Hucknall Rector, the Revd Canon Linda Church is heading off to Canada this week to spend time with a woman bishop as part of her research into women in leadership.

Linda, Team Rector of Hucknall Team Ministry, is spending three months investigating women in leadership in the Church of England in particular in the northern part of the country. She has already spent several weeks meeting women working for the church in the UK and will fly out to the Diocese of Nova Scotia with Prince Edward Island in Canada on Thursday 6th March, where she will be a guest of the Bishop elect the Rt Revd Sue Moxley and her clergy.

Before becoming a priest, Linda was a senior manager in the N.H.S both as clinician and administrator, she said : “I am thankful for my then senior leaders who nurtured me and enabled my skills, my knowledge and experience to be realised in a position of senior leadership. There are currently 13 women Archdeacons in the Church of England, but only one of those in the Northern Province, and 2 women Deans; both in the Province of Canterbury. Women now account for 17% of full time stipendiary clergy in the dioceses of the Church of England - but women Archdeacons account for 8% of the total.”

Linda has been interviewing women in various positions in the church from leaders to women who have not been ordained very long. She explained: “I intend then to compare stories of experiences with UK women priests with a woman in senior leadership in the Anglican Communion abroad and five of her stipendiary women clergy.”

Linda was ordained into the Church of England, 14 years ago, and aims to reflect on her future role, particularly the possibility of mentoring other female clergy during her three month sabbatical study leave. She said: “I need to retouch some Feminist Theology, and renew my understanding, as there have been new understandings developed over this past ten years as the role of women in the church has evolved. I want to be reminded of the injustice towards women in leadership. I hope that my leadership skills will be more matured through this time of discovery and reflection, that I might enable more people, male and female, young and old, highly educated and not so highly educated into realising their potential to be leaders of God’s people wherever that call might be expressed.”

Linda Church trained for ordination with East Midlands Ministry Training Course (EMMTC) and served her curacy at St Thomas’ Church, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, where she was a self supporting minister, alongside her post as Clinical Services manager at Ashfield Community Hospital. She moved on to the neighbouring parish of Skegby and Teversal in 1995, before leaving her work in the health service to become a stipendiary Priest-in-Charge at Annesley with Newstead in 1998. In 2003 she was appointed to her current post as Team Rector of Hucknall Team Ministry.

Linda has served the diocese on the Bishop’s Advisory Panel for Ministry, as a former trustee on the Board for Social Responsibility and as a current member of Bishop’s Council. She also continued her links with the health service as a non-executive director of Ashfield Primary Care Trust until last year.

Linda is married to Lawrence and they have three grown-up children - Nick, Rebecca and Ellie. Linda enjoys reading in her spare time, along with cooking and entertaining, but she and her husband have recently taken up an interest in horse racing, since her daughter Ellie began a career as a jockey.

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