Our People

Andrew Nicholls

 
 

Dr Andrew Nicholls, MA

 

Director of Pastoral Care

 
Pastoral care is what the gospel is for. In the gospel, God himself saves, secures and sanctifies us out of the deepest covenant love and faithful care, and with the gospel he equips us to be his agents in this glorious work. Oak Hill is committed to raising up a generation of church servants who increasingly know how wonderfully the gospel reaches into us, and through us into others, at every twist and turn of life."

From a Christian home and converted at university, Andrew qualified as a doctor from the University of Cambridge in 1992, and almost immediately began exploring a change of job. After a year on the Cornhill Training Course, three years on the staff of UCCF (where he met and married Hilary), and a two year apprenticeship in south-west London, he arrived to study theology at Oak Hill.

‍Returning to south west London, he began as a pastor in a church plant with a growing sense that there was a lot to learn about people, especially about how God and his word relate to the joys and struggles of real life. After five years he started studying online with the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF), and was thrilled to discover more of how, through the gospel, Christ shepherds us at every moment. From 2013-18 he was a pastor in Dundonald Church, Raynes Park, London, with particular responsibility for small groups and pastoral care.

‍Andrew has been Director of Pastoral Care here since 2018. He is also a founding trustee of a crisis pregnancy centre and a tutor on the Certificate Course of Biblical Counselling UK, which aims to help churches be places of Christ-centred change. With Helen Thorne he has written a course for churches called Real Change: Becoming More like Jesus in Everyday Life (2018, New Growth Press). He and Hilary have two grown-up sons and a lively cocker spaniel, and Andrew keeps bees.