|
 The
Queen has approved the appointment of a Coventry priest as
the next Bishop of Wolverhampton. The announcement that the
Revd Clive Gregory, currently Team Rector of Coventry East,
is to succeed the Rt Revd Michael Bourke, who retired at
Christmas, was made this morning by 10 Downing Street.
The new Bishop will be consecrated as a bishop in Southwark
Cathedral in London on Thursday 19th April and will be
formally installed as only the fourth Bishop of
Wolverhampton at a special service in Lichfield Cathedral on
Saturday 5th May.
Clive Gregory was brought up in a Christian family and spent
his formative years in a suburban church in Sevenoaks, Kent
where his father was churchwarden and clergy were frequent
visitors. His ‘surprising’ call to ordained Christian
ministry came about during a stint working on a farm during
the Hop harvest.
He said: “In common with many people I needed to make the
faith my own rather than my parents’ faith. It had to become
a living faith. I was working at a Kent Oast House during
the hop harvest when I received a persistent call to pursue
ordained ministry and it wouldn’t go away. It was very
surprising because although I considered myself to be a
Christian I don’t think I was very devout.”
He spent a gap-year as a volunteer with the Simon Community
supporting women suffering from alcoholism and homelessness
in the east end of Glasgow, an experience he describes as
“very formative, challenging and wonderful.”
He said: “This opened my eyes to a world I couldn’t
otherwise have experienced. It made me realise the church
exists to serve and gave me a passion for urban life and
ministry.”
During his training he undertook a placement in the parish
of Kirby in Liverpool and following ordination served his
curacy in the Kent seaside town of Margate where he began a
Bible-study group in a back-street pub.
He moved to Coventry as Chaplain of Warwick University where
he fronted a show on the university’s own local radio
station exploring the links between music and spirituality.
While he enjoyed his work with students and the strong
ecumenical and inter-faith links which had built up in the
chaplaincy department, he missed the opportunity of leading
a diverse community in worship at the great Christian
festivals of Christmas and Easter when the students and
staff had returned to their homes; and after six years at
the university he returned to parish ministry.
He became Team Rector of Coventry East - a parish of four
churches just off the Coventry ring road. It was a parish
facing significant challenges - not least in the cost of
repairing a crumbling Victorian church building in the
Hillfields area of the City.
Rather than repair the building he set about making it
redundant and built a new church and community centre next
door. He explained: “ St Peter's Community Centre runs the
building and is responsible for maintaining it out of its
revenue. The building is in use every day of the week and
the church is freed from the responsibility of maintaining
its own building.
“The existing building was unsustainable and had been for a
number of years - that’s why it had deteriorated to the
state it had. This can be dispiriting for congregations and
clergy as all our efforts are spent trying to maintain a
building which is only used for one day a week.
“The church doesn’t exist to preserve buildings but too
often that can consume all our time, efforts and money.
Buildings are important but they are only of use if they
serve the vision rather than the other way around.
“Here in Coventry East our vision was for our churches to
become community hubs able to serve the local community in a
whole-hearted way. This has been done most significantly at
St Peter’s where we built the new church but the three other
churches in the parish have been turned into community hubs
in different ways.
“It is our way of encouraging church growth - not just
numerical growth, but also growth in community service.”
On the day his appointment as Bishop of Wolverhampton was
announced by 10 Downing Street, Clive Gregory was visiting
The Crossing at St Pauls, a church in the town centre of
Walsall which had redeveloped its Victorian building to
include a retail area, meeting rooms and coffee bar to serve
its town-centre community; before moving on to Aldridge
Parish Church which is preparing to submit plans to further
extend the Medieval church to include new church rooms to
replace “temporary” buildings erected before World War Two. |
