New National Director of Diverse Church

We are delighted to announce that the trustees of Diverse Church have appointed a new National Director of DC.

Sally Hitchiner is moving to become Associate Vicar for ministry of St. Martin in the Fields church in London and felt that it was the right time to hand over the responsibility for the leadership to someone new. The trustees then started a nationwide search and were delighted to have received a number of high quality applications. Following this process, they have appointed Jade Irwin to the role of National Director, to start on Easter Sunday.

Jade is a Youth and Family worker in Belfast with a wide experience of working in religious and nonreligious youthwork settings. She has been involved in Diverse Church for the past four years setting up and leading the large DC Belfast Hub for DC18, leading sessions on DC National Meet Up Days and has spent the past year on the host team setting up DC19.

Jade writes

“I am both delighted and humbled to have the opportunity to lead Diverse Church. This community has been enriching, inspiring and nourishing for me personally, and I am excited to explore the way forward, so that many more might feel seen, heard and cared for by their DC communities and by God.”

Sally writes

“I am thrilled beyond words that Jade has been appointed for this role. Jade is a remarkable leader and has been serving in DC from early on in our journey, showing commitment, vision and an ability to enable groups to discern new ways. She is respected by a remarkably wide range of religious and nonreligious leaders in Northern Ireland and I am confident she will take DC on into a new stages of community building throughout the UK and ROI, especially where the need for this is greatest so that LGBT Christians do not feel the need to give up on life or God.”