Should these measures become law, where will this leave the church? While the clergy aren’t obliged to endorse every parliamentary decision, the church is more closely bound to the nation’s political order than other denominations. Its foundation owed as much to Tudor politics as Reformation theology, its bishops sit in the upper legislative chamber, and historically the church has played a role in British public life that deliberately spans faith and politics.

This role expanded with missionary zeal alongside the British Empire and in some respects had a humanizing influence on its excesses. More recently, the church has continued to adjust in line with perceived mainstream British mores, decrying the historic empire and embracing the ordination of women, gender ideology and same-sex marriage.

But despite, or perhaps because of, such efforts to “modernize” doctrine, Church of England congregations have continued to dwindle and grow older. Church data show that 1.7% of Britons attend its services regularly, and the census finds that only 46% of U.K. citizens call themselves Christian.

Can an institution legitimately serve as an established church when 98% of its nation’s people rarely if ever attend its services? We might turn the question around: Can even so doctrinally adaptable an entity as the Church of England persist as established faith to a polity so indifferent to Christian precepts while preserving its capacity for Christian witness?

Read it all.

The Church of England has spent almost 500 years adroitly juggling faith and politics. But if last week’s abortion and euthanasia votes pass the Hpuse of Lords and become law, it might have to choose

Me at @WSJopinion https://t.co/5KdRiTpd2y

— Mary Harrington (@moveincircles) June 27, 2025

The

 old saying “A parish can be no better than its priest” is open to doubt. What is not open to doubt is that the Church of England is facing something of a crisis in clergy numbers.

In 2020, there were 591 ordinands, dropping to 370 in 2024; in the summer of that year, the General Synod was told that numbers had dropped by 38 per cent since 2020 (News, 12 July 2024). Parishes advertising a vacancy frequently get no replies, while the number of interregnums grows daily (Comment, 13 December 2024). Countless churches depend for regular ministry on non-stipendiary (NSM) or retired clergy. The ordination of women in 1994 was welcome for many reasons, but we must also not forget that it delivered the Church from an even greater clergy crisis.

Most serving priests will have been asked “What made you become a priest?” with the expectation there will have been a mysterious divine call delivered by private prayer and worship.

There is no reason, however, why such a call cannot also come through modern PR and planned human strategy.

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"A parish may receive only one applicant for a post, resulting in the choice of facing a further long interregnum or appointing this candidate. When the latter course is taken, disastrous results can follow."https://t.co/1Tbri6VHHL

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) June 23, 2025

In this tomb, also, you may see, A pledge to us…Yes, verily, it is a pledge,

Of Christ’s power to raise us to a spiritual life -The resurrection of Christ is set forth in the Scriptures as a pattern of that which is to be accomplished in all his followers; and by the very same power too, that effected that. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul draws the parallel with a minuteness and accuracy that are truly astonishing. He prays for them, that they may know what is the exceeding greatness of God’s power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.” And then he says, concerning them, “God, who is rich in mercy, of his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us usi together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus^” Here, I say, you see Christ dead, quickened, raised, and seated in glory; and his believing people quickened from their death in sins, and raised with him, and seated too with him in the highest heavens. The same thing is stated also, and the same parallel is drawn in the Epistle to the Romans ; where it is said, “We are buried with Christ by baptism into death; that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” But can this be effected in us ? I answer, Behold the tomb ! Who raised the Lord Jesus? He himself said, ” I have power to lay down my life, and power to take it up again….”

–Horae homileticae, Sermon 1414

He is Risen! Michelangelo's magisterial vision of the Resurrected Christ bursting from the tomb into the dazzling light, c.1532. Happy Easter! https://t.co/94kCw2wJgy pic.twitter.com/wK8qPIqCXP

— Rosie Razzall (@RazzallRosie) April 21, 2019

O Lord our God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thine apostles and send them forth to preach the Gospel to the nations: We bless thy holy name for thy servant Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, whose labors in propagating thy Church among the English people we commemorate today; and we pray that all whom thou dost call and send may do thy will, and bide thy time, and see thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

26 May 605, Augustine, first #ArchbishopofCanterbury, died. Sent as a missionary by Pope Gregory in 597, he landed in Thanet & persuaded the Anglo-Saxons of Kent to become Christians. He founded @No1Cathedral & @KingsCanterbury where I was educated. #churchplanting @McCrimmons pic.twitter.com/FzNSWXW15o

