Sonia Hicks is a British Methodist minister who was elected to serve as President of the Methodist Conference from June 2021 to June 2022.
Personal life and education
She worked as a bank clerk for four years before training at The Queen's College (now the Queen's Foundation), Birmingham. Hicks is married to Conrad Hicks, a Methodist minister. They have three children.[1]
Ministry
After she was ordained, she and her husband both were in the High Wycombe circuit for two years and then the Watford circuit for the following by four years.[1] In 1998 they both moved to Jamaica where she was superintendent of the Manchioneal circuit for five years. They then moved to the Dublin North circuit in the Republic of Ireland for nine years. In 2012 she returned to the UK and joined the Thames Valley circuit where she is the superintendent minister with pastoral charge of three churches.[1]
Hicks has been circuit superintendent in Britain, the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas, and the Methodist Church in Ireland. She has been a trustee for charities such as Christian Aid Ireland and also served on committees within the organisation of the church.[2]
In her ministry she celebrates diversity and is opposed to all forms of injustice.[2]
In 2020 she was elected to the annual post as president of the Methodist Conference from June 2021 until June 2022. Hicks became the first black woman to hold the post.[3] In her inaugural address in June 2021, she spoke about how the church should respond to racism and social division, both within the church and in wider society and how these tensions should be acknowledged as well as countered.[3]
During her presidency the Methodist Conference voted to change the definition of marriage to be "a lifelong union in body, mind and spirit of two people who freely enter it". This allowed the church to celebrate and recognise the commitment of unmarried cohabiting couples as well as allow weddings between people of the same sex to be conducted. Ministers will be able to opt out of officiating at these weddings through a conscience clause.[4]
Hicks presided over the 2023 Methodist Conference. This responsibility fell upon her as Graham Thompson, the President of the Conference, decided not to attend due to an ongoing investigation related to safeguarding failings.[5]
References
- ^ a b c "Meet the staff". Thames Valley Methodist Circuit. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
- ^ a b "New President and Vice-President of the Methodist Conference elected for 2021/22". The Methodist Church. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
- ^ a b Williams, Hattie (28 June 2021). "New Methodist President: 'Be better at making God's love real'". The Church Times. Retrieved 23 July 2021.
- ^ Sherwood, Harriet (30 June 2021). "Methodist church to allow same-sex marriage after 'historic' vote". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
- ^ "An update on the Methodist Conference from the Secretary of the Conference". www.methodist.org.uk (Press release). Retrieved 21 June 2023.