This month’s letter comes from our new curate, Rev Helen:
I was born and bred in Oldham and have lived there all my life with my parents. I worshiped, with my family at our family church, Oldham Parish Church (St Mary with St Peter) until September 2020.
The Church of England was always an influence on me even through education. I attended two Church of England schools, St Martin’s CE Primary, Fitton Hill and The Blue Coat CE School. An Anglican university, York St John studying History, Theology and Religious Studies. Education and Church of England Schools have continued to follow me through my life.
After a couple of years working in a hotel and volunteering at the Greater Manchester Police Museum as a tour guide I got a job working for Manchester Diocese. I applied for a job on reception and after an interview was turned down for that was immediately offered another job in the Education Department as an administrator, eventually taking responsibility for event management, school governors and admissions.
However, alongside all this there is another story and that is the story of Gods call on my life. That came very suddenly, unexpectedly and changed the course of my life from that moment onwards. It happened when I was in an RE lesson at Blue Coat and God told me that there was something for me to do. It was a difficult thing for me to comprehend but I started to think about it, pray and started to have a chat with people I trusted to try and decipher this, mainly my colleagues at Manchester Diocese and my vicar in Oldham, Derek Palmer. It was when I was on pilgrimage to Taizé, with young people from Manchester’s Church of England Secondary Schools, that I decerned that God’s call on my life was to ordained ministry.
After going to a selection panel in January 2020 and being told that I had been accepted to start ordination training was both daunting and exciting time. I’d chosen The Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham as the college I wanted to attend because of the opportunity to study many different liberation theologies like Feminist, Masculine, Black, African, Womanist, Queer, Trauma, Disability and many others. Also the opportunity of training alongside our Methodists colleagues with their wisdom and different perspectives on Christianity, it was a privilege to be there.
Now I’m starting my time with you all at St Margaret’s and St George’s and really looking forward to it. To putting some of what I have learnt at Queen’s into practice and to seeing what it is like to be part of a parish. Most importantly I am looking forward to being with you, learning from you and about you all. While I am here, know that you are going to influence me and the minister I will be in the Church of God. We have got some exciting times ahead and I’m really looking forward to it.
Rev Helen
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 