Kath Poole has been appointed as the new CommunitiesMinister at St Thomas and St Luke (Top Church) in Dudley. This is a new role at the resourcing churchwhich will focus on how the church can best serve the local community in thetown.
Kath worked as an Occupational Therapist in mental healthbefore coming to Top Church where she was involved in assessing and addressingbarriers to participation. In her new role, she will spend the first six monthsresearching the local area talking to a wide range of people and finding outwhat about the needs of the local area.
Kath said: I have been a member of Top Church for the pastfew months and was looking for a way to combine work with my faith. Im hopingto be able to use the skills Ive developed as an occupational therapist tolook at how Top Church can best participate in the community and vice versa. Iam completely open to ideas about how the role might develop and over the nextfew months Ill be talking to those already working with the local community tosee how we can be involved. It will be a privilege to come alongside those whoare already working in Dudley and to be able to have a long term outlook as towhat might be possible.
James Treasure, Vicar of Top Church, said: Sundays areimportant, but so is the rest of the week. If we are not making a contributionto making the lives of those in our parish better, than weve failed as achurch. A healthy church is one which is out serving its local community andIm delighted that Kath has joined the team to identify how we can best do that.We hope to reimagine what it means to work within our parish and express thelove of God for the whole person.
Kath started as Communities Minister for Top Church at thebeginning of June. It is a full time role based at the church. Top Church wasone of two churches in the Diocese of Worcester awarded a significant grantfrom the Church Commissioners of the Church of England to become a resourcingchurch. The church will be officially relaunched in November and will become aresource for both the local community and other churches in Dudley.