— Revd Nicholas Pye (@RevdPye) May 26, 2025

Almighty God, who in a rude and barbarous age didst raise up thy deacon Alcuin to rekindle the light of learning: Illumine our minds, we pray thee, that amid the uncertainties and confusions of our own time we may show forth thine eternal truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

May 20: Feast of Alcuin (Ealhwine) (†804), scholar and theologian. He was born in Northumbria and educated at the cathedral school in York. In 781 he met Charlemagne, who he became a key advisor to. In 796 he became abbot of St Martin at Tours. Alcuin, centre, depicted c.831 pic.twitter.com/xtVr7wGRbb

— North Ages (@NorthAges) May 20, 2025

The Church of England (C of E) is in trouble. This is an odd ecclesiastical moment. The pope is dead, the Archbishop of Canterbury has gone. Not since 1691 have both seats been empty. But those seats will be filled. A far more anxious emptiness is in the C of E’s pews. Adult church attendance in England has fallen by over a third in 15 years; just a little over 1% go to services weekly, according to the C of E’s own numbers. A rise in churchgoing among the young is mainly a Catholic phenomenon. The C of E closes 20-odd churches each year.

Critics sense a spiritual vacuum too: in its failure to resolve international squabbles over its stance on gay marriage and in its cover-up of appalling child abuse. On January 6th, the former archbishop Justin Welby, who many felt failed in his handling of that scandal, laid his curving staff on the altar at Lambeth Palace. The process of selecting a replacement has begun.

Whether or not you believe in God, this matters, to bureaucracy and to Britain. Britons might be a Godless lot—in the 2021 census less than half called themselves Christian, down from almost 60% in 2011—but Britain itself is not. The c of e is not merely a church but an established church. England is one of around 20% of countries (from Tuvalu to Denmark) with a state religion. It is institutionally ecclesiastical.

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Adult church attendance in England has fallen by over a third in 15 years; just a little over 1% go to services weekly, according to the Church of England’s own numbers. It closes 20 churches every year https://t.co/tj8gl0bjjd

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 9, 2025

The process for electing a new Archbishop of Canterbury has become an “omnishambles”, members of the General Synod said after cardinals in the Vatican took just two days of deliberations to pick a new pope.

The conclave to choose a successor to Pope Francis began on Wednesday, 16 days after his death on April 21. The selection of Cardinal Robert Prevost, who will be known as Pope Leo XIV, was confirmed on Thursday..

Six months after Justin Welby announced his resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury and four months after he vacated the role, the Church of England is still struggling to select the 17 members it needs to make up the crown nominations commission (CNC),which will choose his successor.

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“Over the last few decades, the #church has surrendered to a managerialism they were convinced would secure its salvation in the modern world,” said @WalkerMarcus. “The trouble is the managerial church cannot manage its way out of a paper bag.”#anglican #episcopal #religion pic.twitter.com/YKCBkKvlcR

— Dennis Lennox (@dennislennox) May 8, 2025

Young traditionalist ordinands with more than 40 years of ministry before them are one sign that their tradition is not ossifying, the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Revd Jonathan Baker, said this week, at the chrism mass for parishes to which he ministers.

While expressing a reluctance to “engage with any controversy”, Bishop Baker addressed towards the end of his sermon remarks made by the Bishop of Croydon, Dr Rosemarie Mallett, during last month’s WATCH conference (News, 4 April). Within the Church there had been, she said, an “ossification, if not growth, of the viewpoints purported by those who feel unable to receive the ministry of women bishops or priests or those male bishops who have ordained them”.

“I have to say to my sister in Christ and fellow bishop who used that term — not by name, but by association — of me and all of you — very firmly: No!” he told the congregation at St Andrew’s, Holborn, in London, on Tuesday. “Why? Because the life of the Church Catholic — her scriptures, her sacraments, her creeds, her ministry — embodies and expresses the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led living Tradition received and handed on in every generation — living water, ever fresh, ever renewing itself.”

