page_title: Robert Hardwick
section_title: Early life and calling
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Hardwick / Early life and calling
caption_attribution_description: English: St Hybald's Church, Hibaldstow Photo by Asterion talk to me
context_page_description: Robert Hardwick is the 12th and current Bishop of the Diocese of Qu'Appelle in the Anglican Church of Canada. Originally from England, he and his family moved to Canada in 2001, where he became parish priest at St Stephen the Martyr, Swift Current, Saskatchewan. In 2008 he was appointed executive archdeacon for the diocese and in 2012 he was elected Bishop of Qu'Appelle at an electoral synod. He and his wife live in Regina, Saskatchewan, the see of the diocese.
context_section_description: Hardwick was born in England, near Nottingham.  He initially worked as a machinist with the Royal Ordnance Factory in Nottingham, and then as a police officer with the Nottingham Constabulary.
  He first felt a calling towards the church when serving as part of the security detail for the papal visit of Pope John Paul II to England in 1982.  He has stated that life was not going well for him, describing it as a "rough time" for him and his wife.  Then he was assigned to the security detail for a papal event where more than one million people were waiting to see the pope:  "As the morning wore on and people were singing, I began thinking these people have something that I need to have. They had joy, they were friendly, faithful.  There was singing, in Latin and English and there was such colour and beauty, a day which was beyond my experience."  At the close of the day, a nun came up to him and said that she would pray for him.  “I began to think why would a nun want to pray for me? What have I done wrong?"  He went home and described his experiences to his wife, and they began to attend a local Church of England parish.
  He gradually felt a calling which led him to the priesthood.  He attended St John's College, Nottingham, a theological college with an emphasis on open evangelism.  Hardwick was ordained a priest in the Church of England in the Diocese of Southwell in 1994, having been ordained deacon the year before.  He first served as assistant curate at St John the Baptist in Beeston, Nottinghamshire (1993–97), and then as vicar of Scawby, Redbourne and Hibaldstow, in Lincolnshire (1997-2001).
caption: St Hybald's Church Tower, Hibaldstow
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