address list also prompted prayer for individuals and schools as the academic year began.

We had TISCA meetings in a number of interesting locations, perhaps none more so than the dinner in the Tower of London, when General Sir Richard Dannatt spoke movingly about the link between a believer’s Christian faith and vocation – whether that be in the military, medicine, law, politics or indeed education. The number of those gathered on that occasion, and the keen interest shown, made us aware of how significant the influence of TISCA was becoming.

Finally, we recall with gratitude many meetings of the Trustees and General Purposes Committee. TISCA has been blessed in the quality and the commitment of those who have taken responsibility for its governance. The meetings were characterised by an absence of acrimony, but rather by prayerful support and deep concern for the successful continuation of the work TISCA carries out for the greater glory of our saviour Jesus.

Our prayer that God would provide the right new General Secretary for new times was answered when Alastair Reid made himself available. Truly, as the pandemic struck in 2020 and all TISCA activities went online, Alastair and Alix (with her media gifts) proved to be ‘for such a time as this’ as the book of Esther says. We rejoice to see the TISCA brand flourishing in increasingly challenging times and give thanks for God’s faithfulness.
(Hugh Bradby was Principal at Woodstock School in India and then Head of Kingsmead School, Hoylake.)

Hugh Bradby

This article was first published in the TISCA News and Views of Autumn 2024.

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