New Vicar for Evesham Parish

The next Vicar of Evesham is the Rector of Stansted, the Revd Andrew Spurr. Mr Spurr's ministry has included being a medical chaplain in the United States, serving as a parish priest in the Medway towns and as rector of three parishes in Stansted, North Essex.

He will be installed at All Saints', Evesham by the Bishop of Worcester, the Rt Revd Dr Peter Selby and the Archdeacon of Worcester, The Venerable Dr Joy Tetley, at 3pm on September 3rd, whereupon he will become Vicar of the two parishes of Evesham and Norton-and-Lenchwick.

Mr Spurr came to faith in the 1970's in his native Birmingham back when, he says, 'it was still cool to be a Christian'. Over the years has been a regular at the Greenbelt Festival, an annual event which now meets at Cheltenham racecourse, which has been a place for people to come and explore contemporary expressions of faith.

'Greenbelt is like a shop window of contemporary Christianity which is a lot more varied and colourful than parish churches are set up to reflect. In local parishes we continue to be quite good at set piece ritual, and that is very important, but we need to find a place for alternative means of prayer and community involvement if local churches are to continue to grow.'

Over the past ten years he has been heavily involved in schools work in his parishes. 'I have particularly enjoyed working with sixth formers, where the church has to establish a right to be heard, it no longer comes automatically.' he continued, 'but right across the age ranges you are no longer working with children with any native knowledge of the Christian stories, and this means they come to it afresh, which is very invigorating.'

Mr Spurr is married to Anna, who is an occupational therapist. Between them they have two sons, Ben and William.