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Young traditionalist ordinands with more than 40 years of ministry before them are one sign that their tradition is not ossifying, the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Revd Jonathan Baker, said this week, at the chrism mass for parishes to which he ministers.https://t.co/MW16hPLjWE

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 16, 2025

Churches are much more than buildings, and the Listed Places of Worship Grant (LPWG) Scheme is “beyond vital” to ensure that they can continue to be at the heart of communities, the Christian Funders’ Forum (CFF) has warned the Government.

These buildings are also often of significant architectural value, the CFF, a group of 50 grant-making charities say. They award grants totalling £70 million a year.

Churches such as St Michael-le-Belfrey, York, and St Mary Magdalene’s, Newark (News, 14 March, 4 April), where significant repair and restoration projects were already well advanced when the £25,000 cap on VAT exemption for repairs was announced in January, have been dismayed by the shortfalls in funding with which they are now confronted (News, 28 March).

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Treasury warned of ‘devastating’ consequences for churches if LPWG scheme ends https://t.co/qGfxfgsYkJ

— John Inge (@BishopJohnInge) April 14, 2025

During the WATCH conference, the Area Bishop of Croydon, Dr Rosemarie Mallett, a member of the steering committee that drafted the 2014 legislation (News, 26 July 2013), said: “I think in honesty we also thought that as society changed and as views became more open-minded among growing numbers of younger men and women, the culture of the Church would change like the culture of the wider society.”

Responding to this point, Mr Middleton suggested that, “Given that we are only just over a decade on from the settlement being put in place, and mutual flourishing is in its infancy, such attitudes do not bode well for any settlement emerging for evangelicals from their opposition to the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF).

“What are they, and others, to make of the promises made to Anglo-Catholics, which some appear so keen to renege on so soon after those commitments were made?”

He also asked about the “well-being” of young clergy in the Society (which is supported and financed by Forward in Faith) who put themselves forward for ordination under the settlement, should this be revoked “after such a short elapse of time”.

Read it all.

Promises to traditionalists should be kept, Forward in Faith sayshttps://t.co/gRz5Njpgzp

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) April 8, 2025

The Buckinghamshire-born 64-year-old was was ordained in Blackburn Cathedral 40 years ago, and says he is a parish priest at heart.

He has served in parishes in Blackburn, Lancaster and Accrington, before he moved to Lichfield Diocese as Diocesan Missioner and then a vicar in Telford.

He is co-author of a number of books on mission, spirituality and evangelism including, most recently, a booklet on the opportunities and risks of living in a digital world: ‘Surveillance Capitalism and the Loving Gaze of God’ as well as being an active member of General Synod, and previously servinged as an elected member of Archbishops’ Council.

Archdeacon Mark said, when his retirement was announced, : “It has been a tremendous privilege to serve God in Blackburn Diocese over the past 40 years and to have worked with five Diocesan bishops during that time.

Read it all.

Church leaders say farewell to Archdeacon of Blackburn https://t.co/fOCwTlmAsj

— Lancashire Telegraph (@lancstelegraph) April 5, 2025

Found there.

SIR – The Church of England is in a bad way, and the succession to Justin Welby is a case in point.Notwithstanding the increasing numbers of plausible candidates distancing themselves from consideration, in discussing the situation with colleagues, we are all hard-pressed to think of anybody suitable. How the Church and the Anglican Communion resolve this is not clear, but the task for the next Archbishop of Canterbury must be to return to basics. We must become a pastoral and spiritual organisation again, and put the inherited faith of the nation at the centre of what we do.It will require someone of stern mettle to achieve this, as the rot has gone deep.[The] Rev Simon Douglas Lane Hampton, Middlesex

When the diocese of Liverpool put its independent evaluation of the Transforming Wigan (TW) project in the public domain, it bucked a trend (News, 29 September 2023). Few evaluations of projects backed by the Archbishops’ Council’s Strategic Development Fund (SDF) have been published. The report laid bare the challenges that the project had encountered. The reconfiguration in 2020, which entailed the grouping of 33 churches in a single benefice of seven parishes, Church Wigan, had caused “considerable upset and dissatisfaction”.

The report recorded a fall in average weekly attendance from 1718, in 2015, to 1567, in 2019, and 1150. in 2022. A goal to turn around the financial strength of the deanery proved ambitious: overall giving was 88.6 per cent of the 2014 total in 2019, and, in 2020, only one parish paid its share in full. Without diocesan support, the report noted, the number of stipendiary clergy, already down to 13, would have fallen to eight.

