God in the Life Of the Revd Lady Denise Brown

The Revd Lady Brown (Denise) is passionate about letting the world know about the amazing and varied work of the Mothers' Union, (MU).

Denise tells Jo Duckles how joining the MU as a young mother paved her way back into the Church.

The Revd Lady Denise Brown during a visit to Diocesan Church House.

Jo Duckles.

Now ordained and doing an extraordinary amount of work for the Church and the MU , Denise told me her story over a cup of tea, following one of the many meetings she attends at Diocesan Church House.

While she grew up in the Church, she says her confirmation service when she was just 14 was like a passing out ceremony. "I never doubted that God existed but I doubted that I could find him in the Church of England," she says.

"I looked for him in lots of other places and when I ended up in a village just outside Basingstoke I joined the MU branch.

It was definitely part of my path back in to the CofE.

I was invited onto the Young Families Committee in Winchester and my then one-year-old became a very experienced committee member.

I travelled around to meetings with a box of toys. "Denise had studied in London, becoming one of the first people to get a computer science degree and went on to work in telecommunications, where she met her husband David.

"Before joining my only experience of the MU was being handed a little collecting box for overseas work," says Denise.

When she moved to Berkshire 23 years ago she joined an MU branch in Newbury and was soon part of the Diocesan Prayer and Spirituality Unit, (now Faith and Policy). "I have always felt that when the MU asks you to do something it is like stepping out, off the edge of a cliff but you are supported by all of these lovely people who are egging you on and giving you advice. " Her various roles have included joining the central Faith and Policy Unit at the MU's national headquarters, Mary Sumner House in London.

Soon she was helping to run Faith and Policy conferences.

All along Denise says the two elements of her ministry, her journey to ordination and service to the MU, were running in parallel. "While I was doing all this I got more and more involved in my own church, particularly children's services and family worship," she says.

All the time Denise was feeling called to a vocation, and when she talked her feelings through with her Vicar, it was suggested she become a Licensed Lay Minister. "I'd been away from the traditional CofE and had to ask what an LLM was," says Denise, who knew after two years of the three-year LLM training that it was not going to be enough.

I was licensed in October 1998.

I went to a selection conference for ordination training the following June, and started training on the St Albans and Oxford Ministry Course (SAOMC) in 1999, while continuing with my MU work. "Denise was ordained Deacon in 2002, the same year David was knighted for services to British Industry.

Her roles have included being Assistant Area Dean for the Newbury Deanery for five years.

She ministers in the East Downland Benefice, with nine churches.

Denise has an interest in young people and this has helped shape the Deanery Development plan.

She chairs a Deanery Development team which includes ecumenical partners from COINS (Christian Outreach in Newbury Schools) and the Bus of Hope, a mobile youth centre launched by the Kennet Christian Centre, and is also a trustee of Berkshire Youth, a charity supporting voluntary youth clubs and projects. "With Government cutbacks in youth provision, the voluntary sector needs all the support it can get to help provide facilities for our young people and the churches are getting involved in that," she says. As Coordinator for the Diocesan Faith and Policy Unit and then Area Vice-President for West Berkshire, Denise has served for 12 years as a Diocesan trustee of the Mothers' Union.

During that time she has also been a central Trustee for three years.

"I have just become the MU Diocesan Chaplain which is something that's been on my heart for a long time.

I now find myself having the opportunity to bring my priestly work and MU work together.

It's a wonderful complement. "I find in my ministry of whatever kind, God really blesses what I offer.

Nearly a year ago I was invited to be the chaplain to the Canterbury Province Conference for MU diocesan presidents.

I met a lot of people and out of that was invited to lead Guildford's MU diocesan retreat.

I am now being invited to lead branch prayer times and quiet afternoons and I've just led a quiet day for the trustees.

It's a way of re-using the resources I spent time developing last year.

God never wastes anything. "Denise is keen to see the image of the MU transformed in the UK.

"We have resources to help prepare people for marriage, resources for parenting, and last year I was invited to do a session on hard skills training for curates on baptism resources available for them," says Denise, who reels off a long list of MU projects, including Fiddle Pinnies: members make quilts of different fabrics, which are given to people with dementia to help them to remain calm and are a focus for conversation.

The Diocesan MU funds summer holidays for families in need, and provides a range of items for parents who find themselves in hospital with sick children, as well as having fellowship groups for their members, who raise money for diocesan and international projects and run activities in their local churches. Being a trustee to the central MU has given her a completely different perspective on the organisation.

In the last eight years, she has seen the national body receive two grants of just under £1m each from Comic Relief, a fact most members aren't aware of.

The charity has a permanent seat at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which meets every February.

"They want us there because we can tell the stories from the grass roots of how their policies affect women and children," she says.

Denise was privileged to go to Kellogg College in Oxford to hear United Nations Under Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, speak in June on the Millennium Development Goals that were launched by the UN 15 years ago. "Because the MU is so involved in that I had a chat with her and it was really good to hear about how our work is appreciated at the highest levels. "Denise and David have two sons, Matthew and Andrew.