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Rev Stephen Barnett

I live with Sue, my wife, at Sowerby Bridge. We have two grown up children who live away. I have spent most of my life living and working in Yorkshire.

For 28 years I worked as a Probation Officer in South Yorkshire mostly based at Barnsley. I did also work for just over two years at a prison near Doncaster.

For the last 8 years of my time in the Probation Service I was also a Methodist Minister, I combined being a minister within the Denby Dale and Clayton West Circuit having pastoral responsibility for one village church initially and then latterly another church on the outskirts of the market town of Penistone, where we lived for 23years as a family.

In 2001 we moved to Sowerby Bridge where for 8 years I had pastoral responsibility for two churches St Pauls Sowerby Bridge and Stones Ripponden.
Since 2009, due to changes in the former Elland and Ryburn Circuit, I have been working with our two Methodist churches in Elland.

Following the formation of the Calderdale Circuit I have been working alongside our Anglican colleagues at St Matthews, Rastrick. I would describe my ministry in three words, Collabrative Ecumenical and Open, working with others wherever possible in ecumenical cooperation believing that Mission and Unity are inseparable and being open to where God, through the promptings of his Holy Spirit, might be leading.