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Janet Wootton

Janet Wootton was born in Bedford in 1952, though a peripatetic childhood took her to other parts of England, ending in Nottinghamshire, where she attended Loughborough High School. She went on to take first class honours in Classics (Greats) at St Hilda’s College, Oxford and Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford, the latter in connection with training for the Congregational ministry. She married Chris Wootton in 1975.

She had heard the call to ministry at the age of 13, during a sermon given by her father, a lay preacher, and was delighted to fulfil that calling at churches in East Anglia, and, later Union Chapel, Islington. During the first years of ministry, she studied for her PhD with Colin Gunton at Kings College, London, comparing John Scotus Eruigena with Alfred North Whitehead.

Union Chapel was a vast Victorian building, which, under Janet’s seventeen year ministry, with Chris’s support and active involvement, developed a wide-ranging community and arts project, including two theatre spaces and a drop-in centre for homeless people. All this went alongside work to restore the magnificent church premises and adapt them for a variety of uses.

Janet has travelled widely as President of the Congregational Federation and Moderator of the Churches Commission on Mission and of the International Congregational Federation. She has also chaired various committees on mission, worship development and community development. She was founder co-chair of the International Congregational Theological Commission, which, among other things, publishes the International Congregational Journal.

As well as editing the ICJ, Janet is on the editorial team for Feminist Theology Journal, and has been involved in the production of various hymn resources, including Hymns & Psalms, Reflecting Praise and Peculiar Honours. From 1993, she has been the editor of Worship Live, working with other people well-known to cognoscenti of Stainer & Bell publications.

Writing has been a passion, from academic books and articles to worship material, poems and hymns. Her hymns have appeared in a number of publications in the UK and abroad. At the end of 2003, Janet took up the post of Director of Studies for the Congregational Federation, running the training course, on which she had been tutor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages for some years. This enabled her to bring her writing more into the centre of her life.

Publication of her hymns and worship material in Eagles' Wings and Lesser Things has given her great pleasure, and she hopes that others will find its eclectic mix of material useful and inspiring.