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Interview
4 November 2018 2.00 h

Rachel Shock

Reverend of the Anglican Church on Costa Brava

Aiming to reach out

We talk to Rachel Shock, the new reverend of the Anglican Church on the Costa Brava, about her new mission and the upcoming Christmas fair

You’re the new chap­lain of the Church of Eng­land on the Costa Brava. When and how was it set up?
The An­gli­can church of Costa Brava (www.​anglicancb.​org) was set up in 2002 by Colin Levey, a re­tired priest who moved here and missed tak­ing com­mu­nity ser­vices. They had their first ser­vice in Madre­manya on Easter Day. After his death, my pre­de­ces­sor, chap­lain Anne Jenk­ins, started five years ago. Three months ago I took over from her, and I have a li­cence for five years.
What’s your main aim as rev­erend?
I’ve been tasked with try­ing to grow the church so that’s the main strapline, nu­mer­i­cally and spir­i­tu­ally. I come from Not­ting­ham – I was a priest in the mid­dle of the city cen­tre – I used to go to busi­nesses and was chap­lain there. Here we have an age­ing con­gre­ga­tion and we’re spread over a very wide area, we meet in four places to wor­ship (Pau, Penedes, Lloret de Mar and Madre­manya), so we need to take that into ac­count. We’d like to grow by build­ing re­la­tion­ships with peo­ple, every­one is wel­come to come along. Some come along be­cause they’re lonely and want to meet a group of Eng­lish peo­ple, and that’s fine, you don’t need to have all the an­swers and all of your faith rock solid; come along and hope­fully we’ll give you some sign­posts along the way, you might be won­der­ing a bit more about what a Chris­t­ian is.
Are peo­ple sur­prised at a woman priest?
It’s been very pos­i­tive and for the British com­mu­nity it is al­most nor­mal. I’ve been a priest for 20 years and I work with women and male priests, women and men can do things dif­fer­ently but to­gether we make a re­ally good team. Here it’s been in­ter­est­ing be­cause some­times I get a lot of looks when I hold hands with my hus­band and I wear a dog col­lar.
Which ac­tiv­i­ties do you do apart from ser­vices?
We hold ser­vice every Sun­day and try and go for lunch af­ter­wards, tea and cof­fee. There are lots of fund rais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, con­certs, as we are self-funded and it pro­vides that fel­low­ship. We have the great typ­i­cal British style lunches every two months, the spring fair and the Christ­mas fair.
Tell us about your tra­di­tional Christ­mas.
This year we are hold­ing it ear­lier, on No­vem­ber 17, in Corçà, at the local so­cial cen­tre. It’s a huge fund-rais­ing ac­tiv­ity, but it’s more than that, it’s a great place to meet peo­ple, lo­cals come along as well, there’s noth­ing re­li­gious about our Christ­mas fair, it’s a place to have some­thing to eat and drink, buy Christ­mas bits and pieces, crafts, there are some chil­dren’s ac­tiv­i­ties, Christ­mas car­ols, Fa­ther Christ­mas will be there, it’s a fam­ily day out.
Any mes­sage for the com­mu­nity?
The main mes­sage I’d like to get across is we want to meet peo­ple, we want peo­ple to feel they can come and be with us and be in touch, they don’t even have to come to church. We’re there for them, at any point, and not just the Eng­lish com­mu­nity, even if they only want a cup of cof­fee or to prac­tise Eng­lish. We’re a wel­com­ing com­mu­nity.
What sur­prised you most when you ar­rived here?
Cat­alo­nia is much more beau­ti­ful than I an­tic­i­pated, and I was pleas­antly sur­prised by how beau­ti­ful the area is, es­pe­cially the me­dieval vil­lages are amaz­ing. And be­cause I’m into IT, and in the UK vir­tu­ally every­thing is done on­line, I’m quite sur­prised that here some­times that is not the case. It does feel like a much slower pace of life, maybe be­cause I used to work in a big city cen­tre. It’s quite a big change for me and I like it.

SO­CIAL IS­SUES In­ter­view

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