Connie Chapman

I have been a Companion for only a little more than 2 years but I have connected loosely with Contemplative Fire since 2010 through Whirlow Grange (now renamed as Whirlow Spirituality Centre) when my late husband and I following the call to move to Sheffield from Nottingham with our son who is now a young adult.

My career path has been windy. From teaching to city-wide student ministry in Hong Kong, then climbed from the bottom of the ladder to become a Chartered Librarian in the UK. When I came to Sheffield, I was recovering from an illness. After some serious soul searching on my heart’s desire, I picked up what I had left behind for 15 years and retrained to be a professionally accredited counsellor. With God’s grace, I am more and more rooted in the calling of being a listener. In 2022, I joined the Diocese of Sheffield’s Spiritual Accompanier Network.

My other life as a minister’s spouse was also windy! It had all been a refining process that has drawn me deeper to contemplate on the essentiality of God’s mercy and compassion in the Lord’s vision of the Kingdom of God…and on my own redemption story, in God’s grace.

Contemplative Fire has been a special part of my spiritual life in the last few years. We are a dispersed community and yet there is a strong sense of journeying together to seek and to experience our Creator God. I have felt being welcomed, nurtured, supported and included. The emphasis on holding up a simple rhythm of life through the balance of being, knowing and doing has been instrumental for me to learn slowly to hone in the good spirit of living life and the hope of loving life as much as Jesus loves me and transforms me. To stand as a trustee, I bring along the hope and vision that Contemplative Fire will continue to be an inclusive spirituality community, a catalyst for the companions to deepen the faith in God, both individually and as a community, through attentive listening and contemplative practices.