An interview with the outgoing Principal

Ashley, you’ve always said that wherever you go, people tell you about the encounters with God and the transformation they’ve experienced at Cliff College. As you look back on your eight years of Principal, what are some of those stories that stand out to you? 

The ones that stand out are the simple stories of folk who find their way to Cliff, sometimes by accident, and this becomes their place. Evie’s story, which I tell often, is one of a nervous, under-confident young woman starting on the Cliff Year and being unsure whether this was the right place for her – she stayed on to do the degree programme, became student president, and is now working in the fashion industry in London. Through all of that, God used the welcome and the community and the education we offer to transform her and shape her into the person she is now. There are graduates like Bradley, who would say of himself that he’s not the most academic person on the planet, but we gave him a chance and he comes out with a degree and is now working as a lay pastor; students like Sande, who lives in Uganda and studies online with us, and whose education journey with us has transformed him and his ministry. 

I'm amazed at how many of those stories there are, when I sit back and think about it. In my time we've seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students for whom Cliff is now part of their life and their story. What I’ve found with Cliff is that it gets under your skin. People think they’re coming for a gap year or for a short course, and then they find they want to stay on for further study, or they want to stay connected in some other way.

As someone who came into role without having studied at Cliff, how has it gotten under your skin and changed you? 

I think if you cut me down the middle now, you’ll see two things – I’m a Stokey lad, and I’m passionate about Cliff. Over eight years I’ve seen the kind of transformation Cliff College works in people, and how it’s transformed me as well. When I started in September 2017, I felt like an imposter – I didn’t have an academic background, I hadn’t studied at Cliff myself. But these years have taught me a number of things, including that not having an academic background doesn’t mean you can’t love and be passionate about learning! I’ve developed my skills of theological reflection, and I’m leaving with a new passion for theological education and how it can be transformational to the local church. And I’ve recognised that what I’ve brought to the table, my experience of equipping leaders and that way that I’ve emphasised mission and evangelism, has changed the College as well. Every student on our degree programmes, undergrad and postgrad, engages in mission. We make that link really clearly between the theology of the classroom and mission and ministry on the ground, and I’m really proud that’s the case. I think it's why we've got some of the best courses on the market right now, because we've made that link well, and some of that is my imprint around the centrality of evangelism and mission and the raison d’être of the College. It's always been our history, but it's about how we make that real in who we are now.

As much as you’ve changed and the College has changed, we’re also in a changed world from where we were eight years ago. What do you think Cliff has to offer church today? 

One of the things that will define my time at Cliff is the COVID-19 journey. It radically changed higher education and theological education and has changed our trajectory as a College. The work we had started pre-2020 on online platforms for theological education – which we initially developed to support our global church partners in their learning – became something we needed to develop for ourselves as well. And I think we’ve become leaders in the theological world with our online work. We've redesigned everything from the bottom up to meet the needs of a hybrid world, and that’s enabled us to enrol students in the Caribbean, in the USA, in Uganda, all across Europe, as online students on our programmes. We offer quality theological education and training, both here in the UK and globally, to a really high standard. 

That transition has at times been difficult and costly – financially, in terms of time, and in the workload for our staff as well. I’m thankful to the staff for their willingness to catch that vision and make it work. We are a smaller residential community than we were pre-COVID, and that's the reality of the world we now find ourselves in. But we've also now got students all over the world who are ‘Cliffies’ – whose encounters with us and our education won’t include visiting our physical location. We’re still learning what that looks like, but it’s really exciting to see that start to happen – for folks around the world to identify themselves as Cliff students and to experience the same transformation that has happened through and in and because of this place for over 100 years. 

The first time I interviewed you, back in 2019, you talked about wanting the second half of your ministry to be about ‘investing in the leaders of the future, developing them to be the best people they can be before God.’ Tell me about what you’re going on to next, and how that work of investing in leaders will continue in the role you’re stepping into.

I’m stepping back into a local church ministry, but a very different kind of local church! It’s a church of a few thousand people over in the US, in Illinois, and one of the tasks they’ve asked me to do in my first year is to develop a leadership programme. I’ll be looking at who the leaders coming through in their context are, and how we can build a programme to train and prepare and release them to grow the local church. I feel equipped to do that in a way I couldn't have done eight years ago. A lot of what I've learned and put into practice here about equipping and training the next generation of leaders will go with me into that context – along with opportunities to pastor a congregation, to get back to preaching regularly to them and to do that ministry work I’m passionate about.

It’s so wonderful that God has used this place of transformation and equipping to equip you for the next part of your ministry. What are you going to miss about being Principal, and what are you really not going to miss?! 

I’ll miss my drive into College in the morning, and my drive home at night – both the beauty of the drive itself and the processing space it gives me. I’ll miss the site, and of course the team here, who have become like a family to me in many ways. We’ve developed a great team at Cliff in the past few years, with both the senior team and wider staff team buying in together to seeing a vision and making it happen. And I’ll miss the cycle of life with our students – the intentionality of starting the year, getting to know them, investing in them, seeing the transformation God works in them and then releasing them back into the world and into ministry. 

Those who have worked with me over the past eight years will know I will not miss marking! I do it, and I’ve done it, but I’m not going to miss it! As much as I’ve talked about the positives of where Cliff is, there are some real pressures in our sector and context. The HE sector in the UK is struggling; the theological education sector is struggling; and the established church in the UK is in decline and trying to reimagine itself, and holding the College in all those conversations can be really hard and tiresome. I’m not going to miss the pressure of that, or the heaviness that comes from that work. 

As you think about Cliff in the coming years, both the challenging context and the amazing work that God continues to do in and through this place, what are your hopes and prayers for the College, and how would you encourage others to pray for it?

I am looking forward to being a supporter of the College from the sidelines and, I hope, being a supportive voice to the next principal. I've appreciated the times when previous principals have dropped me occasional notes or messages of encouragement and support, and I look forward to being able to do that for my successor. I’m looking forward to hearing more stories, seeing where our current students end up and all that they will do in the service of the church and the kingdom. 

In terms of prayer, I’m praying for a new vision, and a new strategy and direction, as Andrew Stobart steps into the role of Principal. Cliff has had to transition itself so many times through its history and story – as any institution has to be willing to do in order to survive – and it will have to do that again in light of the contexts in which it finds itself. We can’t be the College we were in the 1980s or the 1990s, because the world we are in and the church we are seeking to serve aren’t the same as they were in the 1980s or 1990s. 

So, my prayer is for Cliff’s leadership to catch that new vision and have the courage and boldness to pursue it, and for the supporters of the College to trust them in that process and recognise the importance of following where God is leading. I have to be a former principal who says, ‘it's not like it was when I was principal – and thank God for that, because it needs to be different.’ I hope and pray that our wider community and the wider church recognise that need for change and continue to support the ministry that Cliff has in the years to come. I pray for God’s blessing upon Cliff and that it continues to sense the call of God’s Spirit and goes where God sends it to.