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”.

Read it all.

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?

Read it all.

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

Rising political tensions in South Sudan threaten to drag the country into a new civil war, but even if rival factions can safeguard a 2018 peace deal, more fighting is set to occur in the northeastern Upper Nile state, which will likely draw in growing involvement from Sudan’s warring parties. On March 18, the party of South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar, SPLM-IO, announced it was halting its participation in key provisions of a 2018 peace deal, including joint security and ceasefire monitoring committees, until authorities released allies of Machar who are currently being detained. The announcement comes amid rapidly surging tensions between Machar and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, who in early March ordered the arrest of pro-Machar figures after the White Army, a militia drawing support from Machar’s Nuer ethnic group, captured the town of Nasir in Upper Nile state on March 4….

Read it all.

🇸🇸 Rising tensions and violence in South Sudan's Upper Nile State risk reigniting civil war, threatening the fragile 2018 peace deal.https://t.co/BfMf97HiCx

💻 Jan Pospisil, @covcampus#Politics

— The Conversation Africa (@TC_Africa) March 21, 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.

Read it all.

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!”

Read it all.

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”….

Read it all.

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”.

Read it all.

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

Churches such as Holy Trinity, Brompton (HTB), are better at connecting with younger generations on social media. I would much rather repost HTB’s beautifully curated content, with thought-provoking questions and soothing low-fi beats, than the C of E’s reels about Anglican history or what has been going on as the Synod sits. Recent content has highlighted the goings-on in the House of Laity, which, I think, most of my friends would assume was a new reality-TV show.

Before even getting into debates over the place of liturgy or the finer details of Anglican theology, this is a generation who still struggle with the concept of “sin” and “salvation”. The rhetoric that they remember from religious-studies lessons at school (for many, the only time when they have encountered Christianity) is that of judgement and wrath. In conversations with my friends, church has become synonymous with guilt. It is not seen as a place of community or inclusion, but of ostracism and hypocrisy. As a generation who have come of age during a pandemic and a crippling cost-of-living crisis, we are all too acquainted with the reality of a fallen world. What Gen Z are looking for is a Church that will offer them leaders with integrity and a better plan for the world.

Looking to the Gospels, both Jesus’s leadership and the hope that he offers the world seem very far from the reality of organised Christianity which my generation see in the media. The Church’s reputation in the media is so important because Gen Z church attendance is staggeringly low. They are not sitting in churches or opening the Bible: they are opening Instagram and having their views formed by the snippets of news which they see on their feeds.

Read it all.

Gen Z are open to faith — but not to the Church of England

When it comes to connecting with younger people, the Church has a communication problem, argues Abigail Kinghttps://t.co/Jj0uukXrGQ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 23, 2025

Ten members of the clergy, including two bishops, could be subject to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, if the President of the Tribunals permits the National Safeguarding Team (NST) to bring complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) out of time.

They include a former Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, and Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

The announcement, made by the NST on Tuesday, concludes a four-stage process considering the actions of clergy named in the Makin review of Smyth’s abuse (News, 5 December 2024). The review culminated in recommendations by a panel; and these were reviewed by an independent barrister.

The Church House statement said that the panel had “considered the safeguarding policies and guidance which were in force at the relevant time, the facts of the particular case, the relevant legal considerations and whether there is sufficient evidence to justify proceedings”. The barrister had concurred with all of the panel’s decisions.

Read it all.

NEW: Ten members of the clergy, incl Lord Carey and Bishop Paul Butler, could be subject to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth. I've had a look at the ten, & context for bringing such complaints under the CDMhttps://t.co/6xdMFl6x9v

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 25, 2025

Eternal God,
whose Son went among the crowds
and brought healing with his touch:
through your Spirit help us to show his love,
in your Church as we gather together,
and by our lives as they are transformed
into the image of Christ our Lord.
Amen (slightly edited; KSH).

The early birds of Lindisfarne#Northumberland #Photography #landscapephotography pic.twitter.com/SqtGgMIep5

— Jim Scott (@jimscottphoto) February 22, 2025

“We want to show people what can be done in a small place,” said Priest-in-Charge, the Rev Kay Jones. “So, we started with the church environment being different.”

Inside the building, a legacy provided for LED lighting and thermal boards, helping the church lower its carbon emissions, as well as providing a warm space for the community. “It’s not freezing anymore,” said Kay. “We can have warm-space activities. People like being here.”

And people are connecting with it. An open day to launch the potting shed brought 17 adults and 27 children together. “It was hard to get rid of them at the end,” Kay joked. “It is changing things for small numbers of people,” she added.

“What I’m seeing is people wanting to be part of what we do,” she said. “People are trying different foods grown in the garden, learning how – and what – to recycle in the church’s recycling bins, and crucially, learning where food comes from, helping to reduce their food bills.”

Read it all.

"We want to show people what can be done in a small place."

A church in one of the country’s most deprived areas is bringing people together and helping them with their wellbeing – thanks to the launch of a series of environmental projects.

