University Sermons
A University of Cambridge tradition since 1300
A University of Cambridge tradition since at least 1300, the Sermons Before the University challenge us to consider faith more thoughtfully.
University Sermons have inspired the Reformation, the Abolitionist movement, and more. Each year prominent women and men from many different traditions deliver Sermons on topics of particular interest to students. The services are very simple, last about an hour, and are open to all.
Members of the University are reminded that they should wear academical dress in the University Church when attending University Sermons. All are welcome and if circumstances permit, those present will be invited to take refreshments with the Preacher afterwards.
Ramsden Sermon 2022
The Revd Dr Jane Leach
"The Spirit that Crosses Borders"
5 June 2022, at 10am
The Revd Dr Jane Leach has been the Principal of Wesley House since 2011. and this year marks the Centenary Anniversary of Wesley House.
Prior to 2011 she was Director of Pastoral Studies here for ten years (2001-11). She trained at Wesley House in the 1990s and served her probation in the Fenland Methodist Circuit where she was responsible for four rural chapels. She was ordained presbyter at the British Methodist Conference of 1998.
Jane holds degrees in history and theology from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Nottingham. Her own doctoral research was on faith development theory. She researches, supervises and publishes in the fields of practical theology and theological education with expertise in qualitative research and multidisciplinary perspectives. Her own recent research has been on the impact and nature of reflective supervision offered in a denominational context. Jane has enjoyed study leave in the United States and in South Africa and is currently part of the team delivering a Diploma in Church Leadership at Kenya Methodist University.
Her current doctoral students are researching the following topics: ageing well in Singapore; the impact of reflective supervision in the USA; leadership in the Methodist Church in Kenya; forms of accompaniment for women ministers in the Baptist tradition.
Jane was the founding chair of the Association for Pastoral Supervisors and Educators (APSE www.pastoralsupervision.org.uk). She is an accredited APSE supervisor and educator and holds a diploma in Creative Supervision from the London Centre for Psychodrama. She offers pastoral supervision to clergy, chaplains and other church workers and teaches on the Wesley House Diploma in Pastoral Supervision, and the Wesley House Diploma in Group Supervision. She was the team lead in introducing reflective supervision into the Methodist Church in Britain (2017-21) and has consulted and taught supervision within the United Methodist Church and Kenya.
Jane is a Fellow Commoner at Jesus College, Cambridge and is the Executive LEaD Hub Director: Britain for the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church. She is a member of the Faith and Order Committee of the Methodist Church in Britain. She broadcasts regularly on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.
Recent University Sermons
The Most Revd and Rt Hon. Justin Welby, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury 'Driven Out or Driven Under - the Choice of the Church'
Professor Karen Kilby, Bede Professor of Catholic, University of Durham 'Mercy Justice and Truth: Picking a Path through a Polarised World'
Sarah Teather, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service UK 'The cry of Earth and the cry of the poor'
Professor Anthony Reddie, 'Reclaiming the Ordinary’
The Reverend Doctor Ayla Lepine, '"Life is a Complicated Business": Groaning Inwardly and Growing Up'
The Reverend Canon Mark Oakley, 'Daylight sanity and vigour: George Herbert, Poetry and Truth Decay'
