A WITNEY preacher has taken on a senior role in the Methodist Church of Britain.

Jude Levermore, who is a member of Witney High Street Methodist Church and also preaches in Faringdon, has been appointed head of mission.

She will play a key role in supporting and managing work related to mission, with the church's Our Calling scheme at the core.

Ms Levermore has worked in charity and faith-based organisations at a senior level for more than 20 years, including leading the Methodist Church of Britain's discipleship and ministries team.

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She said: “I am thrilled and privileged to serve in this way.

"This is such an exciting time for the Church and my hope would be that working together with Methodists across the Connexion we can bring about transformational change that will build new ways of acting out the gospel and sharing God’s outgoing, all-embracing love for creation.

"One of the things that really excites me about the job is the possibility for continuing to strengthen methodist thinking everywhere we serve and how we learn from our partner churches and mission partners.”

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Connexional secretary Doug Swanney said: “I’m delighted we have been able to appoint Jude into this role – she brings a wealth of experience to us and has worked tirelessly over the last few years in leading our Discipleship & Ministries Cluster.

"We are delighted to have a ‘mission team’ that brings together our work in these islands and around the world as we continue to use Our Calling as the lens with which we seek to respond to God’s call to the Methodist church to engage in God’s mission for the transformation of the world.

"It has been a privilege to work with Jude these last few years and I am confident she will be helping our teams work together in new ways that will help support the circuits and district of our Church.”