Steering Group

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Engaging Theology in Cumbria is run by a small steering group, with representatives from the Anglican, United Reformed, Methodist and Roman Catholic churches.

Dr Mark Chater

Mark is an independent writer and consultant on education, religion, worldviews, ecology, theology, and dialogue. A former teacher, academic, policy adviser, and charitable trust Director, he is currently Professor of Practice at the University of Cumbria.

Mark’s publications include:

  • Does Religious Education Have a Future? Pedagogical and Policy Prospects (2013)
  • Reforming RE: Power and Knowledge in a Worldviews Curriculum (2020)
  • Jesus Christ, Learning Teacher: Where Theology and Pedagogy Meet (2020)

Shelagh Goldie

Yvette Ladds

Yvette is the Network Youth Church Minister for Carlisle Diocese in the West coast area. She loves being close to the seaside and is passionate about giving young people the opportunity to explore and debate God’s word and grapple with what it might mean for them today.

Previously, Yvette served in the Eden Valley area as a youth and community development worker for seven years, while also working in a children’s home for boys, with children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties. She has a BA (Hons) in informal and community education in youth work from Canterbury University.

Yvette is married to Martin, and they have two children: Esther and Phoebe.

Dr Karl Möller

Karl is a freelance writer and speaker with many years’ experience of teaching in university and theological educations contexts. He currently teaches for the Light College & Collective. Prior to this, he worked as Course Co-ordinator for the Open Theological College, Research Fellow at the University of Gloucestershire, Senior Lecturer at the University of Cumbria, Senior Tutor at the Lancashire and Cumbria Theological Partnership, Principal of Initial Ministerial Education at Cumbria Christian Learning, and Vice-Principal of the All Saints Centre for Mission and Ministry. 

He has taught widely in biblical studies, Judaism and spirituality. His publications include:

  • Renewing Biblical Interpretation (2000; co-editor)
  • After Pentecost: Language and Biblical Interpretation (2001; co-editor)
  • A Prophet in Debate: The Rhetoric of Persuasion in the Book of Amos  (2003)
  • Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation (2004; co-editor)
  • Reading the Law: Studies in Honour of Gordon J. Wenham (2007; co-editor)
  • Reading Amos as a Book (2014)
  • The Song of Songs: Beautiful Bodies, Erotic Desire and Intoxicating Pleasure (2018)
  • Jonah’s Story, Our Challenge: Reading a Biblical Narrative in Today’s Church and World (2023)

The Revd Andrew B. Norman

Andrew is a parish priest in the south of Cumbria on the shores of Morecambe Bay serving the parishes of Beetham and Arnside with Storth. Before this he served as Assistant Curate of the Cartmel Peninsula Team Ministry.

Andrew is a native Cumbrian, born and brought up on the Solway Firth in the village of Abbey Town, before reading History at Selwyn College Cambridge and then Theology at the University of Oxford whilst undertaking theological training at Ripon College, Cuddesdon.

In the wider Diocese, aside from serving on the Steering Group of Engaging Theology in Cumbria, Andrew serves on Bishop’s Council, the Diocesan Advisory Committee and and as an Assistant Diocesan Director of Ordinands.

The Revd Nicki Pennington

Nicki is an Anglican priest serving four post-industrial/ rural communities on the west coast of Cumbria. Prior to ordination, Nicki worked as a Social Worker and project worker in Cumbria. She is also a long-standing associate member of the Iona Community and is currently on the new members programme.

Nicki is passionate about exploring how our faith can shape and sustain our responses to the everyday challenges of life, particularly relating to issues of justice, peace and care for creation.

The Revd Alistair Smeaton

The Very Revd Dr Frances Ward

Frankie is a freelance theologian, researcher and writer, preacher, speaker and teacher as well as Priest in Charge of St Michael’s and St John’s Churches in Workington, Cumbria. She has been the chair of Engaging Theology in Cumbria since 2018.

From 2010–2017 she was the Dean of St Edmundsbury in Suffolk, a member of the General Synod and a Trustee of the Church of England National Society. From 2006–2010 she was a Residentiary Canon at Bradford Cathedral, engaged in inter-faith work with Muslim women.

Her publications include:

  • Lifelong Learning (2005)
  • Why Rousseau was Wrong: Christianity and the Secular Soul (2013)
  • Theological Reflection: Methods (with Elaine Graham and Heather Walton, 2nd ed., 2019)
  • Holy Attention: Preaching in Today’s Church (co-edited with Richard Sudworth, 2019)
  • Full of Character: A Christian Approach to Education for the Digital Age (2019)
  • Like There’s No Tomorrow (2020)