A new college chaplain and a youth and children’s chaplain are among those being licensed by the Bishop of St Asaph on Saturday (16 July 2022).

Tim Feak (left) will be licensed as an Evangelist for his role as Lead Chaplain with Coleg Cambria and Esther Andrews (right) will join the team at Mold Mission Hub, based at St Mary’s Church in the town.

Both will be licensed alongside Alan McKinnell, who will be an evangelist at the Penrhyn Bay Mission Hub, Nicola Midgley who will be licensed as a Reader in the Cedewain Mission Area and Dawn Wolstenholme also a Reader for the Mold Mission Area.

The service will take place at 2pm at St Asaph Cathedral and will be followed by the Licensed Lay Ministers Annual General Meeting.

The Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt Revd Gregory Cameron will lead the Eucharist and Licensing service, assisted by the Licensed Lay Ministry Officer, Revd Huw Butler. The preacher will be Revd Jon Price, a Pioneer Priest and Training Supervisor in Bangor Diocese.

Bishop Gregory said: “I am looking forward to licensing these five candidates for a variety of ministries in different contexts across the diocese. There are many ways of serving God’s Church in the modern world, and this week we celebrate a wealth of non-ordained talent and service, largely serving younger generations and those outside the Church.  With two evangelists and a youth chaplain, we have some dynamic and skilled practitioners who will be working in a variety of contexts, but also two Readers, which is a non-ordained ministry aimed at helping people to understand the message of the Bible more clearly in the context of today’s world.  This is a great team, and I’m proud to license them.”

Licensed lay ministry roles in the Church in Wales have expanded in recent years and include Readers, Evangelists, also known as Pioneers and Pastoral Chaplains. Further information about these roles and the training involved is available at https://dioceseofstasaph.org.uk/vocations-and-ministry/

The Diocese of St Asaph is one of the six dioceses of the Church in Wales, an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion, a worldwide family of churches.