FAITH IN THE COMMUNITY: Delighted to be the vicar of Portsdown and Purbrook
I’VE had a fabulous time being a curate – but now I’m looking forward to the excitement of running a parish!
Last week it was announced that I will be the new vicar of Portsdown and Purbrook. I’ll be moving from my current role in Denmead over the summer and will be leading the work at Christ Church, in London Road, Widley, and at St John’s Church.
In my time as curate in Denmead, I’ve been involved in pastoral ministry, youth and children’s work, and the village’s holiday club, as well as leading services and preaching.
It has given me a real opportunity to grow as a priest, to develop my own style of pastoral ministry and to learn from the clergy and lay ministers here, who have been generous with their time and wisdom.
It has also deepened my understanding of God’s faithfulness within a community and given me time and space to hear people’s stories – that’s real time, not just fleeting moments, which allows you to walk alongside people through their joys and challenges.
I had done a placement at the Rowans Hospice and felt that Purbrook was a place where I was supposed to be. It was a niggling call that wouldn’t go away. I went into the process of applications and interview partly to experience what that was like, but also because I didn’t want to let this one go unless God closed the door.
Although the parish will come first, I’m hoping to develop more links with the Rowans Hospice, with the staff and patients there and with their families.
I’m also hugely excited by the prospect of a new worshipping community in the development at Berewood, to the west of Purbrook. It’s a bit of a blank canvas, and there are so many opportunities, so we need to pray and discern which ones we should explore.
I have previously been a teacher for 24 years before I was called to ordination, so I do have a sense of what it is like to be a public figure and to lead an organisation. I hope that will be relevant experience.
And I hope the parish of Portsdown and Purbrook will continue to be a place of welcome, prayer, and belonging, where people of all ages can grow and develop in faith, and where we reflect God’s love to those who we are serving. I’ve discovered that God is often at work in the small, ordinary moments.
CHRIST CHURCH, London Road, Widley, PO6 3NB
ST JOHN THE BAPTIST, London Road, Purbrook, PO7 5LJ