If you love collaborative ministry, supporting people of all ages into deeper discipleship, reaching the next generation for Jesus and want to sharpen your preaching skills, this could be the curacy for you. St Saviour’s is a large, lively, gathered church located in the centre of Guildford. Guildford is a vibrant university town, with a strong sports and arts scene, surrounded by beautiful North Downs countryside and with easy access to London.
The church is diverse in terms of evangelical spirituality, without being polarised; both Word and Spirit are central to its life together, which is characterised by three distinct flourishing congregations, lively worship and a strong tradition of preaching that is biblically based, culturally and contextually relevant. The church offers a rapidly growing ministry to children, young people and their families, has a focus on adult discipleship through midweek groups and is increasingly engaged in locally focused community engagement projects.
St Saviour’s new curate will have opportunities to lead services across a range of liturgical traditions and, in time, to co-lead one of the congregations. As well as training in the full range of occasional offices, there will also be opportunity to work within a leadership team exploring and then implementing a vision focused on discipleship, mission and evangelism. Strong partnerships beyond the church offer further ministry opportunities (e.g. Guildford Town Centre Chaplaincy). This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from experienced clergy and highly skilled practitioners in children’s, youth, student, young adult and worship ministry and the church’s additional needs ministry.
The Incumbent is Graham Shaw who before joining St Saviour’s was Vicar of Christ Church, Chester for ten years, growing a large ministry to students and young adults and serving as a training incumbent, a role he really enjoys. Graham joined St Saviour’s 18 months ago as interim leader before being installed as Rector in July 2023. For an informal chat, please contact Graham on [email protected].
The full curacy profile can be found on the Guildford Diocese website.
If you would like to find out more about this post, please email our DDO, Craig Holmes at [email protected].