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Rev. Cath Faulkner · Priest-in-Charge
I'm Cath. I've been part of St. Clement's church for a long time, since 1957 to be exact. I used to live in the old Vicarage in those days when my father was the Vicar here. I was a member of the youth club until I left to train as a nurse at Manchester Royal Infirmary. I worked at the hospital until I married Terry and then worked with him in our own business. Our children are grown up and live their own independent lives now. Our daughter lives in Cardiff and our son in Canberra, Australia where he emigrated in 2010. When we can get together we enjoy family times but have to manage mostly with phone calls and are thankful for Skype!! My other great passions are swimming, reading and enjoying the countryside and wildlife – not least our garden birds and squirrels and the newts that have returned to our pond year after year. I went back into nursing in 1979 after working as a Home Help for a year. I was School Nurse in Stretford, then trained to be a Health Visitor and eventually became a nurse manager in the community. I remained involved with the church though, as a member of the Church Council, reading the lessons, and being on many different committees, churchwarden, lay assistant and then a lay preacher at St Clement's. All this time I'd wondered whether God was really calling me to the ordained ministry until eventually my vocation was tested and in 1998, I started my training for ordination to local ministry (OLM). I was ordained Deacon in 2001 and Priest in 2002. My ministry was then to our own local church with a special focus on working with adults in exploring their faith, in pastoral care and in leading worship. After nine years the Vicar, Rev.d Christopher Brown, left to go to Radcliffe and we found ourselves in an interregnum from April 2010. This ended, surprisingly for me, after 18months with an invitation from the Bishop for me to accept the office of Priest-in-Charge from September 2011. I gave it a lot of thought and finally agreed. I relinquished the role of OLM and became NSM which means I still work on a non stipendiary basis and nominally part time, but I have a wider remit than I had as OLM. I was offered the help of an Associate Priest, also part time and NSM, and was pleased that Rev'd Bryan Corke felt both willing and able to join us at St Clement's and assist with the work in the parish. A new era has dawned for St. Clement's with a greater understanding and emphasis on collaborative ministry and teamwork and it is evident, with everyone working together that there are healthy signs of growth spiritually and numerically across all age groups. It's a wonderful privilege to be an ordained priest working in God's service among the people I've known for so long and grown up with. And it's also good to meet new people and be invited by them to share in their journeys of faith – or just sit with them to enjoy a conversation and a coffee now and then! |