Dear friends,
Thank you for such a warm welcome. It’s good to be with you as your Vicar, having been a Neighbour for 23 years and an Assistant Curate for 14!
It’s high time I introduced myself. I’m the eldest child of a Church of England priest, Dick Williams, now 93, who hit the headlines in the 1960s for translating the Gospels into Scouse. He then became the UK’s first ever Diocesan Communications Officer. Liverpool is where my roots are – although I was born in Canada, where my father was an Associate Priest in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
My mother, Su, was a Maths Teacher, Lay Reader and Poet – and enjoyed a full life, passing away in 2018 approaching her 86th birthday. I also have an amazing sister and brother – but more about them anon!
God became alive for me in meeting Jesus Christ through an overwhelming experience of being forgiven and loved while I was coming through a breakdown as an Oxford History undergraduate at the age of 20.
Personal experience of God the Holy Spirit through contemporary worship, and time spent at the international ecumenical French community of Taizé in silent prayer, have been formative in my growth as a Christian.
My call to ordination was tested through four years on a tough council estate in North Nottingham – Bestwood Estate – mainly as a welfare rights worker.
After three years in Durham, at Cranmer Hall, I was ordained in 1989 in Liverpool – serving a Curacy in another tough urban area, Liverpool 11, Norris Green and Croxteth, at the Church of the Good Shepherd – before combining the role of BBC Radio Merseyside’s Religious Affairs Producer with being a Team Vicar in Liverpool’s city centre Parish Church, Our Lady and St Nicholas, for 8 years.
It’s here that I met my wife Rosemary – and, after she found a job in Sedgley Park as a solicitor in Family Law, I had to find a role nearby so that we could get married. That’s how God led me to St Gabriel’s (when all I knew was the wonderful J.S. Restaurant, then on Kings Road)!
We have two children, Nick, 21, and Anna, 19.
My whole family is an inter-faith experiment – embracing Jewish, Muslim and Hindu elements through decisions that other members of our family have made over the years – so I live and breathe the inter-faith work that I assist with in the Diocese and further afield.
But the biggest inter-cultural journey of all was my journey down the M62… from Liverpool to Manchester. You see, from the ages of four to eight, I lived on Anfield Road, and passed a certain football ground every day, walking my way to Anfield Road County Primary, at the other end of the street…. Old Trafford and the Etihad are very different Temples and represent Other Faiths!
But St Margaret has always been a reliable patron. I was baptized in St Margaret’s, Fredericton in New Brunswick – and my very formative teenage school years were spent at St Margaret’s Church of England High School in Aigburth, Liverpool, whose Chaplain, Revd David Rees, prepared me for Confirmation. 40 of us gathered to mark our 50th anniversary in 2021.
Hobbies? Pop Music Quizzes – the only sport I can actually play!
I’m really looking forward to sharing life and ministry with you – and we will learn more of one another’s passions and interests as we seek God’s way together. Here’s a piece of distilled Biblical wisdom from Bother Roger, the founder of the Taizé Community: “What God asks of us, God also gives.” May God bless you on your journey.
Rev Steve
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 