Profile - Revd Chris Collinge

How fortunate we are at St James’ to have people who are experts in setting up and running our website. Communication in this ever changing world is vital and by using our website we can see instantly exactly what is going on in the church.

We are so lucky to have such active clergy and it is through them and their devotion to us as parishioners that we can experience spiritual growth.

At St James we have as our vicar the Reverend Christine (Chris) Collinge who joined us several years ago and instantly felt at home with us. It is important that we build up an archive of profiles of people in our church and it is my intention to introduce to our readers people who worship here and enrich our community by their presence and who better to start with than our very own Chris.

Chris was born in Derbyshire some 60 years ago at home, in the middle of the 1947 snow storm and in the middle of a field! Her dad had to dig a path for the midwife to get through. All went well and to prove it she still has the bill for her birth that her mother was given COD (cash on delivery).

School was Shirland Primary School where she collected and pressed 134 wild flowers and learned to play Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring on the recorder. Swanwick Hall Grammar School was next on the education path where Chris particularly enjoyed the musical activities. Both schools focused on social and well being aspects of growing up rather than academia. During this time Chris was a Girl Guide and gained the Queens Guide badge. The best part was camping in the next field to the scouts for some reason! Next port of call was Doncaster College of Education where Chris trained as a teacher.

At the end of her training a group of her friends got together around a map and agreed that wherever the pin dropped was where they would head and Reading drew the short straw. They ended up living in the servants' quarters of a very large Victorian house in Wokingham. Chris's first teaching job was in Reading and then she moved to Southall. During her time in Southall she was married and had three wonderful children. Money was tight with three children and Chris eked out her housekeeping by children's party entertaining on a Saturday. She still has the puppets she used. Doing this allowed her to continue to be at home to look after the children. By now Chris had moved to Slough where she spent much of her time dispelling the impression given of it by John Betjeman – “Come friendly bombs fall on Slough.” Chris loved Slough for its rich cultural diversity although when she returns now she finds it really crowded! It was here that Chris became involved in nursery education and later became a school counsellor. She eventually moved into special needs teaching as she has always felt passionately that children with particular educational difficulties experience failure too often in their lives. Her work with them was strongly on the basis that they succeed. The last few years of Chris's teaching career was working with Creative Partnerships which meant the children worked alongside the Royal Opera House, sculptors, garden designers and actors. We can see through this where Chris gets her creativeness for services and sermons.

Chris has always enjoyed having fun and she once belonged to a pop group singing and playing in pubs. She took her driving test one day and the next she was driving an ice cream van in the Dales where she ended up getting stuck in a ditch and suffered the humiliation of watching the wipers drop off one by one.

Chris did have a problem deciding whether she wanted to teach or nurse and did a spell on a maternity ward which was enough to send her into teaching. She named her daughter after one of the babies she helped to care for.

Chris has travelled a lot in the UK with Cornwall the holiday destination with the children but she also enjoys Harrogate, Norfolk, Bristol and of course going back to the Derbyshire dales. Some travel abroad includes the USA where she went on a 6 week teacher exchange, Morocco, Ibiza and recently Thailand (there is nothing like being hugged by an elephant).

Music tastes are wide but she particularly likes Bach and Schubert; opera is also a love although she admits to being irritated by watching Mozart operas on stage. Chris loves Matthew Bourne's dances and is transported by listening to Queen.

Chris enjoys cooking and when the children were at home she was always up to her elbows in flour baking bread, cakes and chutneys. She enjoyed being domestic and still loves cooking for others but does very simple meals for herself. Her last meal would be Delia Smith’s braised red cabbage with apple served with an organic pork chop washed down with a glass of sherry listening to either radio 3 or 4.

She is reading Keeping the World Away by Margaret Foster and Christianity, Climate Change and Sustainable Living by Nick Spencer and Robert White at present. The novel which has influenced her the most is The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing and the best novel she has read recently is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

Chris’s first hint of faith was right at the beginning and from when she can remember. It mattered to her very much that she attended church and regularly worshipped at a small Church of England mission church called St James. It wasn't until she was 18 that she began to doubt when her friend was killed. Chris couldn’t reconcile the faith that she understood at that time with the life her friend led so rather than reject her friend she rejected her faith for 10 years.

She was brought back to her faith by the local URC minister Geoffrey Bending who fed her with theological books and talked to her on the basis of reason rather than emotion. She went back to her Anglican church realising how incredibly important the Eucharist is to her. The church she belonged to was a real privilege and all were trusted with and encouraged to use the gifts they had been given.

It was at one particular series of Easter services where the full liturgy was used that Chris “fell in love with Jesus” and was so overwhelmed with the reality of it all that she spoke to the deacon of the church who suggested she was being called to ministry. There was a long period of discernment and she eventually went forward. She was turned down the first time which taught her in a painful way that God loves us even if we have nothing to offer. The second time she was successful and feels privileged to have been led by the lecturers she had during her training. She was ordained as a non-stipendiary minister which led to the unlikely situation of marrying the parents of one of her own pupils. Some time later her Area Dean suggested “Can’t you hear God calling you, woman, into stipendiary ministry?”

Perhaps the funniest thing she has done in ministry is to start leading a Eucharistic service with her handbag on her shoulder after rushing in from taking a service in another church.

Chris applied for two jobs and was delighted to be offered the post at St James’ New Bradwell. Isn’t it strange how Chris seems to be attracted to placed that others make fun of - Slough and Milton Keynes?

As soon as she arrived she immediately felt at home with the people and the whole of the Stantonbury Ecumenical Parish and absolutely loves Milton Keynes. Working ecumenically is a joy especially the joining together of the Methodist and St James congregations of New Bradwell. It is such an exciting job because she is always doing something different with the schools, weddings, baptisms, funerals and services, ecumenical work, – even the dreaded paperwork is sometimes a change! She loves the most exciting way in which things bubble up and develop such as the healing ministry, the Glow in the Dark party, bistro, tiddlers and most recently the Alpha course and all because of the inspiration and talents of so many people in the church and surrounding parish.