The Revd Sam Taylor, currently Vicar of Holy Nativity Church Eastfield with Osgodby and Area Dean of Scarborough, has been appointed to the role of Diocesan Adviser for Vocations and Director of Ordinands.
As part of the Mission and Ministry Team, Sam will be involved in ensuring that we have the right kinds of lay and ordained ministers who can enable our churches to serve God’s mission. She will be working with teams of people across the diocese to spot the treasures and gifts in others and to re-energise our work in churches and deaneries to amplify God’s call to ministry. She will also work on encouraging the call to ordained ministry, both paid and self-supporting, and accompanying those called through the discernment process.
Sam brings a wealth of experience, leadership and skills, having served as been Vicar of Eastfield since 2017 and Director of the Westway Open Arms Crisis Centre since 2024. She has been Area Dean from 2021 and was also Acting Archdeacon of the East Riding during 2024. From 2008 until 2017, she was the Fresh Expressions Enabler for the Scarborough Deanery and during this time was also an Assistant Director of Ordinands. Previously, she served her curacy in York and has also been a Police Chaplain. Sam was brought up in Middlesbrough and brings to us a great deal of lived experience of the diocese.
Welcoming Sam’s appointment, Director of Mission and Ministry the Revd Canon Dr Ian McIntosh said, “Sam will bring real credibility to this role from her work in the diocese, particularly for the way that she has nurtured leaders from within her own context and enabled them to flourish. We recognise in her someone who has skills in enabling and building teams, the ability to work across church traditions with the proven resilience that this role demands.”
Sam said, “I’m excited to be stepping into this new role and to be part of the work of calling, encouraging and equipping people across our diocese to step into all that God is inviting them to. While I’m looking forward to the future, this is also a bittersweet moment. My family and I will deeply miss the parish of Eastfield and the community at Westway Open Arms who have been such a precious part of our lives. I am confident, though, that this is God’s timing and call, and I step forward with a thankful heart and trust.”
Sam will begin her role in the middle of August.