Read more at https://t.co/Joa7q8MizC.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) February 21, 2025

Bell then comments:

‘Such a vision of unity is surely what must lie at the heart of any theological vision for the Anglican Communion. The gift of unity, intertwined with truth and holiness, empowered and initiated through and by love, flowing from its Trinitarian source, and finding its visibility not only in our structures and institutions but in our relationships and lives of Christian service, witness mission. Unity as gift and imperative sits above our disagreements requiring us not to contort ourselves into pseudo- agreement, but instead to recognise that metaphysical unity precedes our disagreements and will be revealed in different visible ways as we journey on together.’ (p.191)

What conservative Anglicans would want to say in response to these paragraphs is that Archbishop Rowan is right to say that the unity that all true Christians possess is the ‘pure gift’ of  ‘being summoned and drawn into the same place before the Father’s throne.’ However, they would want to add that this pure gift also includes a summons to ‘bear much fruit’ (John 15:8) or in other words to begin to live a new life enabled by the Holy Spirit which fulfils God’s intentions for his human creatures. In addition they would want to say that according to the witness of Scripture, and the uniform tradition of the Christian Church based on Scripture, living this new life involves living as the men and women God created us to be and observing a strict sexual ethic involving sexual faithfulness within (heterosexual) marriage and sexual abstinence outside it.  

Because they would want to say this, they would also want to say that unity is broken not only when Christians are not ‘able to see in each other the same kind of conviction of being called by authoritative voice into a place where none of us has an automatic right to stand,’ but also when they are not able to see in each other a recognition of God’s call to bear fruit in the ways just described. They would also add that this is what is currently the case in the Anglican Communion and in the Church of England.

In response to Bell’s comments conservative Anglicans  would agree that unity is both a gift and an imperative and would also agree that it is ‘revealed in different visible ways.’ However, they would say that these ways have to include Christians living as the men and women God created them to be and observing the Christian sexual ethic as outlined above.

Read it all.

We may subjectively dislike what God has said, but true Christian humility lies in accepting what God has said and acting upon it anyway' Martin Davie https://t.co/EUCULJ0Bk1 #anglican #marriage #theology #sexualethics #anthropology #scripture #religion #uk pic.twitter.com/WyjgnobT0k

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 10, 2023

The Church of England will be “a little less central to the common life [of the Anglican Communion]” if proposed changes in its leadership and structure are approved, Bishop Graham Tomlin, who chairs the Inter-Anglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO), acknowledged at a webinar on the Lambeth Call on Christian Unity.

Discussions focused on the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals from IASCUFO, which would mean that the 42 Churches of the Communion would no longer be described as “in communion with the See of Canterbury”, but as having “a historic connection” with it (News, 6 December 2024).

Further reinforcing the autonomy and equality of each, the presidency of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), traditionally held by Archbishops of Canterbury, would rotate around the Communion, a move made “in service of a de-centred, polycentric understanding of the mission of the Church. . . The leadership of the Communion should look like the Communion,” the report suggests.

Read it all.

Anglicans envisage ‘polycentric’ future https://t.co/50poLLNkZr

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 14, 2025

The Church of England’s governing body has rejected a fully independent safeguarding model to deal with abuse cases.

Synod members instead adopted an alternative proposal described as a “way forward in the short term” ahead of a move to full independence in the future.

But child safety expert Prof Alexis Jay – who had called for a fully independent model – described the decision as “deeply disappointing” and “devastating for victims and survivors”.

The vote comes after a turbulent period for the Church, which has seen the resignation of former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby over his handling of an abuse case and criticism of Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell’s links to another.

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This is disappointing, short-sighted, and very concerning. Fully independent oversight of safeguarding is essential.

BBC News – Church of England rejects fully independent safeguardinghttps://t.co/2IzYb8sKYN

— Prof Michael Green FCCT (@Michael_S_Green) February 11, 2025

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The Archbishop of York @CottrellStephen , giving his presidential address at the beginning of the General Synod’s meeting in London on Monday afternoon, pleaded to be given time to lead the Church of England out of its #safeguarding crisis#synod https://t.co/AzMDrJhoNP

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 11, 2025

The Archbishop of York, giving his presidential address at the beginning of the General Synod’s meeting in London on Monday afternoon, pleaded to be given time to lead the Church of England out of its safeguarding crisis.

Having headed off an attempt by one member to prevent him from delivering his presidential address, the Archbishop apologised again for failures, and insisted that he could be trusted to steer the Church back into calmer waters before the appointment of the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

“I know that trust has been broken and confidence damaged. And I am more sorry about this than I can say. I know mistakes have been made. I know that I have made mistakes. But I am determined to do what I can with the time given to me to work with others.”

In recent weeks, some Synod members on social-media and other platforms had urged Archbishop Cottrell not to give the presidential address, in view of the calls for his resignation over his handling of the David Tudor safeguarding matter while he was Bishop of Chelmsford (News, 20/27 December 2024).

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The Archbishop of York @CottrellStephen , giving his presidential address at the beginning of the General Synod’s meeting in London on Monday afternoon, pleaded to be given time to lead the Church of England out of its #safeguarding crisis#synod https://t.co/5Fc4pxqkve

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 10, 2025