Librarian becomes licensed minister after two years

A LIBRARIAN at The Henley College has been licensed as a lay minister.

Karen Broadbent, who lives in Sonning Common, took part in her first Remembrance Day as a licensed minister on Sunday.

Mrs Broadbent, who has worked at the college for 26 years, said she decided to take the “plunge” and get licensed following years of persuasion.

She was admitted with five other candidates at a service at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford on Saturday, November 1, and will now serve at Christ the King Church in Sedgewell Road.

Mrs Broadbent said: “I’ve always been a churchgoer but I was getting more and more involved with services at Christ the King and then it was suggested to me that I might like to think about the training.

“At the time I was going to back to work full time, my daughters were still quite young, so I didn’t really have time to do it. But then the current rector James Stickings suggested I might consider it, so I took the plunge in the end.”

Mrs Broadbent was admitted alongside Eve Hitchens, Linda Hobbs, Rachel Moss, Mike Murray, and Joe O’Neill.

Bishop Gavin, the Bishop of Dorchester, then admitted each of them and presented them with a Bible, a blue preaching scarf — worn by licensed lay ministers — and prayed for them.

Mrs Broadbent said she now looked forward to taking on a more active role in the ministry.

She said: “Now that I’m licensed as a lay minister, I can help the clergy team around the benefice.

“I’m able to preach, I’m able to lead certain services and able to do pastoral work going to schools, some chaplaincy.

“I’ve still got some training to go, to do the more specialised things such as funeral ministry and youth ministry, so I’ve got about another year worth of training to do but I’m very actively involved with the benefice now.”

She was joined at the service in Oxford by husband Paul, daughters Anna, 31, and Charlotte, 27, sister Samantha, and parents David and Rosemary Doidge.

Members of the Benefice of Rotherfield Peppard and Kidmore End and Sonning Common also attended the service.

Mrs Broadbent said: “I enjoyed the two years of study very much and the licensing was a very welcome culmination of that.

“I am looking forward to studying further and to working within the wider community as well as within the church community.

“I have already been quite active within the church but look forward to leading different services and visiting schools and other community groups.”

She added: “In the afternoon there was a reception at Christ the King for me as well, which was lovely. That was attended by people from the benefice and those that hadn’t been able to come to the service.”

Mrs Broadbent said the service was the culmination of two years of part-time study through the Oxford Diocese.

This included a placement at St Andrew’s Church in Caversham where she was able to work with the Caversham girlguides.

She said: “The six of us who were licensed together are from all over the place, in different parts of the diocese, but we’ve done our training alongside each other.

“We’ve all been a great support for each other as well — so it was lovely to be licensed with them.

“We have tutorials online once a week and then we have study days, perhaps two a term, where we would go up to Church House in Oxford.

“Then we have assignments to complete, and we had to do a placement as well.”