Gavin Wakefield
Gavin Wakefield is a Church of England priest, living in the Durham area. He has retired from fulltime ministry but remains engaged in supporting local church ministry, spiritual accompaniment, supervising postgraduate students, mentoring ministerial students and as a volunteer chaplain at Durham Cathedral. Previously he was the Director of Training for Missional Ministry for the Diocese of York, where he led the Diocesan Training Team in its work of developing the formation of lay and clergy people. Before that, he was at Cranmer Hall, Durham for over 10 years, as Deputy Warden and the mission tutor. His first ministerial posts were in parish ministry in the dioceses of Sheffield and Chelmsford, including a spell church planting in a former mining area.
His academic interests are mainly in the area of missiology and include issues in evangelism, the origins of Pentecostalism in the UK, and the development of mission in the north east of England. He has a passion for learning from Christian history and making it live for today’s concerns. Since retiring he has taken up volunteer roles with a community choir, a local National Trust garden, and campaigning with environmental groups. His publications include Alexander Boddy: Pentecostal Anglican Pioneer (2007), Holy People, Holy Places (2008), Northern Gospel, Northern Church: Reflections on Identity and Mission (2016), Saints and Holy Places of Yorkshire (2020), and most recently, St Nicholas’ Church Durham: Episodes and Themes from a 900 year history (2024). He is currently working on a major revision and expansion of his book on northern saints.