A crucial aspect of the report was its careful delineation of the context in which the project took place. Wigan deanery had the lowest levels of giving in the diocese: an average of £5.40 per member per week (compared with a diocesan average of £8.57). Only one per cent of the population attended a C of E service on a Sunday. The fall in clergy numbers — from 24 to 18 in 2013 — was a catalyst for, not the outcome of, the project. But the authors also referred to successes, most notably new worshipping communities and social-justice activities, in which parishioners had “worked together beyond the confines of an individual, established church”.

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Two years after the evaluation of Transforming Wigan I spent a day in Wigan to see what’s happening now. Many thanks to everyone who spoke to me.
‘The seeds that were sown ten years ago have taken this long to start growing. Now you see the fruit.’https://t.co/7oD3ARG300

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) April 4, 2025

The Vicar of Upper Wensleydale, in North Yorkshire, the Revd David Clark, has expressed disappointment at the “upsetting” reaction of villagers in Askrigg to the new rendering of the clock tower of St Oswald’s.

One described the work, unveiled last week, as “quite horrendous”.

The Grade I listed church featured in the TV series All Creatures Great and Small, where it is portrayed as the parish church of the fictional village of Darrowby. Its orientation in Upper Wensleydale exposes it to driving rain, which had penetrated the bell-chamber. Investigations suggested that lime pointing alone would not solve the problem.

Read it all.

The Vicar of Upper Wensleydale, in North Yorkshire, the Revd David Clark, has expressed disappointment at the “upsetting” reaction of villagers in Askrigg to the new rendering of the clock tower of St Oswald’s https://t.co/2i1Jps0SyD pic.twitter.com/JcJtxyTb2K

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 3, 2025

In a statement to the Church Times on Wednesday, the Dean of Newcastle, the Very Revd Lee Batson, said that he was “deeply proud of the Cathedral’s ongoing ministry to those who have suffered abuse in their lives.

“It was this that informed the unanimous decision made solely by the Dean and Chapter to inform the Archbishop that we will not be hosting him as part of his Lord’s Prayer tour.

“This decision was made independently by the Cathedral’s governing body and applies specifically to this event. The well-being of survivors remains our highest priority, and Newcastle Cathedral will always strive to put them first.”

Read it all.

Newcastle Cathedral has withdrawn its planned participation in the Archbishop of York’s Lord’s Prayer Tour https://t.co/2jimmZfksw

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 2, 2025

In the 17 parishes in the first minster community (MC) in the diocese of Leicester, PCCs are considering proposals to meet the cost of its ministry, as required by the diocesan framework. The number of stipendiary ministers is to be one, a revised form of “oversight minister”, who, it is proposed, will prioritise work with church schools in the four parishes that have them.

The MC framework is just one of the models being rolled out across the Church as dioceses work to reduce structural deficits — forecast to reach £62 million in 2024 — and encourage both an increase in giving and a broader culture change, typically entailing greater collaboration across parishes and increased lay leadership.

Addressing his diocesan synod last year, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, suggested that MCs supporting the costs of their own ministry was “the only way we can address our financial deficit while also continuing with a bold and audacious plan to work with God in growing the Church”. It was “an important means of incentivising generosity and empowering local people”.

Read it all.

Had a look at the pilot of the Minster Communities in Leicester, which include the principle that communities cover the cost of their stipendiary ministry. ‘We just want to open up on a Sunday and have a priest who leads us’ must be familiar to others https://t.co/0X4lsGTzxh

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) March 28, 2025

It is genuinely difficult to adapt your life to Christian living: to commit to a community full of people whose company you might not have chosen for yourself, in which you must regularly recognise your own flaws and weaknesses and cruelties. Forgiving other people is hard, but so is asking other people to forgive you. The long social dominance of Christianity in Europe has tended to obscure the fundamental oddness and difficulty of Christian observance.

It doesn’t help that well-meaning Christian attempts to appeal to reach out to young people have often been rather inept, often because they lack the confidence to just let the truths of the faith speak for themselves. Most people who grew up in churches will have their own stories of cringeworthy attempts by church leaders to get down with the kids, usually just a decade or two behind the times. Disco cathedrals are a hard no.

