People
Rev Mitch Forbes
Mitch has had a long and storied career as a Baptist minister. He has worked in relatively conservative churches and more ‘middle of the road’ churches. He has worked for the Baptist theological college and was an itinerate speaker for a bit. As someone who is naturally inquisitive and someone who has changed his mind on a bunch of things, Mitch is never scared to ask difficult questions of the Christian tradition and sit uncomfortably with ambiguity and uncertainty. He often finds himself feeling like the more he learns the more he realises how much more there is to learn about life, faith, God and what it is to be human.
Alongside all that, he remains convinced that Christianity and the gospel of Jesus is beautiful in its simplicity and its intellectual complexity. He believes that Christians should always value and encourage uncertainty, humility and questions as well as faith, hope and love. More than that, for Mitch, faith and hope are built out of the building blocks of uncertainty and deep questioning. Mitch believes that, at its best, Christian faith is more about honesty, authenticity, doubt, faith, love, generosity, kindness, grace and creativity than it is about having neat answers to theological questions.
Mitch is married to Kristen and has 3 beautiful kids, Harper, Lara and Leo. He loves reading, listening to lectures and podcasts, audio books and music, and is up for a chat about pretty much anything.
Bec Westphal
Bec has been working as the Children’s and Family Pastor at New Lambton Uniting Church since 2016. In 2020 she helped to establish Faith@5, a creative, intentionally intergenerational, faith community in collaboration with Jesmond Park Uniting Church.
Bec is passionate about being part of communities where relationships stretch across generations, and where young and old can explore together how faith connects with the joys, challenges and messy realities of everyday life. She loves creating spaces where people can ask questions, share their stories, insights, and gifts, and experience the love of God.
One of Bec’s favourite bible stories is from John 6 where, after hearing Jesus speak, many of his disciples leave him. Jesus turns to those who remain and asks, “What about you guys? Do you want to go too? Is this all too hard?” Simon-Peter, one of his new followers, replies with as much truth as he can muster, “Where else would we go? You’ve got the words that give life.” It’s like he’s saying “This is hard. And it doesn’t always make sense. But it makes more sense than anything else I’ve known. If I don’t stick with you, what else is there?” For Bec, Chrisitanity doesn’t exclude us from experiencing the hard stuff, or make everything make sense, but it does point to Jesus who brings life, and light, and love. In a world where we’ve got more contact than ever but are lonelier, where we have more access to information but struggle to discern truth, Bec continues to follow the way of Jesus because… what else is there?