Deacon Sheila Dawson

I was brought up in a Christian home where my dad was the church organist and my mum was a Methodist Local Preacher. My first memory of God touching my heart in a personal way was in Sunday School when I was 10 years old. I made a conscious decision, the following Sunday, to receive Jesus as my Saviour and follow Him as my Lord. I served God as a nurse for over 25 years before hearing God's new call on my life (to 'reach out to lost and hurting people') and completing a degree in Evangelism, Mission, and Ministry at Cliff College. I worked as a Family Worker for the Methodist Church for 5 years before sensing God's call to ordained ministry as a Methodist Deacon.

Prior to coming to Bedworth, I exercised diaconal ministry in our Circuit Café in a deprived area of Leeds – being available to people who were finding life a struggle and listening to them. I'd share the love and hope we find in Jesus with them as the Holy Spirit prompted me (as well as through Café Church).

I have never felt a call to preach but I love to encourage others to worship God, to pray, and to respond personally to what God might be saying to them through the words of the Bible. I strongly believe that God is interested in each of us as an individual and longs to share our lives with us and to bless us, no matter what sort of a mess we have previously made of our lives. I love the Church (I've been part of it all my life!) but I particularly feel drawn to people on the margins of society – those who are feeling bewildered and broken by what life has thrown at them. I have a God-given desire to bring them healing and hope in the name of Jesus.

I am a wife, a mother, and a grandma. I don't like mornings, but I love food, walking in the countryside, visiting new places, and going to Christian Festivals. More than anything else I want to love Jesus and honour Him and please Him and, hopefully, I manage to do this sometimes!