Visiting Preachers for the Centenary

On Sunday 20th September 2026 we welcome Rev Emma Kendall nee Sergeant to preach at Beckminster as part of our programme of visiting preachers for the Centenary Celebrations.

Emma is Vicar of Dinas, Newport and Nevern in the St David's Diocese of the Church in Wales . Christened at Beckminster, she became a member of Junior Church and then Questors. She was confirmed at Beckminster and was also a young leader in the Primary Department of Junior Church during her late teens. Emma was in the Brownies and Guides also at Beck. She accepts that Beckminster is her ‘mother church’; the place which nurtured her in the faith and was instrumental in her discipleship journey that would involve helping with the children’s holiday in Bideford for a number of years, and with MAYC weekend productions in London. When she left Wolverhampton, Emma spent a year in USA as an exchange student attending a United Methodist Church before returning to the UK in Woking. There she was part of Trinity Methodist Church for many years, being initially invited by Rev John Bishop, a former Minister at Beckminster in the sixties. Moving to Kent she worked for Scripture Union and began to attend the local anglican church making some friends through work. Emma met her husband, James, and moved to Somerset joining St Peter and St Paul’s church and began working for British Youth for Christ. Sensing a call to ordination there, Emma trained at Trinity College in Bristol and served curacy in a rural part of West Somerset. In 2023 she moved to Newport, Pembrokeshire, to become the vicar of three churches, a move that she relishes now being in the same town as mum, Margaret, and close to other family who have also moved in nearby.