Revd Jennifer Totney

Director of Contextual Training
Tel: 01223 272969
Email: j.totney@westcott.cam.ac.uk

As the Director of Contextual Training, Jennifer oversees contextual training so that it shapes and enlivens the integrated formation offered at Westcott. She works with colleagues to enable students to develop strong skills and patterns of theological reflection, and ensures that ordinands encounter a wide range of contexts in their training through attachments and placements in churches, colleges and secular institutions. She is a tutor with pastoral responsibility and teaches on the Ministry for Life programme including in the areas of pastoral care and liturgy.

Jennifer was an ordinand at Westcott, and served in parish ministry in the Diocese of Salisbury for twelve years, most recently as Team Vicar of the Vale of Pewsey Churches. She has been Acting Dean of Chapel at Trinity Hall, and assists in local parishes in Cambridge including St Andrew’s, Cherry Hinton.

Since her own training for ministry at Westcott, Jennifer has been interested in theological education in all levels and contexts, believing that theology is something to be shared to enable people to be drawn deeper into relationship with Christ. She has been involved in vocation and formation work throughout this time, including as a tutor at Sarum College, and was the LLM Training Officer for Salisbury Diocese for 3 years.

Grounded in rural parish experience, she is keen to inspire others in these areas and embed collaborative ministry in the life of the church. She is interested in models of theological reflection that enable fruitful, lifelong and shared habits of growth and reflection.

Jennifer is also interested in the relationship between poetry, liturgy, theology and practice, especially in the work of George Herbert.

Publications

‘The Ecclesiology of George Herbert’s poetry in The Temple’ Koinonia, New series No.61 (2013): 7-36.