Revd Tom Read

Minister

Tom was born in Dudley and was one of six children. He felt a call to Methodist ministry at the age of 14 and then in topsy turvy fashion gave his life to Christ at a Don Summers Evangelistic Crusade when he was 15.

Tom felt he needed some experience of the outside world before candidating so he spent three years working for a bank. As Tom always says, he can do words but not numbers, so it was probably just as well that banking was a stop gap measure.

Tom was fully accredited as a Local Preacher when he was 20, the same year he candidated for the ministry. He began training at Wesley College, Bristol when he was 21, the same year he was married to Jane.

When he was 25 Tom was sent as a probationer to the Frodsham Circuit where he served for three happy years at Helsby and Hapsford before being abruptly uprooted and moved to the Biddulph & Mow Cop Circuit where he served for five years. By the time he was 30 his three children, Rebecca, Charlotte and Matthew had all been born.

In 1993 Tom came to the Doncaster Circuit, little realising that he would still be here thirty years later. Tom spent 19 happy years as minister at Cantley before being moved to Priory in the town centre. Tom is currently the minister of six churches in the Circuit including SMC, Adwick, Bentley, Scawthorpe, and has recently come full circle and found himself back at Cantley and Auckley. 
Over the years Tom has served at most of the churches in the Circuit and has a great love for the Doncaster Methodists.

For 18 years Tom also served as Free Church Chaplain to HMP & YOI Doncaster. Tom has
also served the Circuit as Superintendent for a period as well as being District Synod Secretary and before that, District Candidates' Secretary for many years.

Tom loves preaching and feels an especial call to make the world of the Bible communicable and relevant to the real lives that Christians live in the 21 st century. He loves reading anything that relates theology to other disciplines and feels called to be alongside other ministers as they exercise their ministry through being a supervisor.

When Tom isn't being occupied with ministering to his churches, he is kept busy with his eight grandchildren. If he does have any time to call his own, he enjoys watching football, listening to music, cycling, and generally enjoying the great outdoors.

Tom feels privileged to have been a Christian for most of his life and to have been called into ministry at such a young age. He feels grateful for the love and the care he has received from the Methodist Church, all of his life, not least the Doncaster Circuit, which continues to this day.