The new Rector at St. Clare’s Church is Reverend Chris Pearson and he will be inducted on Sunday at 3:00pm on Sunday 11th May.
He grew up in Billingham and after school went on to Oxford where he received a degree in Experimental Psychology.
Chris went into a commercial career eventually becoming the Managing Director of Tees Storage Company, a major port facility for handling bulk chemicals.
In 1999 he went work in the charity sector becoming the Finance Director for World Vision UK, based in Milton Keynes. He travelled the world visiting some of the poorest and most challenging communities in Europe, Africa and South America. This was a range of life-changing encounters from meeting children orphaned by AIDS in Zambia and having to fend for themselves, to being in war-ravaged Kosovo in the aftermath of the NATO bombings. Chris later worked for an organisation clearing mines and the debris of war from the south of Lebanon.
Returning to the North East he resumed a commercial career back in the chemical industry as Finance Director of the Centre for Process Innovation at Wilton. However, Chris knew he was being called into ministry in the church and offered himself for the Church of England priesthood.
He studied for a Masters degree in Theology from the University of Nottingham and served a curacy in Norton and North Stockton. For the last three years been Priest in Charge of Easington and Easington Colliery and now to be Team Rector of the parish of Great Aycliffe.
He has been happily married to Karin for the last 35 years and they have two sons, Andrew and Thomas, both of whom live in London.
