Sharon came to the Stourdene Benefice in August 2017.

 

She first thought about her vocation at school when exploring that then controversial topic of the ordination of women for her German oral exam!  After a modern language degree and some great experiences working from Crowstone St George’s United Reformed church in Southend-on-Sea and alongside the chaplain at St David’s University College in Lampeter, she trained for ordination at Ridley Hall in Cambridge.

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Beginning in 1998 in her sponsoring Diocese of Monmouth as curate of St Mary’s, Malpas, then moving to be Ecumenical Minister of Pontprennau Community Church in East Cardiff in a new housing development; she moved to be Rector of Heyford, Stowe IX Churches, and Flore with Brockhall in Peterborough Diocese.  Changes in family circumstances has kept ministry constantly reshaping in between having three children, so Sharon has served in a variety of roles, including being chaplain to the Shakespeare Hospice and Priest-in-Charge of Stoneleigh and Ashow.

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Sharon now commutes to the Stourdene Benefice from Ilmington, where she lives with her three children.  Sharon is quite used to quickly moving on from her growing up years in an RAF family…. she sees it a strength to have therefore gained a wide ranging and varied experience which are pieced together as scraps of material are in patchwork into something beautiful and useful and lasting, as quilts become heirlooms made up from fabrics in someone’s story.

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On a good day, she sees herself as an energy bringer and pastor pioneer, who is prayerfully seeking to find out what God is already doing and where Jesus is leading us next.  On the days when she needs more time just to be, she enjoys revisiting her lapsed musical talents, crochet and knitting, turning local apples into homemade scrumpy, and her version of what everyone else calls Zumba!

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