There are no easy answers. What works in one place, with one set of kids, may not work in another. Quite likely the much-mocked rainbow guitar straps have appealed to plenty of teenagers in their time. But, ultimately, no Christian congregation can avoid the question.

Read it all.

New research shows that most non-believers say they were raised in the faith.

So why did so many leave? Niall Gooch 👇 https://t.co/VYP2I27Rd1

— UnHerd (@unherd) March 30, 2025

O God of eternal glory, whom no one living can see and yet whom to see is to live; grant that with thy servant John Donne, we may see thy glory in the face of thy Son, Jesus Christ, and then, with all our skill and wit, offer thee our crown of prayer and praise, until by his grace we stand in that last and everlasting day, when death itself will die, and all will live in thee, who with the Holy Ghost and the same Lord Jesus Christ art one God in everlasting light and glory. Amen.

The metaphysical poet John Donne died on March 31, 1631, in London, likely from stomach cancer. His death was preceded by a period of declining health, during which he prepared for his passing both spiritually and artistically. https://t.co/lqOJd2lV9S pic.twitter.com/t4Q0bFvq0s

— Trivia Encyclopedia (@edpearce080759) March 31, 2025

Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Guten Morgen ihr Lieben, kommt gut in die neue Woche.🍃🐞 pic.twitter.com/HNvzvPQUCl

— Constanze Riegel (@ConstanzeRiegel) March 31, 2025

Waiving this question, therefore, I proceed to others, which appear to me, I own, at the present moment especially, of the very gravest practical import.

What are the symptoms, by which one may judge most fairly, whether or no a nation, as such, is becoming alienated from God and Christ?

And what are the particular duties of sincere Christians, whose lot is cast by Divine Providence in a time of such dire calamity?

The conduct of the Jews, in asking for a king, may furnish an ample illustration of the first point : the behaviour of Samuel, then and afterwards, supplies as perfect a pattern of the second, as can well be expected from human nature.

I. The case is at least possible, of a nation, having for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its theory of government, that, as a Christian nation, she is also a part of Christ’s Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the fundamental rules of that Church””the case is, I say, conceivable, of a government and people, so constituted, deliberately throwing off the restraint, which in many respects such a principle would impose on them, nay, disavowing the principle itself ; and that, on the plea, that other states, as flourishing or more so in regard of wealth and dominion, do well enough without it. Is not this desiring, like the Jews, to have an earthly king over them, when the Lord their God is their King? Is it not saying in other words, ‘We will be as the heathen, the families of the countries,’ the aliens to the Church of our Redeemer?

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John Keble gave his famous Assize Sermon on 'National Apostasy' #OnThisDay in 1833, providing the first impulse to the Tractarian (or Oxford) movement

Image: Window in St Katharine's, Southbourne, Dorset pic.twitter.com/EX36KIOuAJ

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) July 14, 2024

The forced displacement and killing of Christians in Nigeria is not the product of climate change, or clashes between farmers and herders, but religiously motivated persecution, a bishop there said this week.

The RC Bishop of Makurdi, Dr Wilfred Anagbe, whose diocese is in the Middle Belt state of Benue, said on Tuesday that the international community needed to acquire a “clear narrative of what is going on. Previously it has been said it was based on climate change and farmers and herders clashing. . . That is not the reason.”

He spoke of a “clear, orchestrated agenda or plan of Islam to take over the territories” of people who were “predominantly Christian”. In some parts of Nigeria, villages were being given new Islamic names. “It is about the conquest and occupation of the land.”

Climate change was occurring in other countries, without simultaneous forced displacement, he said. Benue State was 99 per cent Christian; its economy was not based on rearing cattle.

Read it all.

The forced displacement and killing of Christians in Nigeria is not the product of climate change, or clashes between farmers and herders, but religiously motivated persecution, a bishop there said this week.https://t.co/Qmiq0Lh1aE

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 28, 2025

Five years ago, on Mothering Sunday, the first national online service was broadcast on the Church of England’s media channels in response to lockdowns mandated by the Government to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Marking the anniversary in Sunday’s broadcast, the Archbishop of York expressed his gratitude to this online worshipping community, and “to those who have made it happen”. Last year, 59 weekly services were produced which accrued 21 million views. An average of 4000 people a week watch the service from start to finish.

