Revd Fr. Kieron Rowley

What does your job involve day-to-day?

I oversee a multi-parish youth ministry programme for over 200 young people aged between 11-18 across 15 churches in Southwest London.  I employ several youth staff, between us we deliver youth events and residentials for young people in churches of the liberal inclusive sacramental spectrum of the Church of England.  I also work closely with vicars and PCCs to develop robust and theologically rooted vision and strategy policies concerning youth and young people.  I consult on several forums for youth inclusion and for LGBTQ+ inclusion.  I spend time on Sundays with young people in their parishes and as the guest preacher, so most weeks I prepare a sermon.  I produce teaching resources for confirmation classes and faith development sessions aimed at teenagers.  I also oversee all safeguarding policy and procedures for the project, I research and develop robust resources for parishes on safeguarding, S.E.N.D, wellbeing and youth mental health.

How did your degree help prepare you for the role?

My role requires a significant amount of strategic thinking, research, policy and report writing, and public presentation.  My degrees helped me hone my research and presentation skills as well as my critical thinking.  Chester set me up with a firm foundation of reflective and robust education that helped me achieve my best.  I also became an Anglican due to the excellent, horizon expanding teaching of the TRS department.  Theologically I went from being fairly closed to being much broader and more creative in my approach.  All these skills have been essential in my journey towards my current position.

What do you enjoy most about your current job?

Working alongside young people and enabling them to explore the big questions of life, faith, and identity is an immense privilege and I love it very much.  Young people are called to be the church of today and being a part of their story and engaging them in the stuff of faith and theology is a real joy to me.  I was nurtured as a teen by great youth workers, priests, monks and nuns that helped me to find my place in life, so being able to do that for the next generation is a full circle moment for me.

What was the most important thing you learned during your time in TRS?

I learned that many of the answers we seek in our study of theology, philosophy, or religion are rarely or satisfactorily found in the ‘black and white’ of doctrinal statements or religious texts.  Rather, the truth we are seeking is found in the messy, grey, and contextual dance of lived experience and this messy lived reality makes us all forever students. Hence, we must never stop being curious or questioning, most especially of ourselves and our settled views of God, faith, life, and the world around us.

Tell us about your plans for the future.

I have another four years on this project as it currently stands, and we have exciting plans to expand the project across the diocese and hopefully to the wider church.  It is my aim to see young people thrive within the church and see the church thrive because of them.  I hope to continue to serve the church and the wider communities in which she resides for many years to come.  Who knows maybe even a return to Chester! One never knows what might happen. 

My partner and I have plans to begin a family and will be looking to start the journey of adoption and some point in the future.