New Church Army director of training takes up post
3 Aug 2007
The new director of training for Church Army has taken up post this week. The Revd Canon Sue Hope, who was Sheffield Diocesan Missioner for five years, started her new role 1st August.
As well as joining the senior management team of the 125 year old society of evangelists, Sue is responsible for leading the college staff as they transform Church Army's evangelism training from a residential based form to a mission-based learning model.
The 57-year-old, based at the Wilson Carlile College of Evangelism, Sheffield, has enjoyed a fulfilling career in Christian ministry since she came to faith in her early twenties. Ordained first as a deaconess, she served her 'curacy' in York Diocese before moving in 1986 to the heavily urbanised context of north Sheffield. She was the vicar of two parishes before she took up the role of Sheffield Diocesan Missioner in 2002.
Author of the recently published Mission-shaped Spirituality, Sue Hope is passionate about strengthening whole churches for mission."It's no good thinking of the solo evangelist as the only model for mission...mission today is about teams and about groups and clusters of people moving out in the service of the gospel," she says. "That means a missionary mind-set for the Church and that flows from a spirituality which is rooted in the missionary God."
Sue has significant experience of training and equipping lay and ordained for mission and evangelism at diocesan, deanery and parish level and developing new strategies for mission as well as helping to pilot national training for fresh expressions. She has served on General Synod, and the Liturgical Commission and as a Trustee of Anglican Renewal Ministries. She is a Six Preacher1 of Canterbury and a member of the College of Evangelists2. Nurtured as she was in the charismatic evangelical tradition of her early Christian experience, she has also found great resources in the catholic approach to spirituality and she is a tertiary of the Order of the Holy Paraclete, Whitby3.
Commenting on her new role, Sue said, "It's a huge privilege to be working for an organisation that I have always admired and supported. It's even more exciting to be coming into the training field at such a pivotal point, when there is a ferment of fresh thinking about mission abroad in the worldwide Church, and about how we are going to be bearer of the Good News to our contemporary culture. I'm looking forward to working with the very creative team at the college which has already been doing a lot of seminal thinking about the way ahead."
Mark Russell, Church Army's Chief Executive added; "Sue is a key leader in the Church of England, committed to evangelism and creating a mission-shaped church. Her gifts of vision, inspiration and her experience in evangelism will make a real impact on our future training agenda."
More info:
- 1Six preachers in the Cathedral Church known as "six preachers" appointed by the Archbishop from among persons who have outstanding qualities as preachers.
- 2The National College of Evangelists was founded in 1999 to support and give the accreditation of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to evangelists in the Church of England.
- 3For more information, see The Order of the Holy Paraclete
- For more information on Mark Russell, see: Mark Russell - Chief Executive or Mark Russell Twitter