“These services have connected us together as a Christian community, as an online community, and my prayer now is that, in our worship this morning, we will be more deeply connected to Jesus,” Archbishop Cottrell said.

This week’s broadcast, for the 3rd Sunday of Lent, featured highlights from previous services, including the Revd Richard Allen leading the confession from a lifeboat in the Trelawny Benefice, in Cornwall, and hymns from St Martin’s Voices, on locations in Holy Island and in a stable, where Clover the donkey interrupted filming with her own chorus of braying.

Read it all.

Five years ago, on Mothering Sunday, the first national online service was broadcast on the Church of England’s media channels in response to lockdowns mandated by the Government to slow the spread of the coronavirus https://t.co/KXnR0XbFUN pic.twitter.com/PzVaw5jqiS

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 24, 2025

A debate

 about the mechanics of increasing the clergy pension — currently set at an “indefensible, ungodly, and unchristian” level — must not delay agreement on the moral course of action, a Southwark priest who has helped to organise concerned clergy said on Wednesday.

“This is a justice issue,” the Vicar of the Ascension, Balham Hill, the Revd Marcus Gibbs, said. “We take the decision to do the right thing — and that requires leadership — and then we work out how to do it. . . We need to start with the moral imperative.”

Mr Gibbs, who is the Area Dean of Tooting, has gathered more than 700 signatories to a letter to the Church Times this week calling for “urgent and decisive action on clergy pensions”. In the past three weeks, more than 1800 people have joined a Clergy Pension Action group on Facebook.

Read it all.

More than 700 clergy demand action on pensions https://t.co/5p3CRTGSmQ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 14, 2025

The new Interim Dean of Winchester, Canon Roland Riem, has promised transparency and “radical candour” in response to a review, published last week, which identified leadership failings at Winchester Cathedral (News, 3 March).

In a statement read out to the cathedral’s congregation on Sunday, Canon Riem said that the Chapter would publish updates on its response to the review at three-monthly intervals.

Canon Riem, who was previously Vice-Dean of the cathedral, was confirmed as Interim Dean after the Very Revd Catherine Ogle brought forward her planned retirement.

In a statement last week, she apologised on behalf of the Chapter, saying that, although it had to accept “collective responsibility”, as its leader, she had decided to step back immediately (News, 7 March), ahead of her planned retirement.

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The new Interim Dean of Winchester, Canon Roland Riem, has promised transparency and “radical candour” in response to a review, published last week, which identified leadership failings at Winchester Cathedralhttps://t.co/GbElq3J8JX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 12, 2025

Diners and drinkers in a popular area of London are leaving more than 100 prayer requests a month after they are invited in by a nearby church for a special evening where they light candles, listen to music and pray.

Congregation members at the Parish of Our Most Holy Redeemer in Clerkenwell, in the Catholic tradition of the Church of England,  head out on a Thursday night every month after Mass with votive candles and lanterns to invite people in the busy Exmouth Market area into the church.

Vicar Fr Christopher Trundle said the Night Light evening, focussed on prayer, contemplation and adoration in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, is attracting up to 150 people, with more than 100 prayer requests left by those visiting.

He said that congregation members go out into the crowds in Exmouth Market to “invite people to encounter the love and beauty of God in Jesus Christ”.

Read it all.

Diners and drinkers in London are leaving more than 100 prayer requests a month after being invited in by a nearby church to light candles, listen to music and pray as part of a new initiative.

Read more at https://t.co/emJhkN5rdi.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) March 6, 2025

The Church of England has announced that the Revd Canon Samantha Brazier-Gibbs will take up the role in June.

She will be tasked with engaging younger people, enhancing community support, and increasing church attendance.

Currently, she is the parish priest for three rural churches in the Chelmsford Diocese and leads a team of ministers responsible for 14 parishes around Chipping Ongar.

Read it all.

