Rev Helen Cameron has been inducted as the Moderator of the Free Churches Group and takes on the role of the CTE president representing those national Member Churches.
Rev Helen succeeded Rev Dr Hugh Osgood who held both those positions since 2014.
The new Moderator was inducted on 3 April 2022 at Wesley’s Chapel in London.
In her address she said: “My deep desire is that we do more than co-exist or tolerate each other, but that actually in a generous engagement with one another, we learn from each other and we see each other as gift and not threat.”
Watch the induction service:
More about Rev Helen
Rev Helen Cameron is a Methodist presbyter who currently serves as Chair of the Northampton District. In September 2022 she will also serve as Chair of the Nottingham & Derby District. She was born in North Yorkshire, to a Methodist family. Both her parents were Methodist Local Preachers (as were her grandfather, great grandfather…) and she began preaching alongside her parents from the age of 13.
Helen trained as a physiotherapist in Edinburgh with a specialism in stroke rehabilitation. While working in York she candidated for ordained ministry and after being accepted her Initial Ministerial Formation was undertaken in Birmingham at the ecumenical Queens College. Helen’s first ministerial appointment was at Longbridge (just as decisions were being made for closure of the car factory) and Frankley (a Birmingham overspill estate where significant deprivation existed). Helen was involved in conversations about the impact of the Longbridge closure on the community and in enabling better community cohesion on Frankley.
The Church on Frankley was a Local Ecumenical Partnership and fed Helen’s conviction that Christian denominations should be working closely together in mission and ministry. Helen spent many years in ministerial formation as a staff member of the Queens Foundation and helped to form many ministers, including Anglicans, Methodists, URC, Pentecostals and worked with many students from the global South. From 2015 -2017 she served as Assistant Secretary of the Methodist Conference.
Helen remains convinced that diversity is a gift, not a threat, and welcomes the opportunity that serving as Moderator will offer to continue to support and encourage Free Church identity within Christian life, witness and service in the public square.