Revd Dr Val Ogden

Val was born in Manchester, UK, in 1961 (proudly noting it as the home of better football), and felt called to local preaching at the age of 19. She has been committed to communicating God's good news in Christ ever since, in many diverse ways, forms and places. She holds degrees in theology from Manchester University (1982) and Bristol University (1991), an MPhil in Ecumenics from the Irish School of Ecumenics and Trinity College, Dublin (1992), and is a graduate of the National Broadcasting School. Her PhD thesis (University of Wales, 2014) explored the life and ministry of the Revd Dr Colin Morris, one of Methodism's most colourful ministers and formerly head of religious broadcasting at the BBC and Controller of BBC Northern Ireland; it is available online via Academia.edu.

Val worked in education and training in the 1980s, and as a programmer and presenter in commercial radio, before training for the Methodist ministry. She was ordained in the United Church of Zambia, where she served for six years in Ndola, on the Copperbelt, and remains deeply thankful to her Zambian church family for the faith, formation and inspiration she received there.

Val returned to the UK in 1998 to the Wolverhampton Trinity Circuit, and then to the United College of the Ascension in Selly Oak, Birmingham, as Tutor in Mission Studies. She went on to become Director of the Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies at the Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham, engaged in training, research and orientation for global mission and ministry among a diverse, international community of clergy, church leaders and mission partners.

From 2009 to 2013 she was Ecumenical Minister at St Martin's Shared Church (Anglican-Methodist) in Dorking and Dorking Christian Centre, followed by an academic year in residence at Spurgeon's College in South London, a Baptist foundation.

From 2014 to 2018 she was Director of Theological Education by Extension at the Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji (now Pasifika Communities University), an ecumenical centre offering theological, whole of life education across the islands of the Pacific region, with much emphasis on climate justice and decolonising mission. She served in this role as a mission partner of the British Methodist Church.

From 2018 to 2026 Val served in the Boston Methodist Circuit in Lincolnshire, deeply involved in diverse community outreach, seeing where God's Spirit was at work and joining in, and keeping precious church buildings alive and focussed on mission rather than just maintenance. She served alongside some exceptional people, and is grateful to them.

From September 2026 Val has been invited to serve as Superintendent Minister of the Newham Methodist Circuit, and is both humbled and excited to learn what God's mission and ministry holds in this wonderful, vibrant place, among both the faithful and the seeking.

Val feels blessed to speak, preach, broadcast, facilitate, counsel, teach and train in a whole variety of settings, and is fervently ecumenical: 'for God so loved the world'.