Smestow Vale Team

• Bobbington Holy Cross
• Himley St Michael and All Angels
• Swindon St John the Evangelist
• Trysull All Saints
• Wombourne St Benedict Biscop
• Wombourne The Venerable Bede

Training Incumbent
The Revd Julia Cody

Trained: Ridley Hall, Cambridge . Deaconed: 2008 Lichfield

I was ordained in 2008 and have served north, west and south of Wolverhampton! My curacy was in Penkridge; then became Team Vicar in Perton, an LEP with the URC. After 11½ years, in 2023, I moved to serve as Team Rector of Smestow Vale. I’m also Rural Dean of Trysull and Associate Archdeacon of Walsall. Although not local, I love it and God seems to want me here! I grew up in Somerset, and prior to ordination lived and worked/studied in Reading, Cambridge, London, Budapest and Vienna. I share my home with Missy, who keeps me muddy!

The context

Smestow Vale lies just a few miles from Wolverhampton city centre, yet proudly in Staffordshire and rural. There are five parishes, four of which are unique small village communities. On a day-to-day basis, the Team Vicar looks after these four, serving the small church families, villages and three church schools. Wombourne is also a village, reputedly the largest in England with over 15,000 people who call it home. My focus is daily parish life in Wombourne and overseeing the team as we seek to work together on key areas of mission and ministry.

In Wombourne, we have a part-time administrator and part-time children’s worker, who both bring great gifts to support different ministries e.g. Open the Book, links with all local church and community schools, toddler groups, Messy Church etc. There are many great volunteers in our church families. Having only been here a couple of years, it’s an exciting time in the life of the team as we begin to discern how God is leading us to build on all that’s gone before. There’s so much potential to develop greater community engagement and to reach out, particularly to families and young people. 

There are people who lead services in local residential facilities, and scope to develop this further. We have a faithful choir and are blessed with three organists and it’d be great to develop our sung worship as we also review the pattern of services we offer, and discern and train lay worship leaders and preachers. We have started to offer small group courses as we seek to deepen discipleship. There are also a steady number of all occasional offices. Smestow Vale offers a breadth of opportunities and the possibility of being part of the Team at this exciting time.

We have not yet discussed the use of Prayers of Love and Faith here at Smestow Vale.

Mission statistics (2024)