ANNOUNCED TODAY
The Revd Canon Samantha Brazier-Gibbs has been appointed Archdeacon of Ipswich & Director of Inspiring Ipswich. Samantha is presently Vicar of Blackmore St Laurence and Stondon Massey Ss Peter & Paul with oversight of Fyfield St. Nicholas, diocese of Chelmsford. pic.twitter.com/spox6S1spE

— Rich Henderson (@archdeaconrich) March 9, 2025

“The Death of the Hired Man” by Robert Frost is an extraordinary poem. In a deceptively simple narrative style, it relates the discussion between a farmer and his wife over whether to offer shelter to the itinerant labourer whose work has been somewhat unsatisfactory in the past.

Silas has arrived at their doorstep, “a miserable sight — and frightening too”. Warren is unwilling to offer him employment again, but Mary’s kind heart won’t allow him to turn away a man who has “nothing to look backward to with pride and nothing to look forward to with hope”. She believes that he has “come home to die”, which feeling gives rise to the well known phrases: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there They have to take you in,” and “I should have called it Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” Warren is persuaded to offer Silas work in order to keep his pride, but this offer is redundant: Silas, worn out by life and aware of reaching sanctuary at last, has died.

In a strange, lyrical way, this poem sums up the joy and the challenge of the “welcoming church”: the grace-filled obligation to accept in Jesus’s name every person who seeks entry to the worshipping community, no matter who they are or what they might believe. Every church leader, I suspect, secretly prides themselves on their welcoming attitude to stranger and seasoned churchgoer alike, and, if we are occasionally troubled by a feeling that perhaps not everyone feels instantly “at home”, then how easy it is to reassure ourselves that the fault lies, if not with the congregation, then certainly with one or two trickier members of it.

Enter the mystery worshipper….

Read it all.

In the parish: Sally Welch begins a series on how to ensure parish churches are as welcoming as they would like to behttps://t.co/iDumAsZFGG

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 7, 2025

War broke out in August and in September 1914 Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy wrote these words in his parish magazine:

“I cannot say too strongly that I believe every able-bodied man ought to volunteer for service anywhere. Here ought to be no shirking of that duty.”

This from the man who would, before long be writing this, “Waste”:

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod,
Waste of glory, Waste of God–War!”

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Delighted to be speaking on Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy at the Wantage Literary Festival on Sunday 21st @wantagelitfest pic.twitter.com/6O9REbmPks

— Linda Parker (@lindamparker56) October 18, 2018

The Synod’s failure to vote for such an approach, but to prefer more time to explore the legal and logistical barriers to outsourcing diocesan safeguarding teams while simultaneously creating a new, independent scrutiny body, was, Mr Myer said, “deeply disappointing”.

The decision, he said, “did not follow the recommendation from Professor Jay and many other specialists and professionals, or the preference of many survivors”.

Two separate surveys have suggested that about three-quarters of the victims and survivors questioned supported Professor Jay’s recommendations; but her advice was not supported by all safeguarding professionals.

Jim Gamble, the head of the INEQE Safeguarding Group, which is auditing all Church of England dioceses and cathedrals, was among those to disagree with Professor Jay. In a report published the day before the Synod’s debate, he wrote: “When it comes to delivering effective safeguarding practice — practice that genuinely works and makes a difference — it is most effectively delivered from within, not imposed from without”….

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In a House of Commons debate on Monday evening, MPs criticised the General Synod’s decision last month not to outsource all safeguarding functions immediately to an independent body https://t.co/phh7IAy7FJ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 6, 2025

A review of Winchester Cathedral identified “significant failings in leadership and management”, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, said on Monday, when a summary of the review was published.

The Dean, the Very Revd Catherine Ogle, has announced that she will immediately hand over leadership of the cathedral, before her previously announced retirement on 1 May. The Vice-Dean, Canon Roly Riem, is to take charge of implementing the review’s recommendations, many of which, Dean Ogle said, were “already under way”.

In a statement, the Dean apologised on behalf of the Chapter to “everyone who has been hurt by the events of the last few months”. The Chapter, she said, had to accept “collective responsibility”, but, as its leader, she was stepping back.

Bishop Mounstephen said that “no one person is entirely to blame.” He also sought to emphasise that Winchester was not a “failing cathedral”, and that the reviewers had found “much to celebrate”.

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It's difficult to understand exactly what happened at Winchester Cathedral, but review refers to failures of management & a “culture of secrecy, due to a misunderstanding of appropriate confidentiality and the aversion of key individuals to conflict”. https://t.co/E7rFLuvkoG

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) March 4, 2025