Associate Vicar (0.5) Girlington, Heaton and Manningham
Posted 2 days 10 hours ago by Church of England
This is a very large and vibrant parish of nearly 53,000 people from a wide range of cultures, and is one of the Bradford Episcopal Area's flagship examples of ministry in the inner city where those of the Muslim faith are in the majority. This particular post sits in the context of developing appropriate forms of worship, evangelism, mission and church for deprived "presence and engagement" areas. As such it requires a priest with a pioneering mindset and a heart for this type of community.
Our vision as the Diocese is about confident clergy equipping confident Christians to live and tell the good news of Jesus Christ. For all of our appointments we are seeking clergy who have a joyful and confident faith which has inspired a track record of church growth. For the post, you would be joining a creative ministry team which includes the Rector, an urban pioneer minister and other lay staff.
The person appointed will be expected to work collaboratively under the overall leadership of the Rector in furthering the vision for the parish. As well as sharing with the Rector in the typical aspects of ordained parish ministry, (s)he will have day to day responsibility for particular areas of ministry and / or geographic parts of the parish, as agreed with the Rector. Examples could be:
Responsibilities- Sunday Congregation lead. Pastor and teacher in an amazing multi cultural church. Working together with the team to make it intercultural. This would include pastoral follow up from Sundays and welcoming new arrivals to the
- Pioneer a church plant in Girlington. St Philip's Church in Girlington is home to 3 great community projects that are separate to our Parish. There is much work to do there as a 'Chaplain' to the site and the area, and work collaboratively with the projects. The building could become even more of a community asset, bring in funds and be a brighter light to the streets around.
- Schools ministry: There are lots of primary schools and several secondary schools in the parish. Bradford is the 'youngest city in Europe' and so there is a huge amount more to do as a schools/young people/education lead in the parish. At Easter 2024 the team delivered Easter assemblies to 3400 primary school children. But there are so many more! Can we build on this amazing opportunity?
Formed from the historic parishes of St Philip's Girlington, St Paul's Manningham, St Barnabas Heaton and St Martin's Heaton, the parish is in the top 2.5% most deprived in the country. Housing includes poor quality private rented homes, a large council estate, large family homes and semi rural properties. Over two thirds of the population is Muslim, mainly from Bangladesh and the Mirpur area of Pakistan. 76% are of Asian origin and 16% white (of whom significant numbers are from Eastern Europe). There are large numbers of young people in the parish (over half the population is under the age of 30 and one third under 18), while only one in eight people are over 60. Hence there are many schools - including two Church of England primary schools, numerous private Islamic Schools, Bradford Grammar School and Bradford Girls Grammar School. Considerable effort has gone into developing ministry in many of these schools.
In 2022, the PCC accepted the Bishop's invitation to become one of six Resourcing Parishes in the Episcopal Area. This has brought Strategic Development Funding (SDF) from 2023 to 2027 to add resource to the parish and new investment in some areas of ministry.
For an informal conversation about the post please contact the Rector Chris Chorlton on or Archdeacon Andy Jolley on .
Closing date for applications is midnight on 6th Jan 2026 with interviews planed for 22nd Jan 2026
GHM Brochure .pdf
Associate Vicar GHM - Role Description October 2025.pdf
Associate Vicar GHM - Person Spec October 2025.pdf