It takes bravery to change careers at any age, but for some the change is made easier by a craving for a career metamorphosis that goes beyond money. For Reverend Nick Judson money had definitely played a part in his past career within the banking industry for the years while he raised his family, but the hold was not enough to keep him there once they had left home. Judson took the opportunity of an empty nest to follow a path that was always a part of him.
Judson’s father was an ordained minister. Taking his own leap of faith Nick too enrolled himself in school at UBC in the Vancouver School of Theology. “The desire to become a minister had been there since the beginning for me,” said Judson. “In 2003/2004 my wife and I talked about me becoming what I had always hoped to be and together we decided it was time. So after twenty years in the banking industry, Judson went back to school.
Bristol, England was Judson’s first home. He ended up in Canada in a round about way. He was smitten with a girl, Maria, a nurse, who had applied to come to Canada to practice her nursing career. That girl became Nick’s wife and in 1979 the couple had packed their belongings and moved to Prince George, B.C.. They stayed in Prince George for a year before moving to Vancouver. They stayed in the Lower Mainland for 30 some years. Their two children grew up. “Peter is a nurse at Vancouver General Hospital and Emma works in Human Resources for a chain of senior’s homes in B.C.,” said dad.
Four years of schooling later, including a year of internship in Watson, Saskatchewan, and Judson was ready to branch out on his own. “I loved Saskatchewan,” Judson stated. “The province is wonderful.”
Judson graduated in 2009. “After living in Vancouver for so long, I was craving a smaller area,” he said. “I went back on my own to Saskatchewan and was in southeast Saskatchewan with a ministry that encompassed two small communities...one of 247 people and the other of about 100. “They were tiny agricultural communities.”
Now he has come to Princeton and Keremeos to continue his new career. “Both communities were looking for a minister and they were interested in sharing a minister,” Judson continued. “The whole thing intrigued me.”
Nick and Maria soon had their bags packed and were heading west much to the delight of their children who had missed them. Nick’s first official day as a working minister in B.C. was on September 1. He worked in Keremeos last Monday and Tuesday and in Princeton on Wednesday and Thursday. Judson will be at Princeton’s St. Paul’s United Church and at Keremeos’ St. John the Divine and at Cawston’s United Church each week. He plans to hold services in Princeton on the second, third and fourth Sunday each month at 9:30 a.m. with a lay person doing the first service each month.
“I have known Princeton for twenty odd years,” stated Judson. “It is a changed community. I had travelled through and stopped many times over the years. The ministry is changing. It is a new age and Princeton is also changing. I want people to be able to come here and feel comfortable examining their own spirituality. I want their experience to be hospitable. I want to be accessible.”
Besides his ministry, Judson has other interests as well. “I am interested in theatre,” Judson stated, “and am thinking about joining the naturalists group here. I want people to know I am a part of their community.”