A NEW church minister overcame a paralysing earthquake accident before switching careers from pharmacy to religion.

Reverend Carolyn Urwin, 63, will lead her first service as minister of Latchford Baptist Church on Loushers Lane on Sunday but she was forced to learn to walk again after a 4.8 magnitude earthquake in Dudley in 2002.

A previous balance-affecting illness forced an end to her 23-year career in pharmacy the year before, but then she says she felt God’s call to become a minister.

Speaking about her accident, she said: “There was an earthquake in the middle of the night and my husband, Robin, bolted upright and it jolted my back.

“I couldn’t walk for six months.”

The reverend had always been involved with the church, but the majority of that was through music.

During her illness she studied theology at St John’s College, Nottingham from home, and she wanted to learn more.

“The illness meant I couldn’t go to college to study a diploma because I had two children at home and I wasn’t very well, but then I felt God’s call to ministry,” she said.

“The question I felt came to me was ‘you know that you always felt I was never going to call you into ministry, what would you say if I said I now am’.”

She trained in Oxford from 2003 to 2006 when she became a minister in Wraysbury, Berkshire, helping bring the community closer to her church.

“Some people in that village wondered whether the church was even open or not, so I got us much more involved, like having weekly coffee mornings and opening up the building more,” she said.

The reverend then decided it was time to move closer to some elderly relatives who live in the north west and she was offered the position at Latchford Baptist Church to emulate her previous success.

The mum-of-three moved to the parish six weeks ago and has been spending the past month introducing herself to residents ahead of her first service at 10.45am this Sunday.

She added: “The people I’ve met in the community all love Latchford and they’re really glad they live there.

“We want to listen to the community and hear what they’d like to see – what they think is missing here in Latchford that we could fill a hole and make a difference.”